Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #157

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 (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) 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 Tulipomania – Project Gutenberg. "I’m always looking for interesting historical content. This is no exception–a book on the madness of crowds from Charles Mackay. It explains a number of popular delusions, so I’ve made this link point to one in particular, on the great tulip mania. But it’s chock-full of interesting stories, and because it’s told in a long-gone age itself, is doubly interesting. Also, I win the Most Obscure Link This Week award automatically." (Alistair for Hugh).
• Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere – Kieran Healy. "There’s been a lot written in the past couple of weeks about data, privacy, and wiretapping. This was my favorite piece. It re-imagines the British trying to catch Revere using only his social graph. Had they access to the rebel’s contacts, it would have been an easy matter to thwart the US independence. That it’s written in the language of the time makes it all the juicer." (Alistair for Mitch).
• What happened when I started a feminist society at school – The Guardian. "This past year has seen a lot to make you think that something is very wrong with how Western society, boys, men (and even other women) treat women: the Steubenville rape case, Nigella Lawson, the pillorying Sheryl Sandberg was subjected to for her book, Lean In. The things themselves are bad enough, but what’s shocked me is the reactions and commentary around these events. Here’s more bad news, from a teen girl in England who tried to start a Feminist Society at her school." (Hugh for Alistair).
• This Is What Happens When Publishers Invest In Long Stories – Fast Company. "The magazine Fast Company has been experimenting with something one of their writers calls a ‘slow live blog.’ When a story breaks they make a ‘stub,’ a URL with the basic information. But then they keep building on the story, adding new information, more context, links and updates, all in the same place. Analytics show: people love it. As I’ve written before here: long-form has a shining future."  (Hugh for Mitch).
• Profits Without Production – The New York Times. "Think about this piece of data: When GM was in its prime (1950 – 1960), its value came from its production capabilities. With hundreds of factories, they employed about one percent of the total nonfarm workforce. Compare that to Apple today. As one of the highest valued companies in America, they employ 0.05% of the American workforce. On top of that, their cost of production has no significant link to what they charge for their products and services. Basically, they charge what the market will bear. Think that changes our world of economics and policy? Paul Krugman does." (Mitch for Alistair).
• Whatever Happened To Terence Trent D’Arby?  – The New Yorker. "I often find myself deep down the rabbit hole on YouTube. I’m a child of the eighties and I have what can only be described as a ‘guilty pleasure’ eclectic taste is cheeseball pop and hair metal. I’m not asking for forgiveness. On those rabbit hole runs on YouTube, I’ll find myself spending hours watching recent video clips of Level 42 playing some random Yugoslavian music festival (I made up the Yugoslavian part, but the rest is true). I also happen to love bands that only had a few big hits, but decades later are still peeling them off for audiences, simply because they love making music. It was hard not to know the name Terence Trent D’Arby back then. The word was that he would be the next James Brown or Prince… or both combined. It never happened. And here’s why. I also concede that Terence Trent D’Arby is not as obscure as Alistair’s The Tulipomania, but it’s close." (Mitch for Hugh). 

Now it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.