Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #496

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: 

• Here’s Yoda singing about his big boy stick, courtesy of Bad Lip Reading – Mashable. “It’s the holidays, so I’m not going to get too serious on you. And Baby Yoda is a thing now. Huge kudos to Jon Favreau for convincing Disney to forego what must have been millions in merchandising potential this Christmas to avoid a giant spoiler, and not festooning retail stores with Baby Yoda dolls. But now, it’s time for a Bad Lip Reading.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Romance Novels, Generated by Artificial Intelligence – Towards Data Science – Medium. “There’s lots about the romance novel industry that’s artificial. And they’re fairly formulaic. So, it only makes sense to feed them into an algorithm, and see what that the formula generates. I’ve shared a couple of examples of this recently (I was going to share AI Dungeon, a text-based adventure game that’s remarkably close to ‘playable’, but the incredible demand has made its servers pretty hungry, and it isn’t as reliable as I’d like. Benedict Evans says that many technologies start out as toys, and are discounted as a result. What’s interesting about AI (at this stage) is the mirror it shines on ourselves—training the model on the data shows us, for example, that romance novels love the ocean and high-paying professional jobs (in fact, Surgery by the Sea, one of the AI-generated titles, turns out to be a real book!).” (Alistair for Mitch).
• Memories Can Be Injected and Survive Amputation and Metamorphosis – Nautilus. “How many times have you asked yourself, ‘If a headless worm can regrow a memory, then where is the memory stored?’ If that question piques your interest, then how about: can you cut off the tail of a planarian (type of worm) and get that worm to regrow a head in place of the tail (answer: yes); or, Where are memories stored, exactly?” (Hugh for Alistair).
• How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger – NPR. “I try hard not to, but I sometimes shout at my kids. For Inuit, an adult shouting is a sign of someone behaving like a child. Which is how I usually feel a minute after shouting. Inuits don’t shout at their kids, but they do have a gentle kind of discipline that’s effective.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• The Flying Circus – Henry Mintzberg. “I’ve had the pleasure of knowing management guru, Henry Mintzberg, for many years. First, as a child. His daughter and I went to elementary school together. Back then, you never really knew or understood what, exactly, our parents did for a living (or why it even mattered). Then, as I became a business book nerd, his true greatness emerged. Most of the the modern management practices that we have (and take for granted) come from his frameworks, thinking, and ideologies. Don’t believe me? Check out Mintzberg on Management. Now, Henry is thinking about less about how we manage people (and businesses) and much more about how we manage this worldly mess that we find ourselves in. With that, I’ve been fortunate to spend more and more time with Henry, helping him to figure out how to get his greater message out to the masses. While we were brainstorming last week, he reminded me that his book about travel, The Flying Circus, is a free PDF that anyone can download. So, if you find yourself traveling during this holiday season and looking for something to read… here you go!” (Mitch for Alistair).
• Bestselling Novelist Chuck Wendig On Finding His Voice, Productivity In Writing, and The Multi-Headed Beast Called “Writer’s Block” – Writing Routines. “When it comes to writing, I am a big fan of two things. One, this regular feature called, Writing Routines (get on the email list). Two, Chuck Wendig’s newsletter (and/or anything he ever writes about the practice and art of writing). Chuck is hilarious and deeply insightful. Take this answer to the age old question of when and where a writer prefers to write: ‘Once upon a time (where ‘a time’ is defined as roughly ‘two months ago’) I wrote in a writing shed. Not like, where you keep lawnmowers – it was a nice shed with electricity and HVAC and what not. But I have since moved and have no shed, so currently I’m writing in a (*shudder*) room in my house like some kind of criminal. But! I will have a shed again. Already the sinister plans have begun. Thinking of installing some kind of LASER this time. As for time – mornings are good for me, usually.’ So good… and it only gets better.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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