Is it schadenfreude when something bad that's happened to you happens to someone else, and you're not glad exactly but comforted? In his Circuits email column this week, David Pogue tells the sad tale of a Dell gone bad and DriveSavers' amazing methods for data recovery. Whether DriveSavers can rescue either Pogue's or my files remains to be seen, but we're hopeful. It's the only way to be at times like this, really.

I'll be gone for a week or so and posting sporadically; in the meantime, how excited am I for the New Yorker Festival? Unlike files, words rarely fail me, but—oh boy.