If you close your eyes and think about what a child imagines when they hear the word inventor—the house full of strange objects with mysterious purposes, the stacks of notebooks filled with drawing and diagrams, the patent certificates—you might get something close to Brent Farley. But we’re not children and Farley is very real and it’s all a little less magical than it was in

I spent a few afternoons at the Toronto Reference Library recently, scouring the January 1977 issues of the New York Times on microfilm and emerged with that satisfying sense of accomplishment that seems so elusive when working online. While I was busy squinting away at the screen, somewhere out in the modern world the publisher was announcing that, sooner rather than later, the Times will