Vancouverite Tim Bray: "In math, I had worked like a dog to get Cs, and all of a sudden I was getting As in the computer courses. God was reaching behind my shoulder, telling me, ‘Kiddo, this is what you ought to be doing.’" He went on to innovate search engines, partner with Yahoo!, and invent XML.

When the Spanish court accepted Napoleon's brother, Joseph, as king of Spain in 1808, the common people coined the term afrancesados out of contempt for the collaborators. It means "Frenchified dandy" today in Latin countries. When I inspected Mexican chef Martín San Román's bio, in which he labels his cuisine as French/Mexican fusion, I wondered.