Curated Commons // Edition 61
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 61st edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in ($ indicates potential paywall).
Anger, determination, business models, control and the music industry
Fascinating developing story from the music industry. Taylor Swift’s old ‘masters’ were bought out by a private equity fund. She saw it as stripping her of her life’s work. So she’s doing what no other artist has done - combine her anger into re-recording her old songs, while her fans are creating detailed tutorials to help listeners avoid streaming tracks owned by the PE firms. The result - a track Swift re-recorded and released earlier this year now has more streams than the PE-owned track. - Read here ($)
A more nuanced take on NFTs
Late to this, but a very good take on NFTs. - Read here ($)
The NFT craze, and the blockchains underlying it, lay bare the philosophical questions around why we treasure things beyond any tangible worth to us—and the leap of faith we indulge, wisely or otherwise, when we buy something not because of any innate worth to us but because we expect others to value it later. That its worth can arise through collective action is a testament to the unpredictability of human events—and a reminder that not everything in life gains value from top-down fiat.
Another read on how NFTs create value, from the HBR - Read here
Employee tracking is here to stay, and getting terrible
Contract lawyers at the receiving end of invasive facial recognition tech that doesn’t work - Read here ($)
How algorithmic tracking is damaging mental health of UK workers - Read here
Extremely invasive voice and video tracking of call center employees working remotely - Read here
How can you not love Instagram and viral posts?
An Instagram account promised to plant a tree for every pet picture. 4 million posts later, where are they? Well, surprise, surprise - raising funds for planting these trees- Read here ($)
A tech is only as good as the use case one builds around it!
Sigh!
Why is the chip shortage so hard to improve?
Lots of issues, but chiefly, big money, time, complexity, and lack of enough vendors to make the equipment that’s used to fill fabs. - Read here
Bad data, AI, and perpetuating historical inequities
New essay from the AI Now Institute on how AI-based predictive policing is likely to perpetuate the casteist parts of the Indian criminal justice system. Every country/region/society will have their own cross to bear on historical inequities and the impact that rushing into an AI-based system based on historical biased data will bring. - Read here
Voice, but for taking over when typing on keyboards is hard
The beauty of tech - you will find a use case that you least expect in areas that have challenges that you likely have not thought of. Fifty percent of Facebook Messenger’s total voice traffic comes from Cambodia. Interesting piece. - Read here
The Internet is amazing, exhibit #2328502
What happens when people don’t trust local vaccines
Efficient markets, or something like that
Rivian, an electric vehicle manufacturer has shipped 156 vehicles to date. It is now valued at over $120 Bn. - Read here ($)
And talking of Rivian, it made its IPO underwriters over $170 Mn - Read here ($)
More Interesting Reads:
Whoa! This headline! - Read here
The tale of a toy man you likely don’t know - Read here
Google now has a machine learning-based flood forecasting system live in India and Bangladesh - Read here
DeepMind’s AI predicts almost exactly when and where it’s going to rain - Read here
More cautionary tales on how you should never search for a new website, or a customer care number, on Google - Read here
Algorithmic recommendations are great, till your training data turns meaningless. Case of Zillow. - Read here
How will Meta keep its users safe in the metaverse? - Read here ($)
Flinging rockets in outer space. Wild tech from a new startup - SpinLaunch! - Read here. The launch animation on the startup’s website in particular is fab.
An early history of the arXiv preprint server and how it came about - Read here
Hackers are stealing 2FA codes with terrifyingly effective voice bots - Read here
Hey Siri, define greedy!
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.