Curated Commons // Edition 30
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Thirtieth edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
The bots are coming for investment reports
Boots on the ground giving way to bots in the cloud! Morningstar is pushing bot-generated reports that seek to explain the rationale behind an analyst’s rating on a fund.
Robots were already being used to generate the analyst rating itself on thousands of smaller funds. Morningstar said this week that the robot ratings have performed as well as the recommendations generated by human analysts, based on three years of data.
Science, FTW.
New vaccine for brain cancer in the works - While we are still hearing about so many other COVID-19 vaccines (including a new nasal spray option from Bharat Biotech), some really heartening news coming out on a potential vaccine for brain cancer.
A new article published in the journal Nature is reporting promising results from a landmark Phase 1 human trial testing a novel vaccine designed to help a patient's immune system better target brain tumors. The data suggests the experimental vaccine is safe and stimulates a significant immune response that slows tumor progression. A larger Phase 2 trial is currently being planned.
Patients in the UK to swallow miniature pill-sized cameras in a new trial to diagnose bowel cancer. The camera can take two photos per second and takes pictures of the bowel as it passes through!
Meet India’s newest NBA hopeful
Interesting read on Princepal Singh, who is very close to being the first Indian on the NBA roster. Six-foot-nine!
Getting your CV past…the AI gatekeepers
The times we live in! The NYT has a story on how to get your CV ready for algorithmic systems that screen CVs at most large organizations these days. Reminded me of this story from a few years ago!
Black holes, black no more!
This is fascinating! Scientists now have an image of a black hole.
The rise of Tiktok Bookfluencers
There’s hope yet! Many of us finally might get a chance to become influencers out of our habits! Tiktok is apparently now driving book sales!
What does organic cotton solve?
Very interesting read on why some farmers in southern India are going behind Organic Cotton.
“…organic agriculture does not offer farmers a chance to grow more cotton. Instead, it offers a model of rural development that defines success through land stability, cooperative subsidies, and social celebrity—everything but growth.”
Influencer, con man, and, likely, focus of a TV show
Influencers are amazing. And when they aren’t, they are everything but! Each influencer/wannabe-influencer story is just more wild than the previous. This one’s pretty much at the top!
And while on influencers, do read this cautionary tale. Influencers in India hyped Maldives as a great get-away-from-pandemic destination. Now normal people who didn’t pay much attention to strict quarantine rules are getting caught and having to cough up huge bills.
Women, beer brewing, and witchcraft!
You learn something every day! Women apparently dominated the beer industry, till male brewers started accusing them of witchcraft!
"Much of the iconography we associate with witches today, from the pointy hat to the broom, emerged from their connection to female brewers."
Don’t keep complaining. It’s not good for you
It turns out that complaining rewires your brain for negativity on a neurological level. It becomes so serious that negative thinking and speech becomes physically and habitually imprinted into your brain.
You start to seek out and reinforce negativity because it’s what you’re used to.
And each time you damage your brain and psychological state even more.
We love free markets, our version of free markets
This is the China edition, but it’s looking to be a similar story elsewhere too.
H&M announced they were stopping sourcing from Xingjiang. They vanished from Chinese ecommerce apps.
Burberry found itself dropped from a video game partnership with TenCent days after it was announced.
More searches, less clicks
Interesting analysis of Google searches in 2020, from SimilarWeb
2% click on ads
33% click on search results
65% don’t click on anything at all
More good links:
A global public art exhibition, but in your browser tabs. Interesting chrome extension
What can bankers learn from pastoralists. Uncertainty and variability is universal, so yes, apparently, a lot!
Want to self-sabotage your zoom call giving yourself an out? There’s an app for that!
Misinformation, truth, email and modern conflicts. Fascinating long read.
French politicians are apparently turning to…Twitch to get their socially-distanced messaging out!
Very good read on Clubhouse by Steven Levy.
How can you not love the interwebs, hate the shady parts, and marvel at the geniuses that abound the platform!
Twitter has this amazing ability to bring out the troll in everyone, be they egg accounts or trillion-dollar companies
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.