Curated Commons // Edition 26
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Twenty Sixth edition of Curated Commons. Half an year done! Thank you for riding along!
Let’s dive right in.
The right profession to get rich
Some interesting stats - 15% of all lawyers, 33% of all doctors and 5% of all financial managers are in the top 1% of earners in the US.
Paid newsletters are the new dialup subscriptions
Fascinating little stat - 42% of paid subscribers of a publication weren’t reading a single article! With a surplus of paid newsletters, a viable strategy for newsletters is to be come what dial-up subscribers are to AOL still.
Human Lookalike + Average Deepfake Algo = Death of Trust
AI, for turning photos of dead relatives to video
Zoom, but for afterlife! Also introduces an interesting notion of consent of the deceased for synthetic media. The times we live in, or rather, the times we are dying in!
MyHeritage, a website where users can research their family trees, has announced a “deep nostalgia” feature that can turn even a single photo of a relative into a video where they can smile, nod and wink back at them.
On a related note, Amazon Prime has a good geeky series around a similar theme called Upload - worth checking out.
Villain to law? Or Villain to existing system
Good long-read on the Bitmex founder cofounder Arthur Hayes.
The BitMEX cofounder created a cryptocurrency exchange that has traded trillions. Now he’s wanted by U.S. authorities, and insiders wonder whether he and his partners are villains—or victims of a two-tiered justice system that favors big banks over brash outsiders.
An AI, but one that acts more like a human
Us humans are bumbling, error-prone, and unpredictable. Researchers are trying to develop an AI system that makes mistakes, on purpose. Hoping it might be easier to work with humans that way.
Can you prove superpowers are real?
Convinced superpowers are a thing? This group is offering up to a quarter million dollars if you can prove it. Interesting read.
Greenwashing is well and here now!
Meet the $400,000 mattress system. As always, there’s always a market.
Data is the new sand
Interesting analogy that actually makes far more sense than any of the other pieces that keep comparing data to every element in the periodic table!
The Collectibles Boom
Good read on the boom in collectibles that’s currently underway in the US. With this very good line on founder of Ty Inc, the maker of Beanie Babies.
“He was a master of selling useless shit to people and making it seem really important.”
How you sell matters far more than what you sell in making a market!
There are no safe ‘back doors’
Governments like to believe there are. Even in spite of overwhelming evidence against it.
China Hijacked an NSA Hacking Tool in 2014—and Used It for Years. The hackers used the agency’s EpMe exploit to attack Windows devices years before the Shadow Brokers leaked the agency’s zero-day arsenal online.
Reminds me of this old cartoon from NYT.
Pigs are smart
Pigs displayed self-agency while playing a video game - the ability to realize that their own actions can have an impact. Not a small thing!
Fighting motion sickness in self-driving cars
If cars of the future are all self-driving, what does that mean for motion sickness, and how to fight it? The answer may lie in sounds, says Volvo.
More good reads:
Scientists are building the biggest digital twin of all - that of the earth! - https://phys.org/news/2021-02-scientists-highly-accurate-digital-twin.html
Humans are fighting back against robots!
Coinbase’s S-1 is out. With a copy to Satoshi Nakomoto - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1679788/000162828021003168/coinbaseglobalincs-1.htm
Tiktok popularity = real-world shortages. A face wash solution went viral on Tiktok, now it’s hard to find in stores. - https://www.insidehook.com/article/grooming/tiktok-cerave-skincare-sold-out
The last word on the Google ethical AI team hasn’t been said yet - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-research-exclusive/exclusive-google-pledges-changes-to-research-oversight-after-internal-revolt-idUSKBN2AP1AC
NFT in NYT - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/business/nft-nba-top-shot-crypto.html
E-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, a £1bn campaign, and social media influencers. Guess nothing can go wrong - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/20/tobacco-giant-bets-1bn-on-social-media-influencers-to-boost-lung-friendlier-sales
And finally a reminder to assess your own threat models!
Stay safe, and happy reading! And if you liked the newsletter, please do share on your social networks. My DMs on Twitter are always open for any feedback.