We’re digesting stories about high return on investment, featuring a new segment called Indigestion for the story that gave me the most news nausea. Special credit for anyone who gets the Seinfeld reference in today’s webisode!
Paranormal box office returns | 10 Tactics for Turning Information into Action | 2 Legit to Quit | Twin bomb [...]

Navigating life requires finding your way around increasingly sophisticated interfaces. Whether bad or benign, they govern how we interact with each other and with the objects that define our day-to-day experiences. Interface with me as I digest recent stories about the past, present, future (and even the paleofuture) of interfacing as we know it.
Happy Birthday, [...]

Today’s digest is an antidote to my last webisode, about humanity’s obsession with wondering “What If?” When you live without regret, you’re never left with that nagging sense of what might have happened, in an alternate reality, if only you’d…  Entertain these examples of regret-free action with me!
Missed Connections 2.0 | Missed Connections 1.0 | [...]

On this Columbus Day I consider the all-too-human tendency to speculate about the road less traveled. Asking “what if?” is both coping mechanism and craziness-inducing strategy, but regardless of the outcome society just can’t seem to help itself.
Columbus Day | Phantom City | Butterfly Effect | Churchill’s sliding-doors moment | Transition | Awful dwarf

Today we’re digesting some recent examples of how a state displays its status to the world via symbolism. Ah, wordplay and long vowel signs. Gotta love ‘em!
Tiananmen time-lapse (via @brainpicker) | Arirang in Pyongyang | Obama snubs Tibet | Mocking up a 9/11 memorial | An enduring emblem of peace

Welcome back to part two of a very special episode of You Digest. This time we’re going to look at the “us” in stātus symbols. How have individuals been using symbolism in contemporary culture lately? The answer to that and lots of other life mysteries, in today’s digest.
Olympic prospects | Graphic design for a green [...]

Today’s digest isn’t an arcane exercise in declining verbs (I’m dorky but I’m not that bad!). Rather, our theme today is about the tension between the parts of the world speeding headlong into the future and the parts for all intents and purposes still living in the past. I also suggest a few small gestures [...]

Assigning values—whether they’re to people or points on a graph—helps keep everything in its place. Perhaps that’s why, historically, we’ve become more and more obsessed with it. Featuring a guest appearance from Kanye West!
Values Voters Summit | Adding faces to Vietnam’s names | Added-value Twitter | Just how much of a jackass is Kanye? | [...]

Anthropology has come to the masses. With easy access to the means of digital documentation, we can all tell the stories of our time. No longer the sole domain of academics, capturing behavior, observing patterns, and developing insight are skills possessed by more and more people. Take me for example: I may not have formal [...]

Today we’ll be exploring the unending undiscovered finds of the web. Two websites deserve much of the credit for introducing me to these finds: Dark Roasted Blend and MakeUseOf. I’m constantly uncovering undiscovered information through them, and I hope you’ll find lots to discover as well!
Atlas Obscura | A tale of two Mongolias | [...]

It’s that time of year again: the season of reinvention that so thrills magazine editors and self-help gurus alike. Only this year everyone seems to want in on fall’s round of remakes. Go on! Get yourself a piece of the makeover madness!
Seven remakes | Brett Erlich | Yoostar | Hollywood’s hooked on remakes | Manhattan [...]

Who knew soap operas were still a relevant metaphor for society? After 72 years, the longest-running daytime drama is ending its run next week, which is why we’ll be using Guiding Light as a handy shorthand for the current world older. Never let it be said I don’t bring both high and low culture to [...]

Lately I’ve noticed a tendency to take cross sections of experience, as though by slicing and dicing life in various dimensions we might somehow be able to capture its complexity. Here’s what we’re digesting today:
City One Minutes | Global Lives Project | Homer & Langely | Fifty People One Question | Twitter for Busy People [...]

Society has never had so much information about the individuals that comprise it. From academic research to security camera footage, your senses and sensibilities are being well documented at every turn. Welcome to the intelligent Internet! It’s been expecting you.
Wake up happier | Personas | Portfolios of the Poor | The Cheaters’ Club | Sound [...]

