Link roundup

Some of these links are getting decidedly stale; time to clear them out.

Which are more effective, taxes on junk or subsidies on healthy food?

How would you like to spend half your waking life fetching water? (Via Elizabeth Royte.)

How much land would it take if we all lived as densely as NYC?

High-fructose corn syrup is part of the axis of evil.

Adorable houses, but ignore the twee captions.

The challenges of "data-driven" decision-making.

Horrifying maternity leave story.

Everyone's already linked to this, but ... is TV programming as we know it doomed? "The most watched minute of video made in the last five years shows baby Charlie biting his brother’s finger. (Twice!) That minute has been watched by more people than the viewership of American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, and the Superbowl combined. (174 million views and counting.)"

I don't own a television. It's not because I don't watch any TV, but because I rarely care to watch it when it's programmed to be on*. I don't just mean I want to Tivo things. I mean I didn't start watching Battlestar Galactica (from the beginning) until the final season. It's not just me - how many people were introduced to Entourage by DVDs their friends insisted they borrow? But media companies still judge television shows by Neilson ratings, as any frustrated fan of Joss Whedon knows.

I don't think that the rise of services like YouTube means that products requiring a cast of thousands will disappear. It means they'll have to be delivered differently, though.

* Also, the cost. Paying a bundle for a bundle of stations you don't care about is so old-school.