Poet Charles Simic's tribute to libraries

The Stockholm Syndrome Theory of Long Novels

A long but captivating article by Mark OConnnell about the "no pain no gain" reading experience.

Buzz Aldrin, Poynter Sisters, Little Richard, and Tip O'Neill visit Stevie

Narrowing your horizons

The internet's potential for personalizing your information and network of contacts, or, to put it another way, narrowing your horizons, is vast. Surfers will do this well enough on their own by simply following their preferences, but when technology aids and abets by filtering information on the basis of your browsing history...that way lies trouble, according to Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble

CIA's "Facebook" program dramatically cuts agency costs

Libraries have nothing at all to do with silence

Nice piece by Bella Bathurst in the Guaradian on the "Secret life of libraries"

excerpts:
"In London during the Second World War, some authorities established small collections of books in air-raid shelters. The unused Tube station at Bethnal Green had a library of 4,000 volumes and a nightly clientele of 6,000 people."

"The libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide – between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence."