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:
- Cargo Cult Science – Richard Feynman. "Richard Feynman is always enlightening. In this piece – laced with his groovy patter and hip sensibilities -he reminds us that much of science is sloppy and built on bad findings of others. In an age of information obesity, a skeptic’s diet is a good thing. As Feynman says in this commencement address, ‘we really ought to look into theories that don’t work, and science that isn’t science’." (Alistair for Hugh).
- Reciprocal Altruism: Why the Valley Works and Why Not to Screw Over People – StartUpHoodlum. "It turns out that there’s a good reason why Silicon Valley runs on a mixture of greed and altruism: game theory. The closely-connected environment and reciprocal favours are the basis for interesting game theory. I’ve seen this in my twenty years working with tech folks, but never spelled out this clearly." (Alistair for Mitch).
- The Great Bank Robbery – Project Syndicate. "Talk about strange: US bankers paid themselves $2.2 trillion in the past five years." (Hugh for Alistair).
- Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult – TruthOut. "The split between left and right is getting wider and stranger all of the time in the US. Here’s a former Republican staffer with an inside view on what’s going on in the Great Republic to the South." (Hugh for Mitch).
- Why the Impossible Happens More Often – The Technium. "Kevin Kelly is not only the founding executive editor of Wired Magazine, he also happens to be one of the brightest thinkers when it comes to technology and digital culture (if you’ve never read his books, Out of Control or What Technology Wants, you really should). In this Blog post, Kelly takes a look at what true entrepreneurship is really all about (without really saying it): proving that something is, in fact, not impossible. We’ve heard stories like this countless times in our lives or smacked ourselves on the foreheads for not coming up with something that went on to change our society. It happens more than we think and it’s something we should all be striving for." (Mitch for Alistair).
- Great digital expectations – The Economist. "The writing is on the wall. It happened with video rentals (see the demise of Blockbuster) and it happened with CDs (see the demise of the music industry as we knew it). It’s happening with books too. People will tell you that it’s different with books (the feel, touch and smell of the paper), but Amazon will tell you otherwise. Even in Canada, the largest bookseller (Chapters Indigo) is starting to look more like a giftware store than a book retailer. This article starts off with a fascinating thought: as the digitization of books take hold, what is Ikea supposed to sell? We tend to forget the many other industries that become affected when one major industry becomes digitized. As computers become more portable too, there is less need for a home office, bookshelves, etc…" (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.