O'Reilly Network: The Street Finds its Own Use for the Law of Unintended Consequences [Apr. 16, 2002] Jewish grandmothers are among the great innovators of the late 20th century. Raised in Stone Age Eastern European shtetls, brought to America in leaky, cholera-ridden refugee boats, the great army of Snowbird Seniors retired to Florida and bought VCRs, collaborating to sniff out manufacturers' rebates advertised in the Sunday papers.

Unlike their grandchildren, these elderly women actually mastered their VCRs' cryptic interface. They hooked them up in series and set up tape-duplicating farms of sufficient power and elegance to terrify the likes of Jack Valenti, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) president, who testified in 1982 that the VCR was to the film industry as "the Boston Strangler is to a woman alone."