Ubiquity

• More than 1 billion GPS receivers are used by consumers and businesses to get around. • ATMs and Wall Street traders use super-accurate atomic clocks on the GPS satellites to time-stamp transactions. • GPS signals can direct "smart bombs" to within a few yards of the target. • Two dozen satellites orbiting in formation constitute GPS. • Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo developed GPS and is overseeing the upgrade.

The Holy or the Broken Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" Alan Light Atria: 272 pp., $25 There's a great scene in Penelope Spheeris' 1992 film "Wayne's World" - find it on YouTube under the title "May i help you riff" - in which an impatient guitar-store employee prevents Wayne from plucking out the opening arpeggios of "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. Pointing with great urgency, the guy directs Wayne's attention to a sign hung on the store's wall: "NO STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN," it reads.

The defense (!) of gasoline-powered leaf blowers by Richard Seeley exemplifies the callous attitude of all who use these machines in residential areas. The issue they ignore is noise , and as a noise-polluter of neighborhoods the leaf blower is unparalleled. The ear-splitting decibel count it produces is at least as bad as a buzz saw, and far worse for its ubiquity and daily usage. This one device has made my formerly peaceful neighborhood little better than an industrial zone.

Say what you will about the latest Internet video sensation - in which someone lampoons one group of humans or another based on certain conversational proclivities - but if nothing else, we can credit it with bringing mainstream awareness to the word "meme. " That's the term coined by Richard Dawkins for the way evolutionary principles can be used to explain how cultural ideas take hold. It's now basically turned into a fancy way of talking about things that are popular on the Internet.

I mourn the passing of the Life magazine I knew in the middle decades of the last century. I contest, however, that its death was, as Tim Rutten supposed, inevitable ["Life as We Knew It," March 28]. Notwithstanding the ubiquity of digital cameras and photo-capable cellphones, I cannot imagine that "popular tastes in media" have changed so much that a well-edited collection of dramatic and insightful photographs is no longer worth publishing. I blame the editors of Life for killing it, and offer as evidence their "Picture of the Week."

Re "Right and Wrong Shouldn't Be Guesswork," Commentary, Oct. 9: John Balzar is timely and on target in calling for a blue-ribbon commission to reform and update our laws and regulations governing basic honesty in business. I am referring here to laws that mandate full disclosure, transparency, accountability and simple truthfulness. Lying in business has become obsolete and can be safely outlawed. Capitalism thrives on transparency and factual truth, which underlie trust, which is the basis of trade.

Say what you will about the latest Internet video sensation - in which someone lampoons one group of humans or another based on certain conversational proclivities - but if nothing else, we can credit it with bringing mainstream awareness to the word "meme. " That's the term coined by Richard Dawkins for the way evolutionary principles can be used to explain how cultural ideas take hold. It's now basically turned into a fancy way of talking about things that are popular on the Internet.

In the late 1980s, economic researchers discovered what came to be called the "productivity paradox." Despite an immense investment in information technologies--over a trillion dollars since the beginning of the PC revolution in about 1980--productivity growth in the U.S. has been either stagnant or weak. And growing productivity is what contributes, more than anything else, to expanding opportunity and a better material life.

'Rose' perfume can smell green, spicy, powdery, sparkly, fruity or more. The ubiquity of roses in early to mid-February can be overwhelming (their prices, shocking), but their association with love and romance - and perfume - is hardly a modern convention. Roses are referenced in Greek and Roman mythology, and humans have distilled fragrant oils from rose petals for millennia. Rosewater colognes were popular with both sexes in the 19th century. But it's only recently that scientists discovered that essential rose oil contains more than 400 individual components.

When it comes to notable secular Easter movies, there's Fred Astaire at the parade with Judy Garland and little else. But with the seasonal ubiquity of candy, eggs and bunnies, it's hardly a shock that an animation company would wring some type of festive, sentimental kids' flick out of so commercially tinged and cute animal-friendly a holiday. The animation/live-action "Hop" — from the producing-writing team behind last year's "Despicable Me," and director Tim Hill, of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" fame — is that very entry, and it's almost unashamedly middle of the road about its intentions.

• More than 1 billion GPS receivers are used by consumers and businesses to get around. • ATMs and Wall Street traders use super-accurate atomic clocks on the GPS satellites to time-stamp transactions. • GPS signals can direct "smart bombs" to within a few yards of the target. • Two dozen satellites orbiting in formation constitute GPS. • Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo developed GPS and is overseeing the upgrade.

I mourn the passing of the Life magazine I knew in the middle decades of the last century. I contest, however, that its death was, as Tim Rutten supposed, inevitable ["Life as We Knew It," March 28]. Notwithstanding the ubiquity of digital cameras and photo-capable cellphones, I cannot imagine that "popular tastes in media" have changed so much that a well-edited collection of dramatic and insightful photographs is no longer worth publishing. I blame the editors of Life for killing it, and offer as evidence their "Picture of the Week."

Re "Right and Wrong Shouldn't Be Guesswork," Commentary, Oct. 9: John Balzar is timely and on target in calling for a blue-ribbon commission to reform and update our laws and regulations governing basic honesty in business. I am referring here to laws that mandate full disclosure, transparency, accountability and simple truthfulness. Lying in business has become obsolete and can be safely outlawed. Capitalism thrives on transparency and factual truth, which underlie trust, which is the basis of trade.

Early last month, institutions around the world were crippled for several days by a new computer virus called the ExploreZip Trojan horse. A Trojan horse, in computer jargon, is a nasty software program that hides inside a file a user is likely to want to see or open. The ExploreZip virus--more accurately, a computer "worm," which spreads more automatically than a virus--affected machines running Microsoft's Windows operating system and Windows application software.

It is odorless, colorless and quietly lethal. It is carbon monoxide, the deadly byproduct of incomplete combustion and poor ventilation, and it is the leading cause of poisoning death in the United States. When the so-called killer gas took the life of former tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis, 40, in New York last week, public awareness of the threat got a tragic but timely boost. "It's a ubiquitous toxin, recognized since man first brought fire into the home for cooking," says Dr.

The defense (!) of gasoline-powered leaf blowers by Richard Seeley exemplifies the callous attitude of all who use these machines in residential areas. The issue they ignore is noise , and as a noise-polluter of neighborhoods the leaf blower is unparalleled. The ear-splitting decibel count it produces is at least as bad as a buzz saw, and far worse for its ubiquity and daily usage. This one device has made my formerly peaceful neighborhood little better than an industrial zone.

Having lunch with jewelry designer Loree Rodkin is like devouring a juicy Hollywood novel. First to be discussed are her famous affairs -- with Don Henley, Bernie Taupin and Richard Gere. Then her lifelong friendships with Cher and Elton John, and her extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime experiences, such as being introduced to Paris by Salvador Dali and propositioned by Jimi Hendrix (she turned him down). It's no wonder that she's had two offers to option her life story. Not that Rodkin is a party girl.

LONDON--Since her coronation in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II has been painted, photographed and deconstructed more than anyone on Earth. A billion people carry her likeness around in their pockets every day -- not as a totem or religious icon but rather more practically as something to trade for milk or diapers.  Her station and her refusal to express an opinion on anything in public mean we all know what she looks like, some of us may have even...