For many years, the gentlefolk of these lands basked in a wireless network overflowing with speed and ample internet, flowing like a river into their Compaq Presario. Many happy days did the people spend checking Hotmail and reading USAToday.com. But then one gray morning did Internet Explorer 6 no longer load The Google.
Mike Lacher from In Which I Fix My Girlfriend’s Grandparents’ WiFi and Am Hailed as a Conquering Hero
[T]here is so much sameness, talent with such a thin separation point, where the divide between No. 80 and No. 70 and No. 50 is infinitesimal, a shot here in the first set, a break point there in the third set. But it’s uncommonly hard to grasp these moments, these chances, again and again, today, tomorrow, next week, so you have to build yourself into some relentless machine, a sort of warrior whose warpaint is only sweat.
Rohit Brijnath on Indian tennis player Somdev Devvarman, ranked 84th in the world, from The Running Man
The internet has become so good at meeting our desires that we spend less time discovering new ones. To update the Rolling Stones, you can always get what you want. But you may not get what you need.
Ian Leslie on the risk that the Internet’s efficiency may be shrinking our horizons, from In Search of Serendipity
Wondering what you’re supposed to do in an orphanage is like wondering what you’re supposed to do at the running of the bulls in Spain—you work it out pretty quickly.
Conor Grennan on day one of becoming an unlikely savior to children abandoned by traffickers in war-torn Nepal, from Little Princes (5 of 5 stars across more than 100 reviews on Amazon.com as of January 2012); browse or buy it at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble
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