Curated Commons // Edition 27
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Twenty Seventh edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
Giving money to people…works
Universal Basic Income has often been dismissed as a fad, but more and more pilots are proving it can be a viable solution to a future where automation threatens more job categories.
A new report on the California’s city’s no-strings-attached money experiment shows that the $500 monthly stipend did more than improve recipients’ well-being: It helped them find work.
Disinformation, even in tiny doses, hurts
Interesting new study that tries to identify if fake news can change behavior, even subsconsciously. Worryingly, it appears likely. The researchers found that even a short (less than 5-min) exposure to fake news was sufficient to significantly modify unconscious behavior of individuals.
Behind the Tom Cruise deepfakes
Good read from the FT in an interview with the artist who created the hyper-realistic deepfake of Tom Cruise that went viral last week. Synthetic media is getting more powerful, and a matter of time before they are just an on-demand cloud-based service accessible thro’ an app.
The first electric bicycle patent was granted in…1895
Goes to say, there’s no bad ideas in tech. Just bad timing!
CRISPR on Cancer
One terrible disease that researchers around the world are racing to understand, and eliminate, - cancer. Now researchers are using CRISPR CAS-9, the wonder tool, to identify which genes are essential for a tumour’s survival, thereby making them potential targets for drugs.
My kinda adversarial attack
Our future is algorithms everywhere. Smart ones at that. And our future is also human ingenuity taking on algos. Like this simmple approach where you roam around with a paper on your head that says you are….whatever you want to be!
2021 = Banksy + NFT
This is very pure. Not sure how much of this line made sense a decade ago!
An Original Banksy Has Been Burned and Turned Into an NFT
The £70,000 artwork, called Morons, was destroyed in a secret New York location today—and made into a non-fungible token.
Humans have left their footprint on Antarctica
The Antarctica we learnt of as remote and empty in our school books is no more true. The continent is now crammed with abandoned research stations! Numbering over 5,000 permanent structures—basic huts, lighthouses, churches, and even research stations with rock-climbing walls. Worrying read.
Meet trader rats
Our future is…competing with rats with the right incentives? An Austrian artist trained rats to detect patterns in the forex futures market. They ended up outperforming human traders after some training. The whole piece is just such an amazing mix of sarcasm and wow!
Sneakerheads, Bots, and a new asset class
This is a true story of the times we live in. It’s got a 19-year old, Discord groups, bots to quickly snag new sneakers and sell them for a profit. And a parent caught in the middle of all this who lost her job of 25 years after the story came out! Wild read. Also, see this thread for a tl;dr.
Humanity & printing, in a brilliant video
Hovering ships
Fascinating picture of a rare optical illusion, along with a neat explanation of the reasoning.
More good reads:
Something I can never wrap my head around - Walgreens is closing down ten stores in the bay area due to…rampant shoplifting. - https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rampant-shoplifting-forces-ten-bay-area-walgreens-close
Square acquired Jay-Z’s Tidal. Why? One interesting take.
Chess, in under one kilobyte - https://vole.wtf/kilobytes-gambit/
Oceans, climate change, and an amazing visualization - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/02/climate/atlantic-ocean-climate-change.html
Meet a future Netflix series in the making. An illegal casino, millions laundered, and no way to prove - https://globalnews.ca/news/7670514/cullen-commission-vancouver-model-las-vegas-macau/
The pandemic is forcing many to question the value of expensive MBAs. Some online MBAs are seeing strong success, such as this one at Boston University - https://poetsandquants.com/2021/03/03/boston-universitys-new-online-mba-is-a-big-hit/
Pay-TV penetration in the US is now back to 1994 levels, thanks to cord-cutting - https://www.fastcompany.com/90609976/cord-cutting-was-so-bad-last-year-that-pay-tv-penetration-is-down-to-1994-levels
Data can be of great help in taking a decision. But you should also ask the right questions. Interesting read from context of British Football - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-one-mans-bad-math-helped-ruin-decades-of-english-soccer/
I leave you with this exquisite leaf art!
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