Curated Commons // Edition 37
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Thirty-Seventh edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
Nuclear codes & flashcard apps
Flashcard learning apps are great. Not when you expose nuclear secrets though.
Monetizing Anxiety
A story on an app I touched on in an earlier edition - the rise of a vigilante social network that seeks to monetize user anxiety over crime in their neighborhood.
Trace a rain drop
Fascinating way to visualize where a rain drop in the US ends up going.
Who owns who in big media?
Good summary from Vox
Netflix and personalization
Two good posts on the history of personalization at Netflix, from a former VP of product at Netflix
https://askgib.substack.com/p/a-brief-history-of-netflix-personalization
https://askgib.substack.com/p/a-brief-history-of-netflix-personalization-31d
Shareholder activism, with big results
This is a brilliant explainers from Matt Levine on why what happened at Exxon matters (icymi, a tiny firm with 0.02% stake in Exxon managed to snag two board seats in climate proxy fight).
Also includes this brilliant line!
When BlackRock is in your office asking you to focus on renewables, they’re not asking you to do it out of a sense of social responsibility and shared sacrifice; they’re telling you “if you focus more on renewables your long-term cash flows will be higher and less risky and so the stock price will be higher.”
On a related note, this is a good read on how Deutsche Bank is raising its own sustainability targets focusing more on ‘green finance’. Comes with this interesting chart.
Old pop music is back…in trailers
Interesting piece on how trailerisation is resurrecting old pop music
AI + movies= realistic international versions of movies
Didn’t take long. AI is being used to bring realistic lip movements and facial expressions to make make an artist say the same lines in a different language. Fascinating demo!
Ransomware and cyberattacks everywhere
Good summary from AFP showing the spate of big-ticket attacks in recent years. Watch out before you click that attachment!
Automation is great. Automated systems taking decisions that impact humans? Not as much.
Crazy story, but worth reading. Each time we create an automated system to help us make our jobs better, we are codifying bugs for the long term.
Today in algorithms doing their thing
Tiktok has one of the best recommendation engines, no doubt about that. And that results in weird situations like this one.
How a 17-Year-Old’s Birthday Party Became the Biggest Thing on the Internet…After Adrian Lopez’s birthday “kickback” went viral on TikTok, thousands of teenagers showed up for the party of the year.
Be wary of what you share
UK police have arrested a drug dealer and convicted him for a dozen+ years in jail based on…a photo he took of a piece of cheese posted in an online chatroom. Friendly reminder that biometrics are a solution of convenience, not of security.
More interesting reads:
Online brokerages in India are hiring YouTube/Instagram "financial influencers" to reach youngsters. Won’t end well. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/online-brokerages-invest-in-financial-influencers/articleshow/82919503.cms
A lot of thermal energy is trapped in the ocean. An ex-NASA researcher has figured out how it might generate unlimited clean power for aquatic robots. - https://www.wired.com/story/the-plan-to-build-a-global-network-of-floating-power-stations/
Merrill Lynch’s wealth management trainees henceforth won’t cold call, but use… Linkedin’s Inmails - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-24/merrill-lynch-s-3-000-trainee-brokers-barred-from-cold-calling
A new word has entered the popular lexicon to describe feelings of burnout, ennui, and despair - involution - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/chinas-involuted-generation
Very good read on the 2011 RSA hack - https://www.wired.com/story/the-full-story-of-the-stunning-rsa-hack-can-finally-be-told/
Meet Shein, the ‘TikTok of ecommerce’ - https://www.notboring.co/p/shein-the-tiktok-of-ecommerce
“Why Having Friends of Different Ages Matters — And How It Can Impact an Ageist Society” - https://edit.sundayriley.com/why-having-friends-of-different-ages-matters-and-how-it-can-impact-an-ageist-society/
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