Pseudonymity is under seige. Which is good, in many ways. The proposed New York law not-so-much.

Are we going to smartphone optricians out of the job? I suspect they will be helpful tools for deciding when we need to go to the eye doc, but I also think that we still won’t get by without our annual visits.

Like horses? Thank merchants. Okay, that’s not quite right, but as with so many other things, people had a great deal to do with them becoming what they are.

An organization offered inmates in solitary confinement a chance to request images from the outside world. Here are the results. #10 is just awesome.

Amanda Ripley makes the case against high school sports. This is one of the many beauties of school choice, of course. Charter schools very often lack such distractions.

Some community colleges are apparently unclear on the concept of community college. Hint: It doesn’t include posh dorms.

According to Alex Knapp, we’re good here on Earth for a while. The article goes beyond that, though, talking about life-supporting potential elsewhere which has been a subject on which I am (a) fascinated and (b) hopelessly ignorant.

My third novel, written in 2002, is alas already dated. In part because it is steeped in music from a previous era. I may track down an excerpt for future posting. Anyway, I was thinking of that when I read this article by Steven Hyden arguing that Counting Crows’ August and Everything After is actually as relevant or more as is Nirvana’s In Utero. As someone who was into Counting Crows but not Nirvana, I approve.

Nobody worries about missing when it comes to public toilets, of course. We can always just flush with our feet.

Matthew O’Brien looks at which states have recovered from the Great Recession and which ones won’t until 2018. Also, cities.

The notion of learning styles is getting some pushback.

The Earth isn’t flat. Maybe the universe isn’t flat, either.

The story of “Taiwan’s Holocaust.”