Welcome to the Latest “Off by One” Column

Welcome to another installment of “Off by One”! This month’s column, “The Schuhmacher,” is short fiction that, on the surface, is about a shop owner’s decision to misuse magic in a medieval fantasy world. Under the surface, the story is about online advertising; user profiling and interest tracking; privacy; and the difficulty of retracting or changing a technology once it has entered the world.