Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #257

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 Six Best Tips From ‘On Writing Well’ – James Altucher. “I absolutely adored this book; Zinsser passed away recently, and I don’t think anyone’s ever written about writing better. It’s doubly hard; your audience is scrutinizing your every word, hoping to catch you out. Yet Zinsser prevails, and even now, as I write this, I’m feeling his stern, caring gaze worrying over every word.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Simulated Worlds Will Soon Be Indistinguishable From Reality – Motherboard. “What if virtual worlds are indistinguishable from real ones? The tech for simulations is getting better and better, and soon, we’ll be able to lose ourselves in them. That has some pretty significant ethical and social consequences–most simulations could be better than our real worlds. Or maybe… we’re already in one.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• The day when roads will harness solar energy is drawing near – Quartz. “As a kid I spent much of my summers at a little cottage in the mountains in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. I remember walking, barefoot, along the paved road by our house — and how baking hot it was. Imagine if instead of baking feet & tires, and ruining the landscape, and interrupting turtle crossings, all those miles of roads we have were turned into giant solar energy arrays? There is something like 4million km of roads in the USA, which makes something like 20 billion square meters of potential solar arrays, which could generate about 20 billion kW of electricity… did I get my numbers right? Anyway, maybe Elon Musk will do it.” (Hugh for Alistair). 
• Sharing fast and slow: The psychological connection between how we think and how we spread news on social media – Nieman Lab. “This is an oldie (from 2013), but I hadn’t seen it. It’s about two different kinds of information, and how the brain processes it… called here fast & slow (after Daniel Kahneman‘s work). The article highlights research on how different kinds of information are shared and interacted with online, and the kinds of things that cause that interaction.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• Patagonia’s Anti-Growth Strategy – The New Yorker. “What if growth wasn’t the only metric that mattered when it came to business? What if a great business was all about creating things that people not only want to use, but that can be used for a long, long time. Quality. The kind of stuff that we buy and that can get passed down to future generations. Imagine how comforting it would be for your daughter to eventually wear that spring jacket that you wore (and worked in) for decades. It just feels like dad, doesn’t it? Laughable? Silly thinking? Patagonia is thinking very differently about what success means in business. Personally (and selfishly), it would be nice to have them as a client.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• The Bookstore Built by Jeff Kinney, the ‘Wimpy Kid’ – The New York Times. “We need more people like this. People who do not want the physical book to die… or the bookstores in which they are housed. There is still romance in bookstores and in books. There are still people (like me), who can’t walk past a book store (used, independent or massive chain) without walking in and doing a dead tree graze. Maybe the world needs more people like Jeff Kinney. Maybe the world needs more people like Hugh, Alistair and I… the kind of folks who like to go out, roam the bookstores and, actually buy some stuff there.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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