Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #225

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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:

  • Why The U.S. Chills Its Eggs And Most Of The World Doesn’t – NPR. "I’ve always wondered about this. Turns out there are good reasons why. Also, if you live in the US, you probably shouldn’t keep your eggs on the counter." (Alistair for Hugh).
  • You are not your browser history – Medium. "Jer Thorp has been working with a group of smart researchers and journalists on a project that lets people see how advertisers profile them. The result is a browser plug-in, which hopefully will help show how ad algorithms decide who sees what (and who’s marginalized as a result.) To kick it off, Jer asked ten strangers to profile him based on his ad history." (Alistair for Mitch).
  • The Most Ambitious Environmental Lawsuit Ever – The New York Times Magazine. "Louisiana, oil and environmental destruction." (Hugh for Alistair).
  • Roughly Three Minutes of Bill Murray Singing Along to Bob Dylan – Gawker. "Sometimes bad things are good. Here is Bill Murray smoking butts and singing along with Bob Dylan. Was this the ‘best’ link of the week? No. Not really. But I like it." (Hugh for Mitch).
  • 30 Self-Help Books That Permanently Changed My Life – Time. "Some people… scratch that… a lot of people seem to poo poo self-help books. I don’t. I take them very seriously, so long as they are written by someone with who either has tremendous credibility or someone with something real to say. Regardless of how ‘light’ some of these books can be, there are often nuggets in them that roll around between my earholes and keep me thinking – or at least, reflecting – on some of the bigger things in my life that I should be paying more attention to. Here is is a list of thirty books… most of them I haven’t read, but many of them have helped me… deeply." (Mitch for Alistair). 
  • What You Need To Know About Your Second Draft – Terrible Minds. "We live in a world where we write blog posts, online articles and more with little happening in terms of the editing process. We write, we check quickly for spelling mistakes and we publish. Serious writers work with editors. They tear their words to shreds. They re-write sections (sometimes, the entire piece). Self-editing doesn’t even hold a candle to working with an editor. Rarely do we see people doing a lot of self-editing. How many times have you written a blog post, stepped away from it, came back and made a second draft of your work? Here’s a wonderful piece that breaks down the value in editing… and multiple drafts. It’s essential reading for anyone who likes to create with words." (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.