Curated Commons // Edition 44
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 44th edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in!
The ever-living voice
Deep fakes are now making their way into mainstream content. There is now an Anthony Bourdain documentary that deepfakes his voice in places. Let the ethics debates begin.
Bankers be bankers
Wall Street is encouraging bankers to go for in-person meetings.Wall Street Style.
The internet…forgets…sometimes…too many times
First they said the Internet never forgets. Upload once, access lifetime. Then came in subscription plans, and failed online services. Social communities where you have painstakingly built equity and memories vanished without a trace because ads don’t make enough money. Is digital data ephemeral actually? Interesting read.
Also, on ephemerality of a different kind, this is deep.
Financialization is the altar at which innovation dies
When you optimise for maximising shareholder value, you are doing so with a strict focus on the short-term without worrying about the long-term impact. Very good read on what ails Intel.
People ate during the pandemic. Quite a bit
CDC says around 42% of Americans gained weight. By an average of 13kg. And now, as offices reopen in the US, they are trying to reduce.
Related:
The metaverse is here. Are you already living it?
Where are you wrt the met averse? At the edge, core, breathing it? missing it?
The multiverse is doing just fine though
Big, bad companies doing…normal things?
“Pfizer agrees to pay $345 mln to resolve EpiPen pricing lawsuit”
Converting thoughts to words
Science & Tech is fascinating.
Amazon is emitting Carbon dioxide. And it's not the company
Read. And weep!
Portions of the Amazon rainforest are now emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb — a troubling sign for the fight against climate change, a new study suggests.
Deforestation and an accelerating warming trend have contributed to change in the carbon balance, which is most severe in the southeastern region of the Amazon, where there are both rising temperatures and reduced rainfall in the dry season. The most affected regions have warmed by 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit during the dry season in the last 40 years, comparable to the changes seen in the rapidly-warming Arctic
The mRNA revolution is just getting started
Good long read on Moderna's plans to target more diseases including HIV, cancer, flu among others.
Frauds that over leverage on luck, or laziness
Netflix competes with sleep, so it will get into more categories
A few years ago, Reed Hastings famously said Netflix competes with sleep. They recently hired their head of podcasts. They now plan to offer video games.
We love capitalism. Our version of capitalism
From where else, but China!
On that note, Uber's CEO has something to say on capitalism
“I do think there’s power in a name,” he said. “Our system is called capitalism. It’s designed to optimize for long-term growth of capital. When people wonder, ‘Well, are capital owners advantaged over labor?,’ it ain’t called laborism.” But he mused that sometimes the system “works too well”: “I think capitalism has its claws in our democratic societies in ways that has allowed it to overly optimize for its benefit.”
Guns as toys
A gun manufacturer in the US decided to "highlight the pure enjoyment of the shooting sports" by making a gun look like a Lego toy. Not like America had a problem with gun control.
Just ask, and you shall get!
The Request:
RIP Pepper
Some funeral speeches write themselves. All the more so when they involve robots which are massively over-marketed with under-capabilities. Softbank's Pepper is one.
More interesting links:
The times we live in. Cyberbullying insurance is now here - https://www.wsj.com/articles/cyberbullying-insurance-is-here-do-you-need-it-11625317201
Tech quirks be strange - https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/7/13/22575368/apple-ios-14-weather-app-69-rounding-error-15?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Salmon Going Nuts at a Fish Farm Possibly High on Cocaine, Officials Say - https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5g85b/salmon-going-nuts-at-a-fish-farm-possibly-high-on-cocaine-officials-say
It is streaming all the way at the Emmys nominations - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/hbo-and-netflix-lead-emmy-nods-with-disney-playing-catch-up
Vietnam wants the Chinese Internet - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/how-vietnams-influencer-army-wages-information-warfare-facebook-2021-07-09/
How does Slovenia dominate cycling? - https://www.ft.com/content/559e02c0-9807-4c54-85b0-3ee8661b29d8
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