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:
- IBM Selectric Typewriter and its Digital to Analogue Converter – YouTube. “The Selectric was a real innovation — instead of dozens of little arms flying up, it featured a small ball that spun quickly as you typed. Behind the scenes, it was converting digital information (which key was pressed) to analog movement (spinning and tilting the ball). It also paved the way for the computer printer. Here’s how.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- Before I Go – Time warps for a young surgeon with metastatic lung cancer - Paul Kalanithi. “The future tense seemed vacant and, on others’ lips, jarring. I recently celebrated my 15th college reunion; it seemed rude to respond to parting promises from old friends, ‘We’ll see you at the 25th!’ with a ‘Probably not!’. A neurosurgeon talks about time dilation as a surgeon, and as a patient. Moving.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- The Humane Representation of Thought – Bret Victor. “Stunning talk about how representing thoughts in new ways (writing, mathematics) transformed our worlds, and what new – and more accessible – kinds of representations of thought are possible.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- That Way We’re All Writing Now – The Message. “Clive Thompson on some of the latest linguistic trends.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- Which Flight Will Get You There Fastest? – FiveThirtyEight. “I had to fly from Jacksonville, Florida to Montreal this week. It involved one stop-over in Washington (IAD). Usually not a problem, but my layover was only 45 minutes. That’s just shy of enough time to keep me out of the anxiety zone. I was shocked that I made the connection. Love data? Are you often on a plane? Is there any kind of method to the madness that is airline travel cancellations, delays and frustrations? Let’s bring in Nate Silver and see. ‘FiveThirtyEight analyzed 6 million flights to figure out which airports, airlines and routes are most likely to get you there on time and which ones will leave you waiting.’ That’s how he describes his tool. If you do travel, you may want to bookmark this one… and avoid LGA.” (Mitch for Alistair).
- Everyone’s opinions are fatiguing after a while – even your own – The Guardian. “Peak Social Media. Is it enough already? At what point, will we all look at each other and wonder if we can go back to simpler and more serendipitous times? Over-sharing, FOMO… call it what you want. We are constantly on display. Few of us display the rawness of who we are. Most of us display the version of us that we hope others will believe. Is it exhausting? Is there too much pressure in making sure that we’re fully updated across all social networks? Can we then handle all of the comments, likes and shares? Human beings are media channels. Like it or not. The question is this: were we built to be media channels?” (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
The Humane Representation of Thought from Bret Victor on Vimeo.