93Is 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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so 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:
- Born This Way – New York Magazine. "I’m absolutely loving Jonathan Haidt‘s The Righteous Mind, and in an election year, its implications for who wins votes cannot be overstated. So it was great to see this article on how we’re largely pre-wired to vote Red or Blue, Right or Left, Conservative or Liberal. It posits an evolutionary agenda behind our political leanings, with curious consequences: ‘Citizens with really strong immune systems are going to be all right with immigration,’ McDermott ventures, because they’ll be less concerned with the pathogen threat that outsiders pose." (Alistair for Hugh).
- Getting Plowed – Maisonneuve. "Montreal’s snowplow industry is a dirty, dirty business. In this Maisonneuve investigative study, find out how rival plow companies set out to sabotage one another in a crooked battle for the huge snow cleaning contracts Montreal awards. With $700M at stake, and a small cabal of contractors using codewords to rig bids, this is an eye-opening look at corruption in what seems like a mundane matter." (Alistair for Mitch).
- The Canadian Oil Sand Mines Refused Us Access, So We Rented This Plane To See What They Were Up To – Business Insider. "In Canada, we keep hearing about the Alberta oil sands, and the environmental impact of this very messy – and vast – oil extraction process. Business Insider wanted to investigate on the ground, but the oil companies refused to let them poke around. So, the journalists rented a plane and took aerial photos of the region north of Edmonton where the oil sands development is happening." (Hugh for Alistair).
- The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon – Blog Maverick. "The streets of our hometown, Montreal, have been full of dissent for a few months now with students here protesting the provincial government’s plans to raise post-secondary tuition rates (which are set by the province). Quebec’s tuition is already the lowest in Canada, and significantly lower than in the United States – so what’s the big deal? Well, Mark Cuban has an answer from across the border, looking at post-secondary education fees in the US, and the huge balloon of debt among students there. In fact, Cuban compares the student debt bubble to the housing bubble that helped crash the economy in 2007/2008. The numbers are comparable: American students are saddled with one trillion dollars in debt. This is a weight on the future, which Cuban argues will hamper any economic growth in the US. Something which Quebec student protesters rightly worry about, and we should all consider when we do the math on increasing student fees." (Hugh for Mitch).
- Scamworld: ‘Get rich quick’ schemes mutate into an online monster – The Verge. "Here’s some long-form online journalism about a corner of the Internet that I have always despised: the get rich quick on informational marketing products websites. You know the ones: they’re usually one long page of copy and testimonials promising you riches from the comforts of your own home for only a few hours each week. What looks like nothing more than an affiliate marketing pyramid scheme is actually a fascinating look into what technology can do when used by those who have nothing but their own financial gain at hand. Yes, the world can be a cold, dark and dirty place but it doesn’t have to be. Scammers, spammers and others are pretty savvy and sophisticated (after you read this, you’ll see just how savvy they truly are). Pack a lunch before you click on this one, but it will leave you at the edge of your seat." (Mitch for Alistair).
- Hack The Cover – @craigmod. "I’m just finishing up my first draft for my second business book, CTRL ALT DEL. I’m also currently working on the book cover design with my publisher, Business Plus. It’s interesting how we used to design book covers that could be spotted from across the floor of your favorite bookseller, but now we have to design book covers that look good when they’re the size of a stamp on a digital screen. That’s not totally true, now we have to design a book cover that looks good on a bookstore bookshelf, one that looks good on a stack in Walmart, one that looks good in Amazon‘s Kindle store, one that looks good on a website, one that looks good in black and white for e-readers, for iPad, for iPhone and on and on and on. Is this a challenge or a new opportunity to be infinitely creative? Read on to find out as more and more people to continue to judge a book by its cover." (Mitch for Hugh).
Now it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.