Financial contractions like the one we’re experiencing now usually have a corresponding effect on people’s behavior. We spend less and plan on a smaller scale, and understandably so given that it feels like there’s more to lose. But what better time than now to think big? Today’s digest is a guide to get you started.
Big [...]

Lately nothing less than 100% disclosure will do, whether it’s the ingredients in your food, the meetings on your legislators’ calendars, or the wisdom of the ages. Also as the world population explodes exponentially and resources become more and more scarce, we’re having to face the sheer necessity of using 100% of everything at our [...]

With society and technology in states of constant change, it helps to be flexible. And not just a little—flexible as in, being prepared to upend all of your previously held beliefs for new ones. Just pretend your memories are being wiped out in preparation to enter a cult. I’m sure things will work out just [...]

That price on the sticker? Don’t buy it. Chances are, it doesn’t reflect the true cost of what it took to get thems goods into your hot little hands. It’s time for a little review of economic externalities…
Cheap | Bottled water blues | Good Guide | Straight Up | Cost of War | Inked art

It’s no longer just bank CEOs and other captains of industry strategizing about getting bailed out; now everyone seems to have an escape plan. Consider the following examples of escapism, should you need your own hatch to drop down one of these days.
Prison Break | Corn-cob escape | Got2Go | Bush’s Facebook | Lemonade | [...]

Today we’re talking about the impulse to catalogue life, which I posit is coming up at this particular historical moment in response to how quickly things seem to change. It’s also become easier to keep inventory than ever before, enabling any half brain who can use a mouse to catalogue their every move. Yup, I’m [...]

Society’s rate of change keeps accelerating in this new millennium, and the most we can try to do is keep pace with its constant shifts. And stay off the smack.
On today’s menu: Clinton in NK | One-way ticket | Rorschach cheats | New Zealand on the move | Invisible People | parking paradise

Today’s digest is about all things D-I-Y, because these uncertain times seem to have sparked a lot of self-reliance. And I think it’s really inspiring to see so many do it yourselfers taking control of circumstances.
On the menu today: DIYdays | urban renewal | Cockatoo Island | (Un)classes | dumpster diving
Thanks for stopping by, and [...]

Hi-diddly-ho and welcome to the latest webisode of digest. This time I’m talking stand-ins. You know, substitutes: margarine is to butter as Pepsi is to Coke as Ciara is to Rihanna. As I chewed my way through the news for today, it became apparent that the recession has us suddenly considering all manner of surrogates [...]

Today’s digest is about the uneasy relationship we have with our own power. (Finally, I have an opportunity to use a clever title with both wordplay and a backslash in it!)
Even though humans have developed unprecedented processes and technologies with which to manipulate reality, as a species we’re still not mature enough to deal with [...]

I think today’s digest special is especially fitting given that it’s Friday and we’re saying goodbye to the work week. On our plates today, some instances of society jettisoning things and traditions that no longer serve their purpose, and embracing new approaches and models to life. I’ll just say this: no one will ever have [...]

Greetings from the domain of digestion! Today’s topic, Come Together 2.0, is all about people coming together to make new kinds of creative experiences and events online. The idea of using the web to connect with others is nothing new. But what I’m digesting today is how the Internet continues to enable more sophisticated examples [...]

I hope you brought along your compass, because today we’re going Mapquest-ing! The digest is all about how we’re conceptualizing, deconstructing, and reimagining maps in 2009.
From Alaskan tours to augmented reality browsers, people continue to develop innovative ways to lay guidelines (literally!) over our experiences. In a sense, maps are windows onto our world, and [...]

I’m so glad you stopped by. This is my very first videoblog, where I explain my reasons for starting youdigest.com. Basically if you’re both omnivorous and overloaded when it comes to information, you’re in the right place. I hope that together we can make some sense of the nonstop stream of news we encounter every [...]