Boss (Photo: Instagram/BaddieBey

Hey, you. You with the expertise in "servers and enterprise class storage." What were you doing in 2011? If you're not currently adjusting the temperature on the official Beyoncé archive in Midtown Manhattan--button up that cardi, it gets chilly in there!--you did that entire year wrong.

As GQ magazine's recent cover story crowning Queen Bey "Miss Millenium" revealed, the sex on a some very-well-rounded sticks songstress is something of a total self-quantifying maniac:

There, across from the narrow conference room in which you are interviewing her, is another long, narrow room that contains the official Beyoncé archive, a temperature-controlled digital-storage facility that contains virtually every existing photograph of her, starting with the very first frames taken of Destiny's Child, the '90s girl group she once fronted; every interview she's ever done; every video of every show she's ever performed; every diary entry she's ever recorded while looking into the unblinking eye of her laptop.

A few days after the feature was posted, the Library Journal's Tumblr unearthed a job listing from the "I Need a Library Job" daily email circa 2011/your greatest dreams. The request for a technically-savvy digital archivist was sent out by Parkwood Entertainment, Beyoncé's management company. Apparently, some lucky Temple University students were also encouraged to apply.

Digital Archivist for Beyonce

Parkwood Entertainment

No location given- probably NYC

Parkwood Entertainment is seeking a digital archivist interested in organizing and building an archive for a major pop star (Beyonce) starting with approximately 130 TB of footage with an eye to expanding further in the future. Candidates should have experience with servers and enterprise class storage and be able to recommend hardware solutions. Looking for someone to start immediately, pay is negotiable.

Dammit, woman. You coulda been a contender.

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?

Not pictured: Fitbit and Withings scale. (via @Naveen)

Don't call it a startup--at least not yet--but Foursquare cofounder Naveen Selvadurai dropped some hints about an upcoming personal project at an event at Union Square Monday evening, as Erick Schonfeld revealed on Twitter.

The de-Crunched tech blogger was at the VC firm for an event about "Networked Health," and Mr. Selvadurai's proposition, taken straight from the Quantified Self rule book, sounded like it fit right in:

Former 4SQ founder @naveen talking about "personal analytics" and how observation c@ Union Square Ventures instagr.am/p/KoAA2XJHlN/

— Erick Schonfeld (@erickschonfeld) May 14, 2012

How @naveen hacks his body: No alcohol, no carbs, no sugar

— Erick Schonfeld (@erickschonfeld) May 14, 2012

What is @naveen's current project?"Google Analytics for everything I know about my body" have to track 3 things: exercise, food, sleep

— Erick Schonfeld (@erickschonfeld) May 14, 2012

As Owen Thomas points out on Business Insider, Mr. Selvadurai and his cofounder Dennis Crowley always tried to pitch Foursquare less as a check-in app and more as a "a data-driven recommendations engine which analyzes and rewards real-world behavior."

That worldview dovetails nicely into the "Quantified Self" movement, which presumes that by measuring and analyzing behavior, one can improve it. (You're less likely to splurge on french fries, say, if life is a game of improving your fitness and all the apps on your homescreen are keeping score.) The target market for QS is somewhere in the Venn diagram between Ray Kurzweil fans and people who keep an Excel doc of their bicep girth. With iPhone apps that can take your blood pressure or sporty spice bracelets that measure "your entire athletic life," you can take that treadmill monitor with you.

Mr. Thomas argues that Quantified Self movement is "a big deal in fitness-obsessed Silicon Valley," but wonders if "the idea may be fresher in New York City." Psssh. You think we don't know from optimization? We invite Mr. Thomas to check out the Betabeat archives where we've explored how #4HB techies have opted for QS as the life-hack du jour. It looks like our old friend Jay Parkinson, Tumblr MD, even made an appearance at the USV event.

Living the start-up life at 20,000 ft

For a good portion of late 2010 and early 2011 Foursquare was focused mostly on keeping up with their user growth and building out their team. Luckily they have now tackled that problem and are able to iterate faster on the service, with a focus on surfacing data to make check ins more relevant to user. One new addition that just started popping up is the "En Fuego" icon (NBA Jam anyone?) which adds +2 to a habitual check in.

Of course, reminding users of their habits is a double edged sword. When entrepreneur Matt Galligan checked in to an airport six weeks in a row, he racked up a few bonus points on Foursquare. "Not exactly something I want to be bragging about," he wrote.

Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley replied on his own blog. ""Software as badge of honor / badge of shame… something I’m proud we were able to hack together :)"

As Betabeat Nitasha reported recently, there is a growing cadre of #4HB New York techies who are living the quantified lifestyle, tracking their body fat and bike rides with gadgets like Fitbit and services like Daytum. Foursquare has now gamified the process a little bit, providing an additional incentive for users to check into the gym three times this week.