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 Man Who Destroyed America’s Ego – Will Starr – Medium. “Children should be raised with unconditional encouragement. At least, that’s what Carl Rogers said, and after centuries of belief in Original Sin, it was a refreshing change. If someone was mean, or violent, it was because their ego was threatened. So, imagine the fun when, in 1996, Roy Baumeister contradicted all of this with science. Instead, he said, evil was often accompanied by high self-esteem: ‘Dangerous people, from playground bullies to warmongering dictators, consist mostly of those who have highly favorable views of themselves.’ /me gets popcorn, particularly after your link last week about violence and morality. Your move, McGuire.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Unlocking Our Future Past – Solve For Interesting. “When, over five years ago, we started this Six Links thing, it was basically a way to share what we would have talked breathlessly about over lunch. Well, ‘m going to break a rule here, and link to something I wrote, mostly because right now, that’s all I’d talk about. Briefly, in the last year it has become very apparent to me that machines will soon be able to explain what’s happening in videos, and they’ll get faster and better at this every day. Which unlocks the history we have locked in video, and makes it searchable and quantifiable. This has huge, widespread consequences.” (Alistair for Mitch, with apologies for narcissism).
• Assisted Drawing – Samin – Medium. “I’ve linked to a few AI doom-and-gloom articles in our weekly share, but this week I’m highlighting some other, more interesting AI stuff, looking at how AI might help in creation of art (or, more prosaically, wireframes!)… There is so much that we do that will become so much easier, soon I guess. On the one hand, this is great – making certain simple things easier to do means we can spend more time thinking about and working on more complex problems. That’s the theory anyway, though there is always a worry about what happens when you decouple, for instance, the act of sketching from the process of sketching. You might lose some important cognitive steps in creation. So, you might lose. You might gain. As with all tech advances, chances are… we’ll do both.” (Hugh for Alistair).
• Japanese Bookstore Sells Only Only One Book Per Week, Which Is One Way To Decide What To Read – Bustle. “This could only happen in Japan. A book store is stalking one book – only one book – per week. Monday night, the old books get shipped out, new books get shipped in for Tuesday morning. They hold events every night to discuss their one book. I love this notion for many reasons. Our digital lives are so overstuffed with information – finding ways to pull ourselves out of this flood is critical to our sanity. Or mine, anyway. I love that it’s one book. I love the sense of curation, of common public community, I love that you can go any night of the week to discuss that book – with other people. And, I love that the bookstore owner describes his philosophy as: ‘Issatsug, Isshitsu,’ which translates as ‘A Single Room, A Single Book.'” (Hugh for Mitch).
• 10 Of The Scariest Scientific Hypotheses Known To Man. These Are Terrifying – Knowable. “It’s the holiday season! A time for joy, celebration and family. Those special moments that force us to step back and appreciate everything that we have. What better way to celebrate this moment in time than to read an article like this? Yes, that is sarcasm. So, who are we? Why are we here? We have some theories, some philosophies and some science to help us feel comfortable with our inability to control our outcomes (or anything else for that matter). So, what if some of these scientific hypotheses are true? Enjoy your eggnog…” (Mitch for Alistair).
• The magic that makes Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists so damn good – Quartz. “My theory is that the best algorithms in the world, will be the ones that we – the humans – never notice but always appreciate. An algorithm should be like an awesome waiter in a fancy restaurant. Your water is always filled and frigid, and they’re never interrupting the flow of your evening. Yes, an excellent service. The place to spot this excellence in algorithms is happening – for many – in their streaming music services. Some of these computer-driven playlists are astoundingly great, and feel like they’ve been curated by an uber music nerd of the highest order. Read this to understand just how smart digital experiences are going to get, when it comes to personalization and engines of discovery.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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