Daily Bafflements

• Billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla is being sued in San Mateo County for blocking access to a public beach near land that he owns. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation objects to the way Khosla locked the gate to a formerly-open beach, as well as “painting over a billboard that had welcomed the public, and hiring security guards.” How neighborly!

• In slightly related news, Amazon has patented the act of taking photographs of objects against a white background. Well, a “studio arrangement,” or method, of doing so. But still. (Via Christopher Mims.)

• Apparently, if you publish a book about Africa, you absolutely must put an orange sky and Acacia tree on its cover. (Via Tristan McConnell and Africa Is a Country.)

• “He was frighteningly angry—excited, argumentative, belligerent . . . . He hated Bill Clinton with a passion I thought was bordering on obsessive.” – documentary filmmaker Jen Senko on how Fox News and Rush Limbaugh’s radio show slowly brainwasher her father. Happy Friday!