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:
- Who is Eleanor? – Kaleberg. "2 weeks ago, I was walking through New York when I saw a strange sign, above a building on 56th Street. It said, ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed.’ Curious, I grabbed my phone and started searching. Soon, I found out that this was Eleanor’s building. This page explains it a bit, and it seems others had been down a similar rabbit hole, leaving a trail of their findings that popped up in the New York Times in 2005. The story is cute; more interesting to me, however, is the way this became an ongoing digital narrative, a signpost in the real world that easily linked to an online detective story." (Alistair for Hugh).
- Makers: the New Explorers of the Universe – Make. "David Lang thinks the ‘maker’ movement, spurred on by small-batch manufacturing, crowdfunding, cheap tech, and the availability of modular components, qualifies as the new frontier of exploration. ‘[In] the last century, discovery was basically finding things. And in this century, discovery is basically making things,’ he quotes Stewart Brand, one of the framers of the Web as we know it. His article makes a great case that, in an era lacking patrons, with corporations focused on the next quarter and for-profit universities abandoning hard research in favor of licensing, Makers are our best hope." (Alistair for Mitch).
- Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders – Amazon. "Every year since he took over the company in 1967, Warren Buffett – the greatest investor of them all – has sent a letter to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. Here these letters – four-and-a-half decades worth – are collected in one place (and on sale, as of today for $3.03 in the Kindle store). Warren Buffett is not only one of the most successful businessmen ever, but is a charming writer, a good man. Anyone with a passing interest in business will be delighted reading what he has to say." (Hugh for Alistair).
- Instagram Is Spoiling Your Dinner – The Connectivist. "I am pretty sure that the first Instagram photo that I ever shared was a plate that had two hard boiled eggs on it with a piece of banana bread all strategically placed to make it look like a face. Yes, it was a picture of food. I often find myself watching the Food Network‘s Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives. Yes, a TV show that is nothing short of food porn. With that, I have no idea why I (or anyone else) takes pictures of their food and why we – collectively – have such an innate desire to share that with others. Until now…" (Mitch for Alistair).
- Google Finally Gets Legal OK to Scan the World’s Books – MIT Technology Review. "It’s interesting to see that a project Google has been working on since 2002 suddenly has the legal green light to move forward. It also resurrects the much-heated debate about what, exactly, is fair use when it comes to books and literature. Some might argue that there will be significant copyright issues with this legal judgment, while others (like me) will be thrilled by the notion that the digitization of all books can (hopefully) mean the availability of knowledge and information to every human being on this planet with ease, speed and a low cost of entry. Pretty cool stuff in terms of the book world." (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.