The Rise of the Light Emiting Diode (LED)

They are cool.. literally.. you know them by name as well as by sight now.. they set the tone in swanky night spots and they let you know you are in a modern place, the adorn cars looking for street cred as well as those so helplessly geeky they only appeal to the efficiency obsessed. When you were a kid they blinked on your hi fi and on the bridge interments on the Millennium Falcon, and they seemed to last forever and glow on the other side of your TV room a bit evilly when you were trying to fall asleep. They made remote controls possible, saving that tired ass trip to the Zenith to change from the Yankees game to Maverick, and for some reason it took years to go from these simple uses to being basically everywhere, but now they almost are, at a time we need them most...

Hope for the Holidays: The Unexamined Eco-Revolution caused by the IPad and it's Copycat Tablet Devices

I am writing from a decidedly un-Christmasy culture.. They aren't Christians, 97% of them anyways, and they aren't that consumeristic, although that is changing (spreading like a flower scented cancer from the malls of the capital city)... but they aren't my readers in any large measure I would guess either, and my readers are staring down the barrel of a loaded 'fun gun' called 'Christmas in America' right about now.
I get it, I grew up with it, I wanted my Red Rider BB Gun once, and I felt no shame in the filthy orgy of misinterpreted Christianity and greed it was...it was fun, some of the presents did change my life and the life of my family and friends for the better, and it was one of the only times of the year that anything approaching reverence crept into the cocky wreck we called a family. And I get the Christianity part too.. I took it quite seriously for a while...and I like to think that my now South Park version of Jesus would be kind of shrugging with amused chagrin at it all...