The ultimate smart-home vision is a home that basically runs itself, from coffee makers to washing machines. But we're not there yet: The real world is a hard place for little computers to operate in.

Music critic Milo Miles remembers Robert Quine, a respected guitarist in the New York punk and underground jazz scenes. He was found dead on June 5 of an apparent heroin overdose.

Rock historian Ed Ward profiles the Lovin' Spoonful, who came out of the Greenwich Village folk music scene, but who owed more to Chuck Berry than to Appalachian ballad-singers.

Language Commentator Geoffrey Nunberg shares his thoughts on the peculiar grammatical logic of telephone answering machine recordings.