Mr. Carter, stubbornly unquantified. (Photo:
flickr.com/shankbone)

Does any corner of New York society remain untouched by the go-go spirit of the raging tech boom? Apparently not.

It seems the culture of optimization has advanced even unto the lofty reaches of Vanity Fair, with this month's issue containing an exploration of the quantified self by culture critic James Wolcott (not yet available online). And to tee up for his colleague's column, no less a personality than head honcho Graydon Carter himself opened up the issue with his thoughts on the matter.

His editor's letter begins, "Not to generalize, but mankind can be divided into three groups." This'll be good!

There are those who like to record and share every aspect of their lives no matter how inconsequential. There are those who live lives that are actually worth recording yet don’t. And there are the rest of us, the vast sweep of humanity, who neither record our lives nor live ones particularly worth recording.

We assume Mr. Carter counts himself among the latter group, hence the emphasis. Humility and self-awareness, or good, old-fashioned humblebrag? We wonder. At any rate, Mr. Carter goes on to make his feelings in regards to the matter of quantifying oneself quite clear:

The thing is, all that time you spend logging and then curating the quotidian aspects of your daily life is time taken away from actually doing things. In the Digital Age, recorders also tend to be oversharers, and with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, they can do so on a grand scale.

Cut to the chase, Graydon: Will Fitbits be featured in the gift bags for this year's Oscar party or not?

Ms. Swisher (Photo: Google+)

If tapping Annie Leibovitz to shoot David Karp and his sidecar wasn't enough to convince you that Vanity Fair is serious about covering the tech sector as part of the power elite, how about this coup from the top of the masthead? Wired's Ryan Tate broke the news that Kara Swisher has pried herself out of Marissa Mayer's air vent to contribute part-time to the Conde Nast title, with some convincing from Graydon Carter, of course.

Mr. Tate reports that the tenacious AllThingsD cofounder agreed to "write profiles and other technology-related features," for Vanity Fair only after "overtures" from Mr. Carter. 

Negotiations with Vanity Fair are still in their infancy, so it's unclear how often the one-woman exclusive machine will be working for the title, or at what price. Ms. Swisher told Wired this was a side gig and that she has no plans to leave AllThingsD, although this should give her a hefty bargaining chip considering her News Corp. contract only goes through December 2013.

In the meantime, Ms. Swisher has given readers yet another reason to stop by a newsstand. The tech reporting veteran will be profiling Randi Zuckerberg for an upcoming issue of Harper's Bazaar, says Mr. Tate. Here's hoping Ms. Zuckerberg hasn't learned her lesson about on-the-record tequila shots just yet.