Whether you read Gizmodo to gain insight into the latest “must have” gadgets, or you find yourself pining away at Best Buy for the latest tech toy, or you’re one of those “early adopters” who just has to have the latest innovation (think stereo VCRs way back in the early 80s, when they cost $2000, or CD players in the mid-80s, or the first Pentium-powered computer in 1995, or the mini USB flash drives only a year ago), Mobile Magazine’s The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time will be a must-read for you.
Here are the ground rules that were established before they got started …

• It had to have electronic and / or moving parts of some kind. Scissors count, but the knife does not.
• It had to be a self-contained apparatus that could be used on its own, not a subset of another device. The flashlight counts; the light bulb does not. The notebook counts, but the hard drive doesn’t.
• It had to be smaller than the proverbial bread box. This is the most flexible of the categories, since gadgets have gotten inexorably smaller over time. But in general we included only items that were potentially mobile: The Dustbuster counts; the vacuum cleaner doesn’t.

So, what are / were your favourite gadgets of all time? The now ubiquitous cell phone? Or, how about going back a few years to the advent of pop music when the Sony TR-63 transistor radio came on the scene, a gadget that was instrumental in spreading the gospel of rock ’n roll to all teens?

In Europe, nothing happens in August.
While many Canadians slog away at their jobs, making do with a mean three weeks of annual vacation (if that), across Europe commuter trains are half empty and virtually no decisions of import are made throughout the summer months, as Europe’s annual foray into the philosophical and physical realm of relaxation, recreation and rejuvenation takes hold.
Not so in Canada, though. Here a neo-Calvanist ethic has us firm in its grip, as the city’s familiar rhythm of work is scarcely interrupted by the fact that it is summer. Only a select few take themselves off to the cabin for the summer. Why is this? For one thing, Canadians have shorter vacations than Europeans. While German, Italian and French workers enjoy more than 40 days of vacation a year, most Canadians make do with just 2 -3 weeks.
Perhaps the most striking of all the differences between Canadians and Europeans relates to hours worked. In 1999, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the average Canadian employee worked just under 2,000 hours a year (1,976). The average German worked just 1,535 — fully 22% less. According to a recent Canadian labour force study, the average French citizen works 32% less.
Twenty-five years ago, this gap between Canadian and European working hours didn’t exist. Between 1979 and 1999, the average Canadian working year lengthened by 50 hours, or nearly 4%. But the average German working year shrank 12%. The same was true elsewhere in Europe.
Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard, explains the divergence as a function of German sociologist Max Weber’s famous essay on The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, written a century ago.

Weber believed he had identified a link between the rise of Protestantism (and especially Calvinism) and the development of “the spirit of capitalism.” I would like to propose a modern version of Weber’s theory, namely The Atheist Sloth Ethic and the Spirit of Collectivism. You see, the most remarkable thing about the transatlantic divergence in working patterns is that it has coincided almost exactly with a comparable divergence in religiosity, in terms of observance and belief.

According to the Gallup Millennium Survey of religious attitudes (conducted in 1999), 48% of people in Western Europe nowadays almost never go to church; the figure for Eastern Europe is just a little lower at 44%. In the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, less than one in 10 of the population now attends church at least once a month. Only in Catholic Italy and Ireland does more than a third of the population worship once a month or more often. By contrast, more than twice as many North Americans as Europeans attend religious services once a week or more.

Ferguson does not offer relative incidence of religiosity as the sole explanation for the fact that Europe today is lethargic while we in North America toil away as usual. But, he avers, “surely there is something more than coincidence about the simultaneous rise of unbelief, and the decline of Weber’s work ethic, across Europe.”
If Professor Ferguson wasn’t enjoying his annual vacation travelling across Europe, he’d probably set about to write a book on the subject.

Abercrombie & Fitch catalog photo marketed to 10 – 13 year olds

Throughout history, people have thrown up their hands at cultural change and declared the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Well, to many it looks as if it’s headed there again — faster than ever — as bare skin is spotted just about everywhere you look, particularly among young people.
What was once relegated to adult videos, strip clubs and Playboy magazine now shows up regularly on network sitcoms, reality shows, music videos and advertisements. Much to the alarm of many parents and child advocates, fashion merchants are marketing the provocative styles of pop-music princesses to teens and prepubescent girls who yearn to look “hot”.
Bucking the bare skin trend, though, is like trying to stop a freight train.
So where does the healthy expression of sexuality and a mature attitude about the human body end and plain old-fashioned smut begin? Young people in every generation have expressed themselves in ways that challenged authority and the rules of the game, from “Elvis the Pelvis” in the ’50s, to long hair, the ‘braless look’ and miniskirts in the ’60s; from the sexual revolution and punk rock in the ’70s through to the low-rise, hip-hugging jeans and exposed flesh of today.
Meanwhile, the controversies continue.
Late last year clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch pulled its controversial in-store catalogues after outraged parents threatened a boycott over material they said was pornographic, according to Slate magazine. The “Christmas Field Guide” featured naked or nearly naked young models in outdoor settings, and offered advice on sex. Even earlier, in 1995 and 1999, advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein Jeans employed images of pubescent models in provocative poses, causing major controversy and debate when they crossed the line between fashion and pornography.
Well, the answer to the decay of Western society seems to be at hand.

People who wear low-slung pants that expose skin or “intimate clothing” would face a fine of up to $500 and possible jail time under a bill filed by a Louisiana lawmaker.

According to a Times-Picayune article reporting on State Representative Derrick Shepherd’s concerns (“I’m sick of catching glimpses of boxer shorts and G-strings over the lowered belt lines of young adults”), the proposed legislation would be appended to the state’s obscenity law, which restricts sexual activity in public places and the sale of sexually explicit items. Joe Cook, head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Louisiana chapter, said the bill probably does not meet the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard for the prohibition of obscene behavior under the First Amendment.