Coffee table books have tackled tough subjects ranging from decoder rings to phobias to suicidal pets. Why not test patterns? Yes, test patterns. If you remember them, you may only be aware of "your" patterns -- the ones your local stations showed when they ran out of things to put on the air. But test patterns were used everywhere televisions were used, for reasons you may never have thought about. And there were as many of them as there were pixels in a TV tube. From that huge variety the world over, Lester & Charlie have assembled their favorite 50. Gawk at their astounding beauty And get...

Lotteries. They have been called both a tax on stupidity and a math tax. The odds of losing are so high as to be practically guaranteed. Yet 57% of the US population buys a lottery ticket at least once a year.

You may already be familiar with some of the winners. Winners make headlines.

Winners buy new homes, new cars. What do they losers do?

Some get upset. Some just shrug; there's always next time. Others are just happy to have briefly entertained the fantasy of being disgustingly rich. But it's unlikely that any of us considers how lucky we might have been to have...