Craig distilled

Sunday's L.A. Times Magazine has a cover piece on Craig Newmark, the former IBM programmer and computer security geek who started and still runs Craigslist.

Craig Newmark was the kid other kids picked on. Schoolmates didn't invite him to parties. He got low marks in "plays well with others." His sixth-grade teacher sent him to the school counselor, who fretted about Newmark's lack of social skills, then gave up and taught him chess, one of the least social games on the planet. In high school, Newmark wore a pocket protector and black-rimmed glasses, taped together. "When you grow up a nerd, you feel like an outsider," Newmark recalls. "It pretty much always sticks with you."

Newmark, now 51, is still an introvert, still attends social events and wonders what he's doing there, still makes wry jokes that can get lost in translation. "Feel free to look in the medicine cabinet," he tells a new visitor to his home.

There's also a short piece on the film Inhaling the Spore: A Journey Through the Museum of Jurassic Technology, about the Culver City landmark.