An older relative was visiting me some years ago and became visibly upset because my wifi network wasn't guarded by a password. "What if somebody gets onto it?" he asked.

"That's the idea," I said. "Wireless Internet should be everywhere, so people can use it."

Questioned about the security, I said it was perfectly okay with me if some doubtful guest looked inside the Time-Warner cable modem or the wifi base station. None of it was connected to any of my computers, right? (I am not sure if this was actually "safe" or not.) Plus, this was before Netflix Instant Video and the Hulu and all this bandwidth-intensive streaming and [...]

Tom Scocca: Even if you set aside the money. Which is hard to do! But set aside the money. Why is a newspaper offering to grease the way to backroom meetings between people who want policy and people who make policy?

Choire Sicha: Is the answer "the confusion of influence and influence-peddling"?

Tom Scocca: Here are three editorials from Thursday's paper, from the page that has Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth's name on it.

Choire Sicha: Do not miss how amusing it is to have Malcolm Gladwell review Chris Anderson in the New Yorker. Tom Scocca: Wha- Tom Scocca: Zhu- Tom Scocca: Huff? Choire Sicha: So, yes, for starters? Gladwell finally makes the point that "approaching zero" is nowhere the same as zero. Tom Scocca: That's how Richard Pryor's embezzlement scheme worked in Superman III.

A helpful recession tip from the Twitter of Wired editor (and author of Free) Chris Anderson! Oh, let's click through! First sentence: "DANIEL SUELO LIVES IN A CAVE."

I was going to spend the weekend reading Wired editor Chris Anderson's hot new airport tome Free, so as to go deeper into his explications of the future of business. I might learn something! (Sincerely.) But I did not! Instead I spent the weekend exchanging sums of money for products and services. But Janet Maslin at the Times has read it for me (us) and has come away unhappy.

Wired editor Chris Anderson is giving away 200 free copies of his book, Free! (Pause for light laughter.) There are two ways to get a free copy of the book, he blogs. One is: "Impress us with your cool friends (you get FOUR books!)" Can't pull that off? "Impress us with your social media skillz (you get one book)." Wow. It gets… I guess the word is "grosser"?

Airport book writers have always loved their anecdotes. But sometimes the anecdotes do not enjoy being such! Particularly when the events of their anecdotage are totally misconstrued. The anecdote in this case is the career of UC Berkeley professor Richard A. Muller. In Wired editor Chris Anderson's Free, Anderson says that, because Muller put his physic lectures on YouTube and got lots of attention, he got a book deal and sold more books. In the actual world, however, Muller sold his ninth book to an editor he'd worked with before. And when the book came out, he emailed everyone who'd written in about his YouTube videos, and found "no discernible [...]

"Personal income-tax collections, which account for about 36% of state revenues, dropped 26% in this year's January-April period." Hence in part why some of the ten states that must finish their budgets tonight may not. Ha, well, I didn't pay mine!