Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #463

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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 (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) 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: 

  • This Was Supposed to Be a Story About a Bizarre Anti-Vaccine Rally and a Sedated Bear. Then It Got Weird – Gizmodo. “I can’t wait for the documentary. If you can fight fire with fire, can you fight fake news with fakery? This goes down a rathole pretty fast—and it’s wonderful.” (Alistair for Hugh).
  • The Spycraft Revolution – Foreign Policy. “Those scenes in Bond movies where the villain meets Bond under a pseudonym look pretty silly in an era of social media. ‘No, Mr. Bond, I looked on Facebook and clearly Universal Exports doesn’t exist, and there are no photos of you from before last year.’ Tech has fundamentally changed the tradecraft of spy work. ‘A cover identity that would have been almost bulletproof only twenty years ago can now be unraveled in a few minutes,’ says the piece, and ‘authoritarian states have an advantage over liberal democracies.’ Good food for thought.” (Alistair for Mitch).
  • The End of Cyberspace – The Atlantic. “Here’s what John Perry Barlow wrote in 1996: ‘Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.’ It is quite amazing the ways in which this now looks naive, wrong, scary. Not only was it wrong, but it’s all much worse than we might have imagined.” (Hugh for Alistair).
  • Down and Out in the Gig Economy – The New Republic. “A most depressing description of the journalism business, from the pen of a freelance writer.” (Hugh for Mitch).
  • Is It Still Punk When the Musician Makes It Big? – Lit Hub. “Art and ’selling out.’ This is always a topic that confused me. Especially when it comes to the fans. In one sense, we want to keep our artists personal. In another sense, we want everyone to love what we love. So, when an artist does get traction, what happens? Fame. Money. Mainstream appeal. Is that corrosive? What happens when an artist pushes back against mainstream attention, but still makes a ton of money. This is a great piece. Plus: Punk!” (Mitch for Alistair). 
  • No Treble Top 10 Groove Podcast Episodes – No Treble. “I have a not-so-secret secret. For over four years, I’ve been creating and publishing another podcast. Not my Six Pixels of Separation one, but one that is called, Groove – The No Treble Podcast. It’s quirky. It’s weird. It’s very niche. I’m deeply in love with it and the process. In short, I used to play the electric bass. I don’t play much anymore, but I love the instrument, the music it makes and the artists who can play it. No Treble is the largest platform (online, print, etc…) for bass players. The connective tissue here is Seth Godin. Seth introduced me to No Treble’s founder, Corey Brown (who was Seth’s partner in Squidoo) and we conjured up the idea for this podcast: to build the largest oral history of bass players in the world. Well, No Treble celebrated its 10th anniversary this past week, and published this article which looked at the Top 10 episodes of the podcast I have been working on. It’s hard to get people who don’t know the players to listen, but here’s the thing: these are fascinating stories about creativity, innovation, artistry, struggle, art and more. I hope you will give it a try (if you haven’t already).” (Mitch for Hugh). 

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