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Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #503

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:

Modelling the coronavirus epidemic in a city with Python – Towards Data Science – Medium. “No, this isn’t about snakes. Python and R are two popular languages for data science. Another aspect of the current virus epidemic is that we’re much, much better at making mathematical models. Well, not better, maybe—but equipped as citizen scientists. You don’t need to understand math (though it helps!) to make sense of the models in this post; they actually make predictions about the effects of things like quarantine and transportation.” (Alistair for Hugh).
What the coronavirus forcing me in lockdown’s taught me about cooking; plus, how to make Mantou – Reddit. “One of the fascinating things about the otherwise-horrible spread of respiratory disease is that we’re all connected. While people might be quarantined, and otherwise cut off, there are thousands of slice-of-life stories out there of people documenting what they’re doing and how they’re coping. Here’s a food blogger from China writing about constraints, which turns into a reflection on the invention of recipes.” (Alistair for Mitch).
Coronavirus ‘could infect 60% of global population if unchecked’ – The Guardian. “And in good news, well, how’s your math? A 1% mortality rate, potential 60% global population infected, no, no, nothing to see here.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills – Bloomberg Green. “You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, as the saying goes.” (Hugh for Mitch).
42 Hours of Ambient Sounds from Blade Runner, Alien, Star Trek and Doctor Who Will Help You Relax & Sleep – Open Culture. “Well, here’s something that you don’t see every day. Need to chill out, meditate or fall asleep? How about doing it to the ambient and background sounds from one of your favorite science fiction shows? This is glorious for all (not just the nerds like me, who wonder what it might sound like to live, work and sleep in deep space).” (Mitch for Alistair).
All Your Favorite Brands, From BSTOEM to ZGGCD – The New York Times. “Brands. Trademarks. Third-party sellers. Amazon. It’s all one hot mess and super-confusing if you’re an uniformed consumer. I have this massage gun that works wonders for my back (and random muscle sets). A friend wanted to know which brand it was. I could not remember, so I did a quick search on Amazon… and got completely lost. Hundreds of massage guns… brands I had never heard of… pricing that is all over the map, and each one with great reviews (hundreds… thousands of reviews). What’s going on here? Welcome to the future of brands, confusion, one global marketplace and questions about what, exactly, Amazon will do about it? (Besides being a trillion dollar company).” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.