It is getting harder and harder to find relatable characters in fiction these days. The average fictional character is either so thoroughly disinterested in email, social media, and text messages he never thinks or it, or else hastily mentions electronic communications in the past tense. Sure, characters in fiction may own smart phones, but few have the urge to compulsively play with the device while waiting to meet a friend or catch a flight. This ever present anachronism has made it so that almost all literary fiction is science fiction, a thought experiment as to what life might be like if we weren’t so absorbed in our iPhones but instead watched and listened to the world around us at a moment’s rest.

As of 3 p.m. yesterday, there’s yet another player in the increasingly over-crowded game of online aggregation, curation and reporting — The Faster Times. The site has 100+ contributors across the globe, mostly professional journalists, covering everything from Iraq to jet packs to yoga to office supplies to scandinavia, each with his or her own beat-blog-section-what-have-you. ‘A New Type of Newspaper for a New Type of World’ indeed!