Nikil Saval: The proliferation of apps and gurus promising to help manage even the most basic tasks of simple existence -- the "quantified self" movement does life hacking one better, turning the simple act of breathing or sleeping into something to be measured and refined -- suggests that merely getting through the day has become, for many white-collar professionals, a set of problems to solve and systems to optimize. Being alive is easier, it turns out, if you treat it like a job.
Tom Whipple: Gatekeeping does not pay for itself.
Dan Hon: The model becomes the thing being modeled. This is a thing, now. Seeing the world as addressable stacks.
Oliver Burkeman, summarizing the work of Eckhart Tolle: Interestingness gives the mind something to chew on -- but the best experiences come when you stop chewing.
Lizzie Widdicombe: Meals provide punctuation to our lives: we're constantly recovering from them, anticipating them, riding the emotional ups and downs of a good or a bad sandwich. With a bottle of Soylent on your desk, time stretches before you, featureless and a little sad.
Ian Bogost: Another day's work lost to the vapors of reloads, updates, clicks, and comments. Realizing that you are hyperemployed by the cloud, that you are its unpaid intern. Wondering what you'd have accomplished if you had done anything else whatsoever. Knowing that tomorrow will be no different.
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