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, Interesting Bits, 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: 

• The greatest joke in the world – Chris Ferrie – Medium. “Four physicists are riding in a car. You’ve probably heard this one before—but I doubt you’ve heard it with an explanation of the history of quantum physics, taken to an almost philosophical speculation on the meaning of existence.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• The Fierce Legal Battle at the Heart of the Fight Over Reclining Airline Seats – Slate. “Mitch, we both spend (or spent!) too much time on planes. Who owns that gap between your knees and the seatback? It’s unclear, and airlines like it that way, so they can sell it twice. As this post shows, hacking possession is a good way for many brands to sell the same thing twice, and leave the consumers fighting about the resulting ambiguity.” (Alistair for Mitch).  
• Public Trees of Montreal. “Every once in a while, I stumble across something authorities have done and I just have to sit down and say: Who was the genius working in civil service who not only conceived this, but made it happen? To whomever it was within the City of Montreal who got this done, I tip my hat to you – you wonderful human. Here’s a map of all the trees planted by the City of Montreal. You can zoom down to the individual tree, including the one on my front lawn, and get species and date it was planted (mine is a skyline honey locust, planted on September 6th 2010).” (Hugh for Alistair).
• Near Futures with Kim Stanley Robinson – The Dig. “Kim Stanley Robinson has written some fantastic near future scifi, with his last few books focusing on climate change, and his general oeuvre preoccupied with the building and rebuilding of societies. His futures are often both catastrophic and optimistic, which is refreshing: doom only gets you so far (side note: I am so so happy with where podcasting has finally landed, that is: very long conversations with fascinating people that allow us to really dig into ideas).” (Hugh for Mitch).
• Kat Norton’s spiritual journey to becoming a Microsoft Excel influencer – Quartz at Work. “Who was it that said, ‘If you live long enough, you will see everything’? Sure, we’re in the age of the influencer. Sure, influencers can capture any number of niches. With that, if I asked you to list what categories and verticals might be best suited for an influencer, how long would it take us to land on someone who makes Microsoft Excel spreadsheets this exciting? Dump on the Internet all you want… this is what makes it glorious. There’s a campfire for everything, and you get to decide which one will make you all warm and fuzzy.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• Survival of the Fittest – The New York Times Review. “I get to thank Hugh McGuire for introducing me to a lot of things over the eleven-plus years that we have been doing these weekly link exchanges, but one of the best intros ever was to the writing of Nicholson Baker (author of this article). In this writing, we get to read his review of the book, Pause and Effect – An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West by M. B. Parkes. So, a book review about a book about writing and punctuation. If you’re word nerd (like me)… here’s some glory…” (Mitch for Hugh).

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

Are you interested in what’s next? How to decode the future? I publish between 2-3 times per week and then the Six Pixels of Separation Podcast comes out every Sunday. Feel free to subscribe (and tell your friends):