In December 2013 an assault on Sandy Hook Elementary ended with the sad deaths of twenty children and six teachers, after the killer took the life of his own mother and before taking his own. Andrew Solomon gives us a look at the killer's father (I refuse to print his name - infamy should not be gifted on a killer) and the fall out in his life a little over a year after the shootings.

Technology is slowly infiltrating every area of our human existence. I read Alistair Croll's Race Alongside the Machine today on re/code and it led me to a reflection on how we humans are being changed by the technology we develop and where this might lead in the future.

When I came up with the original idea for a future-focused site, I immediately created a short list I called "aspects of human existence." I've changed them to "elements of how we live" and use them as story tags, a taxonomy vocabulary in Drupal terms, in order to help users find content. After reading Croll's piece, I decided today's exercise would be to look at the (now much longer) list and see what I can come up with for where current trends and predictions will take us as we continue to combine humans, technology and big data.

The premise of the Olympics is to measure and reward the greatest human ability at various skills or sports. Modern pharmacology offers many substances identified as potentially beneficial to an athlete - meaning they give an unfair advantage to a competitor - the World Anti-Doping Agency provides a nine page handout identifying substances for which an athlete can be disqualified. With so much pressure on the athletes and so much money for sponsorships on the line, there are substantial reasons to cheat for those who are less sporting.

That doesn't mean there aren't other ways to help athletes reach or maintain their potential. In addition to regular training and hiring the best coaches, athletes also use the services of dieticians, massage therapists, sleep counselors, hydration specialists and gait analysis professionals in order to smooth every bump in their lifestyle, conditioning and performance. Some athletes even choose to sleep in a chamber that mimics high-altitude air quality to increase performance. And as modern research enables more experiments finding ways to benefit athletes that aren't cheating, by eliminating hurdles that keep athletes from reaching their peak performance, we'll hear of more bizarre - and questionable - methods athletes will use to enhance their skills.