He was likely the first person killed, but his influence was felt that entire terrible dayt -- online.

This essay is adapted from No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet, by Molly Knight Raskin, out now from Da Capo Press.

Just before 8 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 took off from Boston's Logan Airport. Bound nonstop for Los Angeles, the flight was just one of more than 40,000 scheduled to crisscross the country that day. The plane was partially full -- 81 passengers, nine crewmembers, and two pilots. Many of its passengers were traveling for work on the daily flight, including 31-year-old Internet entrepreneur Danny Lewin...

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity's divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did -- who jumped -- appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else -- something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom...

That’s the problem with remodeling. In trying to build his own Alpha House, Garry Trudeau says he has hit an immovable wall.

The “Doonesbury” cartoonist has been on sabbatical this summer as he readies his Washington-based TV series, “Alpha House,” one of the inaugural projects for Amazon Studios. That has meant a season of “Doonesbury Flashbacks” – aka reruns – on the comics page, with the comic strip’s return originally slated for Labor Day.

Now, like a Groundhog Day alert, comes new word: “Doonesbury” fans will get 10 more weeks of darkness. Original strips are now scheduled to return on the week of Nov. 18. The weekly color strip returned Sunday...

If the best television shows today are like novels, with sustained narratives stretched out over seasons, then it would stand to reason that Web series are like short stories in glowing rectangles, drama and comedy distilled. The average Web short lasts between two and ten minutes, an easily digestible entertainment snack that doesn’t ask for too much attention in a space where a listicle can derail even the most focussed mind. The smartest Internet filmmakers understand the frenetic, lonely, jumpy browsing experience and just how much a surfer can bear when her eyes are always being pulled away. What a Web series can do, if it deploys itself correctly, is create a pause, a visual coffee break, a moment of communion in an open tab...

For writer Larry McMurtry, auctioning off part of his vast book collection was bittersweet, bu they are off on a new adventure in the hands of new readers. He writes to urge readers to support a film on Kickstarter documenting this remarkable sale.

...At its peak, my book town harbored between 500,000 and 600,000 volumes, not counting my own 28,000-volume personal library. I love my books, all of them. Holding them in my hands, leafing through the pages, is a comfort to me. But this is a lot of books: my son and grandson might not be so inclined as to simply sit and appreciate their presence...

I'm going to tell you a secret. The TEDTalk you're about to watch seems like a pretty ordinary TEDTalk, maybe even a pretty good one, given the standing ov ation at the end.

But here's the truth that almost no one in the world knows: This talk, my talk, went down in TED history as the single biggest disasgter to ever happen at TED...

The raw video was so grisly, and so barbaric, that the New York Times staffers who watched and edited it for online publication were made “physically ill,” according to the newspaper’s spokeswoman.

Shortly after the Times posted it in the wee hours Thursday morning, the video went viral, leading the influential Drudge Report, proliferating on Twitter, Tumblr, and other social-media sites, and dominating cable news and broadcast outlets. It also became a tricky problem for the Obama White House...

The author of Cloud Atlas on why he translated a book by a 13-year-old Japanese boy with autism.

The 13-year-old author of The Reason I Jump invites you, his reader, to imagine a daily life in which your faculty of speech is taken away. Explaining that you’re hungry, or tired, or in pain, is now as beyond your powers as a chat with a friend. I’d like to push the thought-experiment a little further. Now imagine that after you lose your ability to communicate, the editor-in-residence who orders your thoughts walks out without notice. The chances are that you never knew this mind-editor existed, but now that he or she has gone, you realize too late how the editor allowed your mind to function for all these years. A dam-burst of ideas, memories, impulses, and thoughts is cascading over you, unstoppably. Your editor controlled this flow, diverting the vast majority away, and recommending just a tiny number for your conscious consideration. But now you’re on your own...

“Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau will keep the popular comic strip on partial hiatus. Trudeau took the summer off to work on writing and producing the online series “Alpha House” for Amazon Prime. Fresh “Doonesbury” cartoons have returned to the Sunday comics, but for new daily comics, you’ll have to wait until Nov. 18. Classic “Doonesbury” strips will continue to run..