Interesting Articles: Oct 17th-24th 2005

If you're going to only read one article from this post this week, read this one:
* Meet the Life Hackers (New York Times). The science of interruptions: on the prevalence of interruptions in the modern work force and methods to improve how interruptions are provided to people. The long article, residing at the intersection of culture, psychology, and technology, is a worthwhile read. Just a teaser: one result of the scientific experiments is more screen real estate is better. And there are a number of more surprising tidbits on how to manage screen real estate more effectively in the article.

Culture:
* As Young Adults Drink to Win, Marketers Join In (New York Times). Beer Pong. Again, you know it's an old meme when it shows up in a major newspaper.
* Those Boys Are Back, as Timely as Ever (New York Times). On the timeliness and continuing humor value of South Park. I agree with most of the article and still remember how great the episodes on The Passion of the Christ and The Lord of the Rings were. But most non-commentary episodes really do fall flat to me.

Food:
* Finding the best eats off the beaten track (Mercury News) (BugMeNot). A neat profile of a prominent and devoted chowhound. Incidentally, her ranking of ramen places is quite good from what I know, and these places all really show that ramen can be orders of magnitude better than the dried supermarket stuff.
* Organic Choice: Pesticides vanish from body after change in diet (Science News). Striking stuff: even a simple diet change to organic foods can have an immediate and significant impact on the amount of pesticides found in one's body. If you can't read that link, at least read the abstract of the source article Organic Diets Significantly Lower Children's Dietary Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides (Environmental Health Perspectives). (The abstract and article itself are available as links off that page.)

Science:
* Balls of Fire: Bees carefully cook invaders to death (Science News). What an interesting defense mechanism. The fifth paragraph (insects aside) really struck me as something out of an action movie.
* Fast-food customers get a rude calorie surprise (USA Today). The article describes two quite different studies about food consumption; the title only applies to the first one. They are nothing surprising but are still simple and cute experiments.

News:
* The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal (New York Times). A long article on the Miller case. Frankly, way more than I wanted to know about the case but still thought provoking in parts for the meta-commentary in the piece (that is, given that Miller worked for the Times, discussions on how the New York Times covered the case and how decisions about how they should cover it were made). Formed a good contrast to a discussion I heard on the radio (audio available) the same day that brought a different angle on how the Times dealt with the situation. But really in the end I would rather not have read any of this now -- if I was smart I'd have waited until the whole situation was over and then read a cohesive narrative.