Hmmm....I am constantly bumping into odd things on-line

James Fallows raises the question, parenthetically:

While flipping through newspapers that had piled up through the last two weeks, I spot a small item just before turning the page*:

* This is something that never happens when you're reading newspapers strictly online. Yes, there are many other means of unexpected discovery on the internet, but they're different from the same process with actual newspapers. Subject for another day: why online access is indispensable but in some ways worse than what it is replacing.

I am not about to say that the serendipitous encounter isn't just a hair more likely with paper. Certainly our eyes, tooled-up with fingers, can scan books and magazines at an incredible rate. But how often do I ever bump up against in paper so many of the obscure trade/academic/specialist journals and blogs which I find on-line? * I am not sure if overall it's not a toss-up.  Nevertheless I am curious to hear Fallows' take.

* For example just a few weeks ago — and yes it was via a blog I admire — I ran across this obscure but extremely interesting post on What the "Unitary Executive" Debate Is and Is Not About. As a non-academic I would never ever have stumbled on that except for the magic of the web and blogs