Daily Bafflements

• We hereby endorse the Electronic Frontier Foundation‘s “Stupid Patent of the Month,” the inaugural edition of which features a patent on the abstract idea of a patient communicating with his or her doctor through the intermediary of a telephone or computer. (Or maybe even through any means at all? It’s a stupid patent and hard to tell what it really says.)

• It’s not our collective imagination; the Washington Post assures us that yes, the middle class is 20 percent poorer than it was thirty years ago.

• Today in Luxe: the Wall Street Journal reports on some the “lavish” golf course clubhouses that “private communities” are using to attract new buyers for million-dollar-homes. Clubhouses feature gun clubs, wine clubs, his-and-hers massage rooms, and high-end art collections. “‘It’s so nice to go here and someone else does all the work,’ said Dr. Ryan, who paid $350,000 for a 1-acre lot where he says he will eventually build a two-bedroom house with a guest cottage.”

• Or, for a different kind of experience altogether, you could rent this dude’s tiny house in Richmond for $24 a night: “It’s 6 feet wide and made of sheet metal” but people seem to like it, writes Tom Nash in Richmond’s Style Weekly.