You know how some people always have to be right? They'll keep one upping you and pulling out all the stops until the smallest argument is settled. This is the same kind of person who, when you say you liked a movie, will be all, "Hmm. Well, the play was better." According the Times, this type of person has a brand-new weapon in his or her—let's be real: his—arsenal. It is called the personal handheld device! Did you also know that these things they carry are capable of finding information on the internets?

"It's stunning to be able to access something so obscure so effortlessly," said John Hoffman, vice president of documentary programming at HBO. He was recently at WD-50, a Lower East Side restaurant, arguing with two friends about whether the Immaculate Conception referred to the birth of the Virgin Mary or to Jesus. Before you could say "Parsnip tart with quinoa, hazelnuts and bok choy," Mr. Hoffman used his BlackBerry to connect to Wikipedia and recited that it was Mary who "was preserved by God from the stain of original sin at the time of her own conception." "This research use of the BlackBerry verges on magical and it's not alienating," he said in an e-mail message. "So much more was learned by all. And no one felt bludgeoned into admitting they were wrong."

Next week! Thursgay Styles will tell us about how those newfangled GPS systems are making paper maps obsolete.


Supercharged With All The Answers [NYT]

[Image via Getty]