Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #236

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:

Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own late 80s Operating System. “What would you do if you were off the grid with an old computer, completely isolated from the world? This guy got pretty inventive. Much more a story of amazing human spirit in horrible conditions, but also some pretty decent hackery. Sidenote: this is the first time I’ve posted a link to imgur, which has come a long way from a simple image uploader. Guess it’s a social network now.” (Alistair for Hugh).
The Rise and Fall of @FairmountBagel – Medium. “If you’re a Montrealer, you know which bagels you like best – St. Viateur or Fairmount. Bagels, for Montrealers, are kind of a big deal. We’ll take on any New Yorker claiming their fluffy, starchy donuts are the real deal. Yes, Bara, I’m looking at you. Anyway: someone decided to create a fake social media account for one of them. Hilarity, and not a little chest-puffery, ensued. Also a perfect case study in social engineering.” (Alistair for Mitch).
The Myth Of AI – Edge. “Contrarian, Jaron Lanier, explores the recent spate of worry over Artificial Intelligence, and why we might be worried about the wrong things.” (Hugh for Alistair).
A Weapon for Readers – The New York Review of Books. “One of the great design problems for digital reading… is how to put the pen back in the readers’ hands.” (Hugh for Mitch).
Nicholas Carr’s dire warning: How technology is “making the world less interesting” – Salon. “This is something I have often blogged about. With all of this automation, we should – as human beings – become that much more creative and able to do more interesting things. Or not. There is also the possibility that automation will make us lazy and boring. Right? If we leave everything up to the algorithms, will they give us new and exciting things or will it just show us a very narrow view of the world? It’s for humans to decide.” (Mitch for Alistair).
The Messy Minds of Creative People – Scientific American. “I was being interviewed a while back after the release of my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete. I can’t remember what media outlet it was for, but the interviewer was very interested in understanding my creative process for the book, in comparison with what I publish on the blog or for other outlets (websites, newspapers, magazines, etc…). As a writer, I do my best to publish for the medium. To use my own voice but ‘adjusted’ so that it fits. For the book, I realized that my process looks… unrefined… if I am to be honest. In truth, I believe all creativity is very messy. Very, very messy.” (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.