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Sleep Evolution: How modern society alters the way we sleep

By | Published February 23, 2012

BBC:

Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century. This started among the urban upper classes in northern Europe and over the course of the next 200 years filtered down to the rest of Western society. By the 1920s the idea of a first and second sleep had receded entirely from our social consciousness. He attributes the initial shift to improvements in street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge in coffee houses – which were sometimes open all night. As the night became a place for legitimate activity and as that activity increased, the length of time people could dedicate to rest dwindled.

Men create technologies to improve the way we live, but at the same time destroying the way we are designed to live.

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Storify: Professional Journalist vs. Student

By | Published February 22, 2012

Dave Copeland:

Here’s a great example of a Storify done by one of my writing students that covered yesterday’s March Against Hate at Bridgewater State University, and here’s a not so great Storify done by a reporter covering the same event.

Something every journalist should take note while using storify. Be passionate about the story.

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So this is how iPads and iPhones get made

By | Published February 22, 2012

Bob Weir, ABC reporter:

  • Two shifts (one full day) can produce 300,000 iPad camera modules.
  • 325 people assemble one iPad, taking five days to do it.
  • 10,000 unibody iPad shells can be produced per hour
  • One person cleans the burrs from these shells by hand, 3,000 per shift
  • Each shift lasts 12 hours, with two hour-long meal breaks
  • An average meal costs a worker 70 cents
  • Workers take a siesta back on the line before returning to work
  • Workers live in dorms, eight to a room
  • There are lots of extra-curricular activities, including sports and study (the language lab is stocked with iMacs)


    • There you have it. High tech gadgets produced by low tech labors.

    [update - 23rd Feb, 2012]

    Further information gathered by Asymco on the production cost of an iPhone:

  • iPhone takes 24 hours to be built.
  • Of that 6 to 8 hours is spent in “burn-in” to install and test the software and components automatically.
  • In the ABC report the wage of workers on the line is given as $1.78/hr. 17 hours of labor input would imply $30 labor cost per iPhone.
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    Software virality

    By | Published February 22, 2012

    Robert Scoble:

    I’m Robert Scoble, and what I’m about to tell you has not be approved by anyone else


    I approve this message.


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    Mountain Lion bids farewell to RSS

    By | Published February 22, 2012

    Brent Simmons:

    A Macworld article on Mail in Mountain Lion says that RSS reading has been removed from both Mail and Safari.
    Obviously that could change — but there’s a good chance it won’t.



    I doubt anyone ever use RSS on their Mail and Safari apps. Although many presume RSS is dead, replaced by twitter and facebook, I think that it is still relevant. Check out feedly if you are into collecting RSS feeds.

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