Chelsi’s Number One Super Happy Fun Link Time

Last week  I started a series called Chelsi’s Happy Link Time. As you can see, it’s an evolving title. Short story shorter: every Friday until approximately the end of time, Conspire will feature a list of cool discoveries from around the Web. Most times they’ll be links that aim to get you thinking differently about communication, culture, and life in general. Other times, LOLCAT ATTACK! Submissions are welcome, and you can send them through one of the usual suspects.

The Evolution of the Web

The internets is a pretty neat place to hang out, but underneath myriad layers of magical unicorns and accidentally amusing house pets, a growing powerhouse of content and connectivity looms. “What the average user doesn’t see is the interplay of web technologies and browsers that makes all this possible,” writes the team behind The Evolution of the Web — an exceptional data visualization. Click each of the colored bands to explore different interactions between web technologies and specific browsers (and tremble in amazement).

The Busy Trap

A note to Tim Kreider: I want to hug you for a number of seconds that borderlines inappropriate. That’s how much I love this article.

The problem: “The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it.”

The solution: “Here I am largely unmolested by obligations. There is no TV. To check e-mail I have to drive to the library. I go a week at a time without seeing anyone I know. I’ve remembered about buttercups, stink bugs and the stars. I read. And I’m finally getting some real writing done for the first time in months. It’s hard to find anything to say about life without immersing yourself in the world, but it’s also just about impossible to figure out what it might be, or how best to say it, without getting the hell out of it again.”

The Content Conundrum: To Create or Automate?

Last week’s discovery of Narrative Science hurt me right in the heart. As a once Creative Writing major and forever storyteller, I may be a little biased… but how can we even consider automated writing? I know it has the potential to streamline areas of content management and relieve many a technical writer, but still. Robot writing? Really?

In this article, Christa Carone fights for retaining the human touch, but also makes a case for balance: “The companies that are truly winning over audiences and driving consumers are the ones that are experimenting with a balance of automated aggregation and human-directed curation. It’s a process of out-sourcing and in-sourcing.”

Lift’s Method for Unlocking Human Potential

I don’t usually buy into pending app release hype, but Lift sounds pretty special. Slated for an August 2012 debut, the iphone app aims to makeover users into the best version of themselves by helping them track, analyze, and achieve goals.

“I just want you to be happier with who are,” said Lift co-founder Tony Stubblebine. “If you want to be healthier, good for you. If you want to get a promotion at work, good for you. If you just want to be a better, more positive person in society, good for you. We’re really non specific about what your goals are. I feel like Lift captures that aspiration of anything can uplift you.”