Giants at play

My latest thought about Wikipedia and the cognitive surplus is that the most useful object ever constructed by human beings was just a flick of the wrist -- a seven-year whim -- of the world's unimaginably powerful labor force of understimulated, implausibly motivated men.

It was a very lucky whim, and I'm grateful. But we'll never slip a yoke over this beast.

Dirty hands

Working late tonight on the bazillionth self-inflicted writing project of my life, I'm grateful to believe in the mechanics of my job.

Some of my friends complain about working long hours for companies whose objectives they share but whose strategies they don't believe in.

I keep signing up to do this stuff because I'm certain that words work.

Where I'll end up

If I do well in this life, hopefully I'll come back as the "n" sound in the line all he asks from me is the food to give him strength from Cat Stevens's breakout 1966 single "I Love My Dog."

As long as the waters flow

Do we know anything about Maria Strehinsky, the only woman who seems to be doing much of anything on the Atlantic's masthead? Because this trick of constantly hiring female writers to tell hard, politically incorrect truths about gender roles has been feeling a little -- how to say? -- Cowboys and Indians.