#nytimes (9 links)
- The Data-Driven Life - NYTimes.com nytimes.com
In the cozy confines of personal life, we rarely used the power of numbers. The techniques of analysis that had proved so effective were left behind at the office at the end of the day and picked up again the next morning. The imposition, on oneself or one’s family, of a regime of objective record keeping seemed ridiculous. A journal was respectable. A spreadsheet was creepy. And yet, almost imperceptibly, numbers are infiltrating the last redoubts of the personal. Sleep, exercise, sex, food, mood, location, alertness, productivity, even spiritual well-being are being tracked and measured, shared and displayed.
Imogen Heap talks about Barbara Morgen, Cursor Miner and others.
Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.
- Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler - New York Times nytimes.com
"Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficienc
To keep the enormous swarm of data produced when a picture is “born digital” — that is, produced using all-electronic processes, rather than relying wholly or partially on film — pushes the cost of preservation to $208,569 a year
"Science groups for young professionals who don’t wear white coats, like the year-old Secret Science Club at Union Hall, are cropping up in bars and bookstores all over the country." Great idea!
- The Magical Minimalism of Microformats - Open - Code - New York Times Blog open.blogs.nytimes.com
"Many Chinese labels, nimble and unencumbered by tradition, have adapted to the contaminated marketplace in ways that Western companies are struggling with. Viewing CDs as a loss leader they routinely sign groups to all-encompassing contracts that allow t