NYT deals a necessary truth:

Really? Really: " The National Audio Co., America's largest manufacturer of audiocassettes, reported that 2014 was its best year yet."

He notes:" It's true that the cassette tape is portable, affordable, disposable. But so are floppy disks and folding street maps. As a format for recorded sound, the cassette tape is a terrible piece of technology. It's a roll of tape in a box. It's essentially an office supply." Yes. Here's a common tool for getting the tape to move:

You are hereby relieved from cassette nostalgia, and permitted to snicker at those who insist it's somehow more real than other formats. You know, not even the pages of old cassette styles give me any nostalgic twinge. A few of them bring back the old days, but whirring back and forth to find the right track? No thanks.

FAME The world is not turning out as I expected. Headline: "Woman who mashes bread with her face is Instagram's mysterious new star." She knows the value of Garbo-like enigmatic persona:

"Bread Face has given two interviews since her account was unearthed and attracted nearly 29,000 followers. She refused to speak to the Daily Dot." More here.

SPACE Finally, it can be told: the story of MOL.

It looked like this. The two-man capsule on the end gives you an idea of the scale,

WEB The impossible password: let's watch people be confused by preposterous security demands, all so they can sign up for something described as "Tinder for movies." It's a prank!

The video, from Mediocre Films - can't say they don't warn you - promotes Intel's new TrueKey password system. They're "on a mission to eliminate passwords completely," using . . . well, take a look. It's a great idea. But because Intel seems to think this is 1996, it's not available for the Safari browser. "Yet" or "ever," I can't say.