Daily Bafflements

• Linkin Park, of “In the End” and “Numb” fame, is taking the path less traveled from band to venture capital fund. Though established enough to have sold 60 million records, Linkin Park have declared they would rather be a tech startup (high on “agility,” low on “hierarchy”) named Machine Shop Ventures. Quoth the “creative business executive” they have teamed up with: “When I looked at the global reach of Linkin Park, and the potential business opportunities outside the narrow category of music, I could see plenty of ‘blue ocean.’” Well, when you put it like that.

• This week in raising hell: The facial recognition company Face-Six, which makes the technology that scans for compulsive gamblers entering casinos and terrorists at airports, is selling its wares to churches that want to track the devotion of their congregants, and know and who isn’t attending service. They call the software Churchix. Punchy.

• And today in Paradise on Earth: Congratulations Panama for being named the happiest place in the world two years running by pollsters who refused to pronounce the word isthmus. Clinging on to both North and South America was worth it!

• The world “largely likes” the US, thanks to Obama (the U.S. now has 69% approval in 40 countries). The U.S. largely hates itself, as the Washington Post observes: “Millennials are just as racist as their parents.” Close your eyes and think of Panama.