A plastic bag might be the most overengineered object in history. Some years back, I stopped by a French deli to buy some big chunks of cheese and carried them home in a plastic bag. The cheese was so heavy that the bag stretched and bulged, and the handle dug …

I was entering the miseries of seventh grade in the fall of 1980 when a friend dragged me into a dimly lit second-floor room. The school had recently installed a newfangled Commodore PET computer, a squat and angular box that glowed in the corner. “You gotta try this,” he told …