Curated Commons // Edition 39
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Thirty-Ninth edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
Cars are just code, powered by clean/dirty fuel!
Good long read on how software is eating the car!
Ten years ago, only premium cars contained 100 microprocessor-based electronic control units (ECUs) networked throughout the body of a car, executing 100 million lines of code or more. Today, high-end cars like the BMW 7-series with advanced technology like advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) may contain 150 ECUs or more, while pick-up trucks like Ford’s F-150 top 150 million lines of code. Even low-end vehicles are quickly approaching 100 ECUs and 100 million of lines of code as more features that were once considered luxury options, such as adaptive cruise control and automatic emergency braking, are becoming standard.
Lack of commute is apparently creating a void for some
Many people liberated from the commute have experienced a void they can’t quite name. In it, all theaters of life collapse into one. There are no beginnings or endings. The hero’s journey never happens. The threshold goes uncrossed. The sack of Troy blurs with Telemachus’s math homework. And employers—even the ones that have provided the tools for remote work—see cause for alarm. “No commute may be hurting, not helping, remote worker productivity,” a Microsoft report warned last fall. After-hours chats were up 69 percent among users of the company’s messaging platform, and workers were less engaged and more exhausted.
The real threat from deepfakes
When deepfakes first came, the fear was that political deepfakes will cause the next big war, or at the minimum, national embarrassment. But the real damage has been on revenge porn. Interesting take on ow treating it as copyright infringement might make it easier to control.
Reminded of this tweet…
And lest we forget…
Meet the self-managing boutique consulting firm
Reminded me of Zappos, but an interesting read nevertheless on how this company manages itself seeing themselves as a laboratory for the future of work.
Art, Algorithms, and free will
When algorithms mix with art, we get fascinating questions to which there are no easy answers.
“Drowned In the Sun”…was created by Magenta, Google’s Artificial Intelligence program, which was fed MIDI files of “20 or 30” Nirvana songs to analyze and reconfigure
“Scientists Used CRISPR to Engineer a New ‘Superbug’ That’s Invincible to All Viruses”
I’m clearly not qualified to say what this means, but heck, it sounds hyper ______
While at it…
“A microscopic animal has been revived after slumbering in the Arctic permafrost for 24,000 years.” - https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/07/europe/bdelloid-rotifers-animal-survive-frozen-in-permafrost-scn/index.html
A successful startup is an incumbent in the making
Netflix is opening an online shop to sell stuff from popular shows.
Machine learning is potentially replacing chip design engineers who build chips for machine learning
Yep, what it says. We live in fascinating times.
If something sounds too good to be true…
MoviePass, the failed subscription service that promised unlimited movie tickets for a fixed price, agreed that its business model was, basically, too good to be true. So it ended up doing what every self-respecting business does - try to cheat its customers. In this case, make it extremely hard for them to use the service they paid for.
The ‘creator economy’ is struggling at the altar of economics
Young creators are burning out. And one potential reason - apparently ~50Mn people consider themselves creators/influencers.
Why machines will eventually indeed take over
Talk about playing the long con
This is a Netflix series in the making! Also tells us the extent to which law enforcement authorities, a la bad actors, are willing to dig deep to achieve their goals in the digital age.
More interesting links:
Can’t make this up - PG&E Corp.’s new chief executive officer, Patricia Poppe, once doubted the reality of climate change. Now, it may shape her fate. - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-11/pg-e-s-new-boss-is-an-ex-climate-denier-now-tackling-warming
Inside Goa’s last typewriter shop - https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jun/08/revert-to-type-how-goas-last-typewriter-repair-shop-defied-the-digital-age
“What Really Happened When Google Ousted Timnit Gebru” - https://www.wired.com/story/google-timnit-gebru-ai-what-really-happened/
And then there’s this - “Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year” - https://www.axios.com/pandemic-unemployment-fraud-benefits-stolen-a937ad9d-0973-4aad-814f-4ca47b72f67f.html
“Many People Have a Vivid ‘Mind’s Eye,’ While Others Have None at All” - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/science/minds-eye-mental-pictures-psychology.html
When big poultry comes, the small farmer loses - https://theintercept.com/2021/06/08/chicken-farmers-poultry-debt/
Photoshop in the browser, for free - https://www.photopea.com/
Most ‘predictive’ systems don’t work for humans - https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/predictive-policing-strategies-children-face-pushback-n1269674
The sad end of Jack Ma Inc - https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2021/06/07/the-sad-end-of-jack-ma-inc/
Tech allows us to learn faster than we age - https://fortelabs.co/blog/artificial-time/
The cult of busyness - https://www.vice.com/en/article/k78wpz/covid-changed-our-relationship-to-busyness-can-we-keep-it-that-way-v28n2
Fascinating example of how what you thought was an disincentive for your customers could be turned to be a disincentive for you! "Amazon Faced 75,000 Arbitration Demands. Now It Says: Fine, Sue Us" https://wsj.com/articles/amazon-faced-75-000-arbitration-demands-now-it-says-fine-sue-us-11622547000
ICYMI
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