Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #194

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:

The Backlist: Isaac Asimov’s Foundation – The Stake. "Perhaps the greatest fictionalization of applied Big Data, Asimov‘s Foundation series, while not amazingly written, is breathtaking in scope and concept. As this Stake piece observes, the series’ protagonist foresees the collapse of an empire due to ‘a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity.’ Sound familiar? A short piece with some great links in it." (Alistair for Hugh).
The Future of the News Business: A Monumental Twitter Stream All in One Place – Andreessen Horowitz. "Marc Andreessen has a knack for the bon mot, and here he offers more than a few of them about where journalism is going. His take is a bit more bleak and Valley-centric than it might be, but still offers some thoughtful observation. Newspapers aren’t necessarily dying — but they are changing significantly, dragged kicking and screaming away from big offices and high-rise glamor and towards teaser headlines and A/B testing." (Alistair for Mitch).
Shocking example of unintended consequences: Mandatory domestic violence arrests raise death rate 400%, study finds – National Post. "What do policies – such as mandatory sentencing – actually achieve? When you look at the data, can you see improvements in actual outcomes you are seeking? Here’s a study suggesting a laudable police/justice policy (mandatory sentencing for domestic abuse) may end up doing harm. I have no idea of the validity of this individual study, but it’s the kind of analysis we should see more of." (Hugh for Alistair).
What You Learn When You’re 60 – The Lefsetz Letter. "We’re getting older, not younger. Not quite 60 yet, but it’s closer than it used to be. Lots of good advice from legendary music writer Bob Lefsetz." (Hugh for Mitch).
Slidedocs – Nancy Duarte. "I often get asked two questions after I speak in public. Question #1: Can I have your slides? Question #2: Who makes your slides? I take these both as compliments (and, for the record, no you can’t have them and I designed them all myself). I don’t give out my slides, because there is not much on them. It’s usually just a photo, a quote, a simple stat or an embedded video. I try to keep them as simple as possible, and they are merely there to support the words that are coming out of my mouth. I refined this technique because I follow the brilliant advice of Nancy Duarte (check out her books, Slide:ology and Resonate). She has a new book out and it’s called, Slidedocs… oh, and it’s free. A slidedoc is a hybrid of a presentation and richer content mixed together so that you’re reading (like a book) but enjoying it, because it’s more visual. I think Nancy is on to something. Slidedocs can either be the perfect leave behind or a whole new way to publish books. Either way, me likes!" (Mitch for Alistair).
Why we love books by cool writers – The Globe And Mail. "You’re trying to impress someone. A girl. A boss. A relative. Whatever. You want them to think that you’re smart, right? Make sure you have the right books. Scratch that. Not just the right books, but the cool books. People will like you if they know you’ve read Kerouac, Hemingway and Bukowski, right? Why is that? What is a cool writer? Why do we love them so? We’re all suckers for a cool writer… right?" (Mitch for Hugh).