Six Links Worthy of Your Attention #597

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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, 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: 

  • Bank transfers as a payment method – Bits About Money“This is a really dry, but really fascinating, look at what payments really are. ‘A payment is a message, with new information, about a debt, with a certain confidence level associated with it.’ It’s not, as you might think, simply sending money from one place to another. Reframing how I think about payments helped me unlock a better understanding of many concepts in finance and tech, and might help you too.” (Alistair for Hugh).
  • Someone Unearthed A 1997 Wired Article Predicting ’10 Things That Could Go Wrong In The 21st Century’ — And Nearly All Of Them Came True – digg. “It’s hard to predict the future. But this ancient (in Internet terms) set of predictions is pretty spot on. What one prediction do you think is going to come true 25 years from now, Mitch?” (Alistair for Mitch).
  • Why ‘Slap Shot’ Captures the 1970s Better Than Any Other Sports Movie – Rolling Stone. “I wonder what will be the film/comedy touchstones in 40 years’ time. But there was a period from late 70s to mid 80s where comedy films were either really great, or I was really impressionable. Slap Shot, made in 1977 was a bit before my time, but when I first watched it, probably 1986, well let’s say it made an impression on me and just about every kid that I knew. I was still watching it by the time I hit university, and I can still reel off reams of dialogue from the film (a bunch of it in French — the Quebecois translation might even be better than the original). Anyway, here’s to a film classic.” (Hugh for Alistair).
  • Victorian headless portrait – Wikipedia“I should have sent this for Halloween, but…: In the 1890s the newish technology of photography created a bit of a fad in England, where clever photographers created images of headless people (often holding their own heads) by splicing together two negatives. Take that, Photoshop.” (Hugh for Mitch). 
  • We Are Not All Journalists – Douglas Rushkoff – Medium. Douglas Rushkoff is such a brilliant mind. I often get frustrated that he/his work isn’t even more famous. This is a great little article with deep, deep insights. In this piece he takes on influencers and anyone who is too busy creating content on social media to experience what they’re actually capturing… ‘It was like a wedding where everyone was a wedding photographer, but no one was a guest. No one knew how to party for its own sake.’ Do we know how to live or do we know how to capture moments in time? What have we become?” (Mitch for Alistair).
  • ‘I am not gonna die on the internet for you!’: how game streaming went from dream job to a burnout nightmare – The Guardian. “I’ve noticed this weird trend. It usually involves YouTubers… ones that have significant followings… it’s like they constantly have to be one-upping themselves, and then they wind up recording a video talking about how down or burned out they are, because they can’t figure out what their followers want any more. It’s kinda sad. The life seems so romantic: Make some fun videos and make millions of dollars (and don’t forget the fame that comes along with it). There’s a dark side to everything. Here’s another example: Imagine getting paid to play video games. It sounds like the life. For the ones that make it? It can be a nightmare…” (Mitch for Hugh).   

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on TwitterFacebook, 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):