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:
- Penn And Teller Lift Off Of Love – Just For Laughs – VHS Video Vault – YouTube. “For the last few years, I’ve been consumed with subversive thinking as my co-author Emily and I put the finishing touches on Just Evil Enough. I’ve collected so many examples of loopholes and defying existing systems, from Elizabeth Swaney (who exploited a qualifying loophole to race in the Olympics) to Adam Tranter (who built a park on a historic van so he could take back a parking spot). I came across this Penn and Teller reinvention of sawing someone in half – and somehow, giving it all away makes it no less amazing.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Conan O’Brien Is The Best To Ever Do It And Here’s Eight Minutes Of Proof – Nicky D – YouTube. “Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, this week has been a lot. So, I’m sharing some links that are a bit more escapist than usual. Futurism and gloom will return next week (hah!). There’s really nobody in Late Night like Conan O’Brien. When writers went on strike, other late-night hosts stumbled. But Conan was unleashed. Without a net, and making it up as he went along, he delivered some of TV’s funniest moments in years.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- Chinese ‘Artificial Sun’ Sets A Record Towards Fusion Power Generation – Phys.Org. “Nuclear fusion power offers the potential for virtually limitless, clean energy by replicating the process that powers the sun. It produces no greenhouse gases, and unlike fission (which runs all existing nuclear power generators), it generates minimal radioactive waste, is powered by abundant materials, and finally doesn’t have meltdown risks.The problem is that getting to sustained fusion requires extreme temperatures and pressures, making it technically and economically challenging. China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) just more than doubled the amount of time maintaining a steady-state high-confinement plasma (1,066 seconds, surpassing its previous record of 403 seconds), a step closer to commercial fusion power.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- AI Has ‘Better Ideas’ For Films Than Hollywood – Anita Singh – The Telegraph. “‘You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking… you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here.’ Paul Schrader, famed scriptwriter of Taxi Driver, exemplar of the American New Wave cinema of the 1970s played with GPT and got pretty freaked out. AI gave better notes/suggestions on a script, and faster (minutes versus weeks) than he would have given, and came up with scores of novel and intertesting ideas for films.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- ‘Severance’ And The Trauma Of The Bullshit Job – Kat Rosenfield – The Free Press. “I have a friend who was having an existential crisis about their professional development and career. I wasn’t sure what book to refer them to, but on their own, they discovered Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. We had a follow up coffee meeting, where they confided in me that they fear that they have a bullshit job. Meaning, the company they work for has revenue and is exceptionally well venture-backed funded. Their work – day in and day – out is primarily meetings and emails… and while they are being told how well they are accomplishing their goals and tasks, they don’t see any material output of the hours and days spent toiling away either remotely at their home office or a couple of days a week when they work from the corporate headquarters. They are convinced that their job really is quite fake. And – even though they can apply somewhere else, get higher salary, and even a bump in job title – that, ultimately, what they are doing is meaningless and not creating any value in the external world. Perhaps, many people are starting to look at their work with more careful attention. What this means… Perhaps a new shift and how we define work and what we want to spend our days doing?” (Mitch for Alistair).
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The Deep Space Of Digital Reading – Paul La Farge – Nautilus. “Paper and reading is such an interesting technology… maybe the most interesting technology there is. From studying the early days of publishing and books to the history of notebooks, I vacillate between the physical book and the digital book with wild promiscuity. Even reading this article and thinking about a moment in time when reading was done aloud to that moment when people would read a book and not say anything… how society shifted and how writing shifted to adjust to this new way of reading… to how that helped humans reflect, question things more… and think. So powerful. Now, as digital technology continues to blast us with news ways to read, see and engage with content, what does that do to the reading brain and should we embrace those e-readers or head back to the stacks?” (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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