So, how do you quadruple the size of your engineering team in one month and still keep everyone productive?

No moment in technology history has ever been more exciting or dangerous than now. The Internet is like a new computer running a flashy, exciting demo. We have been entranced by this demo for fifteen years. But now it is time to get to work, and make the Internet do what we want it to.

-- DAVID GELERNTER is a professor of computer science at Yale and chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies (New Haven). His research centers on information management, parallel programming, and artificial intelligence. The "tuple spaces" introduced in Nicholas Carriero and Gelernter's Linda system (1983) are the basis of many computer communication systems worldwide. He is the author of Mirror Worlds, and Drawing a Life: Surviving the Unabomber.

A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind. [...] It's worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That's not because he was a technophobe but because he died in 1565. His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press.

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To date, studies suggest there is no consistent evidence that the Internet causes mental problems. If anything, the data show that people who use social networking sites actually tend to have better offline social lives, while those who play computer games are better than nongamers at absorbing and reacting to information with no loss of accuracy or increased impulsiveness.

Technology has always been used as a memory aid, of course, but in past millenia, scratching on a clay tablet, writing with a fountain pen, and snapping a digital photo have all required an act of will. Humans had to choose what they would remember.

Now, in an age of ever-cheaper storage, the data committed to machine memory requires an act of will to delete. Storage is now so cheap, in fact, that it requires more effort to cull an e-mail inbox or photo gallery than it does to simply hold on to everything.

To get back to a default state of forgetfulness, Mayer-Schönberger offers an intriguing proposal: find simple ways to give data an expiration date.

Since September 27, 2007, I have been documenting the graffiti left in public study areas in the Joseph Regenstein Library ("the Reg"): the study nooks tucked into the stacks, the whiteboards in the all-night study space, and the study carrels in the reading rooms. I have transcribed over 620 “pieces” of graffiti—many of which contain more than one single contribution—and over 410 of them are datable to within a week of their creation. The following is an analysis of the data to date; you can access the entire data set at my website, Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur.

13. Be mindful about Facebook tagging

People differ on how open they want to be about their private lives on social networks like Facebook. They also vary in how wide their social circle is. Some only "friend" people who actually are their close friends. Others "friend" everyone, from co-workers and grandparents to strangers.

When you snap a photo with your phone and "tag" someone in it, you're showing the picture to all of his Facebook friends, and you don't know how open or selective he's been about "friending" people. Compromising pictures involving weird haircuts, drunkenness, partial nudity or silly behavior might not bother you, but you don't know how others feel about such things.

A good rule of thumb is to get permission to tag someone else's photo -- or at least never tag a photo unless you're sure that person wouldn't mind showing it to his mother, boss and children.

Did our Neolithic ancestors turn to agriculture so that they could be sure of a tipple? US Archaeologist Patrick McGovern thinks so. The expert on identifying traces of alcohol in prehistoric sites reckons the thirst for a brew was enough of an incentive to start growing crops.

Complaining about poor internal documentation is an old practice, but there's a reason that doing it right is important. Your comments are the only way you have to speak to the next person looking at this software (that may be you) about the larger scope of the software, not just this line-or-two. What were you thinking when you wrote this code? Yes, "self-documenting code" is a goal, but it's arrogant to assume that you've achieved it, any more than it's arrogant of me to assume that my words need no editing. (They do. I'm happiest when I have an editor.)

Another common problem in comment ugliness is developers who update the code and don't update the comments; as one consultant pointed out, comments aren't tested. But doesn't that show a lack of attention to detail, too? Anytime you aren't paying full attention, you're apt to drop a logic bit.

We began this analysis of corporate life by exploring a

theoretical construct (the Gervais Principle) through the character arcs of Michael and Ryan in The Office. The construct and examples provide a broad-strokes treatment of the why of the power dynamics among sociopaths, the clueless and losers. This helps us understand how the world works, but not how to work it. So let me introduce you to the main skill required here, mastery over the four major languages spoken in organizations, among sociopaths, losers and the clueless. I’ll call the four languages Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk.

So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don't really want to be popular.