That, according to a seriously shaky Wolfram|Alpha calculation, is how much land that each person would get were the Earth (minus Antarctica and the Sahara Desert) split 6.67 billion equal ways.¹

Here’s the equation:

For comparison, 4.659 acres is about the size of 2.6 FIFA-sanctioned international match soccer fields.

If you’re thinking, Gee, that actually kind of sounds like a lot, bear this in mind: the actual Earth is not a flat grid of equally habitable cells—inevitably, many millions of people would get stuck with parcels on mountainsides or in toxic waste dumps, swamps, deserts and Siberia. The above figure is clearly on the generous side.²

That said, I’m on the borderline of horror with this one. It either makes the world seem very small or makes mankind seem very stifling.

Either way, this much is certain: the fact that Wolfram|Alpha can help be indulge in such childish things is undeniably cool.

1. A side note: one of mankind’s greatest inventions is the technique of building vertically. But, for the sake of this hypothetical, I’m talking straight-up land ownership. [↑]
2. And no, there’s no easy way to further refine the equation, short of making an exhaustive (and totally subjective!) List of All Terrestrial Hellholes Known to Man and plugging each item in one after another. [↑]

When Theresa Duncan, 40, took her own life on July 10, followed a week later by her boyfriend, Jeremy Blake, 35, their friends were stunned and the press was fascinated: what had destroyed this glamorous couple, stars of New York’s multi-media art world, still madly in love after 12 years?

“Multi-media art world” and the clueless artiness that it seems to imply is just the first indication that the following is about some sad-sack Gen-Xers.

And you’d be right. But there’s a heck of a story in there—I read it during my lunch break yesterday and haven’t been able to get it out of my mind ever since.

It’s old—from the January 2008 issue of Vanity Fair—and has been widely read (Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis are reportedly working on the screenplay). But hey, just in case.