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:
- Mapping London. "While in the UK, I’ve been attending events as part of Big Data Week. Last night, I watched a fascinating series on visualization, which included the Mapping London project. It tracks everything from bike commuters to tube riders geographically. But this one is interesting for another reason: Britons have many restrictions on what they can do legally — my cousin told me she’s not allowed to ask prospective hires how many years’ experience they have, because it’s considered age-discriminatory. I imagine that a survey of Londoners by racial profile would be similarly controversial and frowned upon. But an analysis of last names — Smith versus Singh, for example, is trivial. This is a great example of how hard it can be to legislate and govern data. For everything we ban, there’s likely a close parallel that’s easy to collect and comparatively unregulated. Want to know where your tribe lives? Map London by last name." (Alistair for Hugh).
- Lady’s orange wig, lipstick and ‘five regrets of the dying’ newspaper cutting found alongside body of spy in the bag, and SOMEONE ELSE locked him inside – The Daily Mail. "I’m in England for a family vacation, and as a result my media diet has been filled with Murdoch, hoodies, sheep, Olympics, and TOWIEs. It reminds me of how little news actually makes it across international barriers and through our media filters. This story, in particular, has transfixed us, and I can’t believe it hasn’t seen further attention. It sounds like a Bourne Identity script, or at least an elaborate episode of CSI — an MI6 code breaker, found locked in a gym bag, with the padlock beneath him, in a room full of £20K of unworn women’s clothing. Nobody seems to have any explanations. Oh, and it happened two years ago. How am I just hearing about this now? Media bubbles indeed." (Alistair for Mitch).
- Letter to Jeff Walker regarding "Blade Runner" – Letters. "In 1981, science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick saw a preview on television of the film Blade Runner, which is based on his novel, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?‘ This is the letter he sent to the producer of the movie. Unfortunately, PKD died shortly after this, and never got a chance to see the complete film." (Hugh for Alistair).
- Six Rules for Dining Out – The Atlantic. "Mitch, you travel more than anyone I know. Here are some suggestions and advice about finding good food when you are on the road, including: choose Vietnamese over Thai, unless the Thai restaurant is attached to a hotel. And: avoid restaurants with many smiling, beautiful women." (Hugh for Mitch).
- Get Rich U – The New Yorker. "I’ve been fascinated with geography lately. Not maps or games of memory, but why people are located where they are. What is it about Silicon Valley that makes it such a hotbed of innovation, technology and talent? Most people aren’t born there, but they move there… making a pilgrimage (of sorts). Much in the same way people went out in gold rush times. You would think that technology changes that. You would think that great ideas can come from anywhere. The truth is that they can (and do). Yet, still, if you want to make it in Hollywood, you have to be in Hollywood. In this article, Ken Auletta looks at the Chinese walls (or there lack of) that exists between Stanford University and Silicon Valley’s thirst to find the next Facebook or Instagram or…" (Mitch for Alistair).
- Words Came In, Marked For Death – The New Yorker. "Virginia, our Executive Creative Director at Twist Image flipped this gem my way (so thank her, not me). The folks over at The New Yorker launched a Twitter-based game called, Questioningly. In the first round, they asked readers to recommend a single English word that should be completely removed from the language by taking suggestions via Facebook and Twitter (gamers were asked to use the hahstag #tnyquestion). Read on to discover what happened and the hilarity (or weirdness) of smart people (or the criminally insane)." (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.