Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #267

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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 (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:

  • How Our Brains Make Memories – Smithsonian. “I’m speaking at OSCON this week about what the future will look like — an intersection of big data, smart agents, and augmented reality — and one of the key points is that when we delegate memory to machines, it’ll change what we remember, and with it, how we act. I came across this Smithsonian article on how we form memories; fascinating stuff.” (Alistair for Hugh).
  • The Faulty Walnut – The Book of Life. “Continuing on this thread, here’s a thoughful piece I found via Philosopher, Alain de Botton, on how bad our brain is at thinking, and why we should be aware of our own fallacies. Actually, the whole damned thing is good reading; as it explains, we only have 500,000 hours or so on this mortal coil, so we’d better pay attention.” (Alistair for Mitch).
  • The Videos That Are Putting Race and Policing Into Sharp Relief – The New York Times. “This has been an extraordinary year in race relations in the US. Extraordinarily bad in so many ways, but one of the most striking things is the way in which video technology (bystander cellphone video; police body cams) has surfaced this appallingly long catalog of brutal (often deadly) police interactions with citizens. This almost-daily stream of examples of abuse will surely change the way policing is done… and perhaps will help shift our understanding of what it means to be black and white, help shift how we understand the role of race in our societies, help us reevaluate abstract things such as power structures, and concrete things such as how we train our cops.” (Hugh for Alistair).
  • Dave Grohl, Chad Smith and more on Ringo’s drumming – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Famous drummers talk about what was so great about Ringo Starr‘s drumming. Lovely little video.” (Hugh for Mitch).
  • A Visual Introduction to Machine Learning – R2D3“I get to see/have access to a bunch of interesting things. Whether it’s through the types of forward-thinking conferences that I am invited to, or the company I keep with certain interesting startups in Silicon Valley. Machine learning is, without question, the most important technological evolution that is taking place. Yes, machines are learning (like, artificial intelligence, etc…) on their own. Most people (especially marketers) haven’t thought much about this, but they should. So few businesses even understand the power of marketing automation. As machine learning becomes more pervasive (and it will), it’s going to change everything. This is one of the best introductions to machine learning that I have ever seen.” (Mitch for Alistair).
  • How the way you type can shatter anonymity – Ars Technica. “Forget your fingerprints or your eyeballs, what if we could identify you by the way that you type? Sounds crazy? Nope… it’s true. Imagine it being impossible to shield your privacy online, just because how you type is as unique of an identifier as your DNA.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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