When it comes to technology and gadgets, one usually associates Japan with the cutting edge. So it’s all the more surprising that Japan is one of the few countries where the compact disk is still king.

+ The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman: “Most people think of U2 as a wildly popular rock band. Actually, they’re a wildly popular, semi-secretly Christian rock band.” (That explains why they didn’t respond when my mom tried to get them to play at my Bar Mitzvah.)