Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #369

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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 (Solve for InterestingTilt the WindmillHBS; chair of StrataStartupfestPandemonio, and ResolveTO; Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), 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: 

  • All of my Issues With the “Goodnight Moon” Bedroom – The Ugly Volvo. “It turns out that I am not the only one with issues about this.” (Alistair for Hugh).
  • Cooking Lessons – The California Sunday Magazine. “Doing the right thing is hard and chewy. I found this story riveting; a celebrity chef tries to make a fast food joint that isn’t bad for you, in Watts, home of the Crips. Like Jaimie Oliver fixing school lunches, but full of North America’s social and racial issues.” (Alistair for Mitch).
  • From Cells To Cities – Waking Up With Sam Harris. “Fascinating interview with Geoffrey West, the theoretical physicist, who turned his attentions to biology, and developed mathematical models for how organisms scale, why they stop growing, and how/why they die. Interestingly, much of his work applies to cities as well as beings. One particularly mind-bending section focuses on why cities continue growing and don’t die. The answer, according to West, is that cities grow to the point where they would die, but then humans develop a transformative innovation (think: plumbing/sewage systems; electricity; the Internet) that allows the system to to get bigger without failing. But, projecting out, West calculates that at a certain point, humanity will need to come up with such innovative revolutions not once a century or once a decade, but once every year, in order to avoid total collapse. Are you ready?” (Hugh for Alistair).
  • A Minor History Of / Miniature Writing – Cabinet Magazine. “Tiny books, tiny writing… we’ve been doing it since at least 2060 BCE, and it’s still pretty cool.” (Hugh for Mitch).
  • How Twitter Fuels Anxiety – The Atlantic. “It’s easy to look around and be anxious about the world. It’s easy to do that without social media. Now, add that into the mix. It’s not that Twitter fuels anxiety (we’ve seen countless articles like this). It’s about the digital pile-on where everyone has an opinion. If it’s an issue that is personal, we have a bigger paradox going on here. We can connect to those who are like us, get help and build great connections and communities beyond our personal geography. Still, that could make things worse…” (Mitch for Alistair).
  • Here (with 2 Years of Exhausting Photographic Detail) Is How To Write A Book – Ryan Holiday – Medium. “My buddy, Ryan Holiday, just published his latest book, Perennial Seller (you can hear us talk about it right here: Ryan Holiday Wants Brands To Be Perennial – This Week’s Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast). Like any smart author (and, he’s one of the smartest), he is promoting the book by pushing out a lot of compelling content in compelling places. This is an exhaustive read about what it takes to create and write a great book (from his perspective). It’s loaded with genius and great thinking. It’s going to take you about forty minutes to read this, and it could well have been a book, in its own right. If you know someone who wants to write a book, send them this link as well.” (Mitch for Hugh).

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