Last week, Stephen Wolfram released a long and interesting analysis of aggregated and anonymized Facebook user data from his Data Donor program. He offers some observations about how Facebook behaviors illustrate the trajectories of people’s lives — how many people they friend, where they settle, and how clusters of friends reflect communities (school, friend, neighborhood). …
3 tips for timelines
I can still remember the pain of drawing history report timelines during an analog childhood. The inevitable result was a shaky line of unequal width, with at least one or two skips on the ruler, and uneven pointed arrows each end. A career in draughtsmanship did not beckon. Timelines seem like the kind of thing …
Prepare for your digital afterlife
100% of the people who read this post will die. As will 100% of the people who have accounts with Google. And Google’s finally doing something about it with the launch of Inactive Account Manager, an awkwardly-named but sensible service for deciding what to do with your digital legacy. I’ve written about death in the …
Email is dead; long live email
Email is the Rasputin of digital behaviors. 2011 saw a peak in the “email is dead” theme; people complain incessantly about email deluge and time spent in the dreaded inbox; and teens are resisting it (although they’re spending more time online via mobile). Good articles abound about how to fend off email and manage it. …
7 tips for solo travel for women
Back from a needed break in Seville — where the rains finally stopped to provide a hint of Spanish spring. In an era when many women are striving to Lean In professionally, I’m surprised how many still express trepidation at the idea of traveling alone. There’s a lot of sensible online advice for logistics, like useful safety …