If you're like Derek Smith, you spend a lot of time on your smartphone. Then again, maybe nobody is quite like Derek Smith. In one recent week, the medical student sent 40 e-mails and 399 text messages, snapped 25 photos, bought two movie tickets, downloaded four songs, watched a full-length film, checked the weather forecast 15 times, shopped at Target, surfed the Web for 129 minutes and spent 5½ hours socializing with friends on Facebook -- all from his iPhone 4S.
TECH-Netiquette-Time-Stamps (with art)
Timestamps are all over the ever-loving place on the Web: on your tweets, Facebook posts, text messages, ill-thought-out, angry e-mails to exes, etc. And let me tell you, true friends and trolls, those little numbers matter more than you think.
TRAVEL
TRAVEL-Hunting-Travel
Hunting and fishing are on the rise for the first time in decades. The number of recreational hunters and anglers in the United States has increased significantly over the past five years, according to a recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey. The number of hunters has increased by 9%, while the number of anglers has jumped by 11%.
TRAVEL-Monastery-Stays-Travel (with art)
Movies about nuns and monks tend to focus on the Spartan nature of their living quarters: thin beds with lumpy mattresses, gloomy candlelit tables, a chair or two, all blessed by a cross nailed to a whitewashed plaster wall. No longer. In recent years, many monasteries and convents have been reborn as hotels so luxuriously appointed that you might confess to feeling a little guilty about how their previous occupants had to live.
TRAVEL-Superyacht-Science-Laboratory-Submarine (with art)
A recently built superyacht suggests that at least some wealthy holiday makers are demanding more from their sailing trips than just exotic islands and sun-drenched sea decks. The 74-meter RV Pegaso comes with the usual roster of flat-screen TVs, designer furniture and en-suite bathrooms, but a closer inspection reveals that it also doubles as a fully fledged floating laboratory.
TRAVEL-007-James-Bond-Destinations (with art)
We love James Bond films for so many reasons: the handsome men and beautiful women, the cool gadgets and outrageous villains, the amazing chases and death-defying stunts. And, of course, the travel tips. Film after film, no one has given us more inspiration to travel the world than James Bond.
TRAVEL-Felicity-Aston-Antarctic-Explorer (with art)
When Felicity Aston started smelling fish and chips, she knew something was wrong. The unmistakable aroma of the classic British pub food, deep-fried fish and french fries, could only mean one thing: She must be hallucinating. After all, there are no pubs in the middle of Antarctica. The British explorer was skiing solo across the great frozen continent and had not seen another human being for weeks.
LIVING
FEA-Andre-Leon-Talley-Lbd (with art)
"It's a woman's world," Vogue contributing editor Andre Leon Talley said as he prepared an installation of little black dresses for a new exhibit at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
FEA-Nanny-Diaries-Authors (with art)
Ten years after "The Nanny Diaries" became a bestseller, authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus have released back-to-back new books. A lot has changed in the publishing industry, not to mention in the authors' personal lives, between the bookends of their careers thus far. "Over You" is a young adult novel about a teenager who helps friends cope with breakups, while struggling to move on from her own heartbreak. And "Between You and Me" depicts a famous singer's public self-destruction, in a story reminiscent of recent real-life celebrity dramas.
FEA-Our-Mobile-Society-Stupidphone
I am part of a dying breed. I am among a quickly shrinking slice of Americans who have yet to step foot in smartphone land. As of July, Nielsen reported that 55.5% of mobile subscribers in America owned smartphones, a significant jump from 41% a year earlier. This pre-dated the release of the iPhone 5, which has surely swayed that percentage further.
FEA-Most-Popular-Epic-Webcomic
In an age of computers, smartphones, and instant gratification, studies lead us to believe that our attention spans are the shortest they've ever been. If that were completely true though, a 5,000 plus page webcomic shouldn't be able to attract millions of fans, much less inspire them to raise a million dollars in under a week.
