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 (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) 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:

• Prince Rupert’s Drop Vs. Hydraulic Press – r/interesting – Reddit. “A few weeks back, my partner and I spent a weekend in Vermont. While there, we visited a glassblowing studio and made cups, paperweights, and even a carafe. It was amazing, and our teacher was a bearded curmudgeon plucked from the front row of a Pearl Jam concert. He reminded me about Prince Ruperts’ Drop, which happens when a superheated blob of molten glass is dunked in cold water. It hardens, and the bulb becomes incredibly strong while the tip, when tapped, explodes violently. I’ve seen videos of the explosion part, but not the strength of the bulb. It’s a lot. Have a look at how it fares against a metal hydraulic press.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Never Forgive Them – Ed Zitron. “Ed Zitron one-ups Cory Doctorow‘s enshittification, calling it a ‘Big Rot’ that’s an inevitable consequence of a growth-at-all-costs world. ‘The tools we use in our daily lives outside of our devices have mostly stayed the same. While buttons on our cars might have moved around – and I’m not even getting into Tesla’s designs right now – we generally have a brake, an accelerator, a wheel, and a turn signal… We’re not expected to work out ‘the new way to use a toilet’ every few months because somebody decided we were finishing too quickly. Yet our apps and the platforms we use every day operate by a totally different moral and intellectual compass.’ As we discussed at lunch a few weeks back, this may be built into the mechanics of evolution itself. You will love this, it will make you angry, and we – as a species – need to figure it out fast.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• The World Of Tomorrow – Virginia Postrel – Works In Progress. “There was a time when the ‘future’ was glamorous and exciting. Instead we got a disappointing present and a scary future.” (Hugh for Alistair).
• One Company A/B Tested Hybrid Work. Here’s What They Found – Nicholas Bloom, James Liang, and Ruobing Han – Harvard Business Review. “It’s amazing that something as significant as hybrid work/work from home vs. work from office doesn’t have more hard data associated with it. Trip.com did a study. Main finding: huge reduction in turnover.” (Hugh for Mitch). 
• 20 Paradoxes That Will Boggle Your Mind – Paul Anthony Jones – Mental Floss. ”I’m willing to bet that most people use the word ‘paradox’ without really knowing what a paradox is (no need to Google it: A paradox is a statement, situation, or idea that appears to go against common sense – at first glance, it seems contradictory or even impossible. But when you look deeper, you realize that this puzzling statement might hold truth or make sense in a different way). Now, here are some real gems of a paradox. Want a sample? How about The Grandfather Paradox… ‘All of us know that if you ever travel back in time, you should definitely not kill your own grandfather, lest you create some kind of temporal paradox-slash-rift in the space-time continuum. This problem, known as the Grandfather Paradox, presents the main problem of time travel: If you go back and prevent yourself from being born, how would you ever have been able to go back in time in the first place?’” (Mitch for Alistair).
• The Best Science Images Of 2024 – Nature. “I’m only sick of bad ‘end of year’ lists. This is not that. With all the chaos, calamity and pure nonsense of this past year, here’s a dash of beauty/surprise that might help us all realize how small our problems might be in the grand scheme of science and life. So, in all of this madness… check this out…” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

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