Five of us sat in the corner of a hotel lobby and, accustomed to dealing with Web 2.0 start-up teams composed of post-adolescents, I was astonished to find that, inmy mid-fifties, I was the youngest person there.
During the fifties, when my brother and I started chasing butterflies, potassium cyanide was still in use as well, but because it is a deadly poison, Professor Klots recommended liquid carbon tetrachloride, which is "not very poisonous unless inhaled deeply, " and which we persuaded our parents was as innocuous as smelling salts.