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, 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:
- Skyrim mods – A State of Trance. "Some eye candy this week. Skyrim is a pretty popular game, and it’s highly modifiable. Some people have been pushing this to its logical consequence: making screens that look like the real world. Today, the rig these images were made on might seem expensive; but computers have a way of getting cheaper quickly. Check out the video of landscapes, too." (Alistair for Hugh).
- Travis Rice Winning Run at Red Bull Supernatural. "Seems like Red Bull is putting on all the cool events the Olympics won’t. Their Supernatural is a back-country snowboarding contest. Take one of the best snowboarders in the world, and a really good head-mounted camera. Now see what back-country altitude feels like. Turns out SSX wasn’t far off." (Alistair for Mitch).
- Exxon warming up to ‘secret’ U.S. carbon tax plans – Financial Post. "I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the winds of Hurricane Sandy have shifted the political discourse on climate change as well as ravaging the East Coast. This is the first article I have ever seen in which Exxon Mobil (the world’s largest oil company) suggests climate legislation. Also mentioned in the article, alongside climate legislation: The American Enterprise Institute. This is a major major shift, a small ray of hope that the world might come around to dealing with climate change." (Hugh for Alistair).
- Stray penises and politicos – The Audacity of Despair. "Thankfully l’affaire Patraeus seems to have quieted down in the media. But for a while there, boy. David Simon (creator of The Wire, and a former newspaperman) lambastes the media, and the public, for their gleeful hypocrisy in tearing down two people who made the choice to share the wrong bed." (Hugh for Mitch).
- Prometheus Animatronic Artist’s FX reel will haunt your dreams – io9. "This may get me punched in the gut, but I really liked the movie, Prometheus. Special effects have come so far, that I just figured everything I saw on the screen was – in some way – just another CGI effect. Watching this video reel made my jaw drop. I had no idea how advanced animatronics have become. I, sincerely, thought animatronics was a lost/dying form of special effects in a world where you can create anything with a laptop (see Alistair’s dizzying Skyrim links above). Furthermore, you realize how these pieces of animatronics are much more than movie artifacts or special effects… they are truly works of art." (Mitch for Alistair).
- I’ll be watching over you – Letters of Note. "’On January 12th of 1997, 41-year-old astronaut Jerry Linenger kissed his pregnant wife and 14-month-old son goodbye, boarded Space Shuttle Atlantis, and headed for Space Station Mir where he joined two Russian cosmonauts. He then remained in Space for a record-breaking 132 days. Below are just three of the dozens of letters he wrote to his young son, John, during his stay.’ This link are some of the letters. One word: beautiful. You will cry. You have been warned." (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.