Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #268

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Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see”.

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

  • The Jaguar and the Fox – The Atlantic. “I was talking with a few people this week about the difference between Quantum and Newtonian physics. Of course, the conversation went to Richard Feynman. I’d never heard of Murray Gell-Mann; like many things, it’s about marketing. ‘… there are other factors that count in the manufacture of fame. Gell-Mann knew how to package ideas, and he had a knack for giving whimsical, and unforgettable, names to the most abstract concepts in science. Feynman had a more vital gift: he knew how to package himself.'” (Alistair for Hugh).
  • When I’m Gone – Life Tips. “Sometimes, when I put these links together, I wonder, ‘why bother?’ Not because the link isn’t good; but rather, because I know everyone will have seen it before long. This is one of those. Waterworks.” (Alistair for Mitch).
  • Puppyslugs ‘R Us: Part 1 – Boris Anthony. “We’ve all seen the results of Google‘s DeepDream… those trippy images generated by recursive neural networks. My old friend, Boris Anthony, has given some context to what this technology really represents, for Google, Facebook, and the rest of us… which is, roughly, making RNN-driven AI models of each of us. In the future, we’ll each have our own personal ghost in the network.” (Hugh for Alistair). 
  • Trickle-Down Economics Must Die, Long Live Grow-Up Economics – Scott Santens. “This quote should make you think: ‘Wall Street earned twice as much in year-end bonuses alone as all full-time minimum wage workers combined earned the entire year.’ The rest of the article should make you think more.” (Hugh for Mitch).
  • Override: A story about the future of work – Quartz. “One day, I am going to write a book about the future of work. Not just what we, as humans, will do in a world of robots and machine learning, and not so much about the types of jobs that we will do. I’m mostly fascinated with what all of that means in relation to our physical spaces. So, if someone/anyone publishes a piece on the future of work, I immediately pounce on it. This piece will make you wonder. Not just about our physical spaces, but the deeper, philosophical question like: what is work? Why do we do it? And, most importantly, will there be any work in the future?” (Mitch for Alistair).
  • LinkedIn Starts Building a Syndicated Content Network – ReCode. “I thought this news would get a lot more traction. I’m surprised. It’s important. For the past few years, I have been challenging the business world to think less about their content marketing, and much more about their content distribution strategies. Meaning: yes, produce, create and publish awesome content. Now, how do you get consumers to see it? Drive them to your properties? Maybe create something so compelling that trusted publishers would want to use it. It sounds like LinkedIn is going to facilitate this process. Of course, there’s a question of economics (content producers won’t be paid), but is there something substantive here?” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.