Curated Commons // Edition 67
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 67th edition of Curated Commons.
If you are new, or if you received this newsletter as a forward, I send this once a week and each edition focuses on tech/business/science/algorithmic future/Internet weirdness/anything-else-that-catches-my-eye. Let’s dive right in ($ indicates potential paywall).
Bugs on your plate.
The EU has now formally certified as fit for human consumption three categories of bugs - Crickets, Mealworms, and Grasshoppers. Let the sustainable protein wars begin! - Read here ($)
Meet the material that ‘learns’ - Nickel Oxide
Fascinating research that shows Nickel Oxide might have learning behavior. Can it help advance AI? - Read here
UN fails to agree on ban on autonomous killer robots
A badly targeted weapon is likely far more dangerous than a badly targeted ad. But hey, there’s big investments in here. - Read here
Deepfakes, from a historical ‘spirit photography’ perspective
This is a very interesting read taking us back in time to when photographers made fake photographs, usually of spirits, and what that might mean for the deepfake world we live in - Read here
Mind = blown. A functioning 8-bit CPU inside Minecraft
Now waiting for a CPU powerful enough to play Minecraft inside Minecraft - Read here
Gaming in a spreadsheet
Lovely thread on games that can be played inside Excel or Google Sheets
Meet the OG to beat all other OGs
Can’t make this up!
Trust - the one item will be at a super premium in the future
AI for crime prediction - the names change, the outcomes don’t
Not a day passes without another report of some law enforcement agency falling prey to slick content marketing from some firm that suggests they can predict crime. - Read here
Background checks and poor quality source data
More HR teams across the globe increasingly rely on criminal background checks. In many cases, there are several firms that have amassed databases that offer these services. The challenges of poor quality data in these situations is painful for the individual concerned. Good investigative deep-dive from the US. - Read here
YCombinator and how it has changed the tech world
This is a good read on YC and how it has significantly impacted the tech world with all of the startups that have come out of it. - Read here
The ‘smart’ store is coming,
Amazon Go is not the only player when it comes to autonomous stores. There are several parallel attempts. Like in this instance, how this startup has AI-powered shopping carts. Also amused at how some of these startups think - plonking down a screen and some software to create a mobile POS of sorts where the consumer scans each item! - Read here
Jobs for the nose
#TIL There’s a profession where people sniff pork! - Read here ($)
Organized spam, but for labor rights
Organized online communities leveraging Reddit, Github, Google Docs and more to fight against big companies and their practices - a slice of our future, in the present! - Read here ($)
More interesting reads
An analysis of almost 15,000 ice sheets in the (Himalayan) region shows they are shrinking 10 times faster now than in previous centuries :-( - Read here ($)
“A dialogic analysis of Hello Barbie’s conversations with children” - if you like to read on cloud, kids toys, analytics, and more. An academic paper. - Read here
FS firms be FS firms. JPMorgan has been fined $200 Mn for letting employees use Whatsapp to evade regulators - Read here
Some positive use cases of crypto in developing markets. Important to bear in mind that some of these use cases came up because of financial sanctions - Read here
What will fintech tackle in 2022? An a16z perspective. - Read here
Kellogg’s is pushing to replace striking workers. A Reddit ‘antiwork’ mob is fighting back. - Read here ($)
AMC was saved by Reddit investors. Who then took over and made the CEO play by their rules. What happened next will shock you! - Read here($)
An Alibaba researcher was the first to report the Log4j bug to the Apache foundation. Chinese authorities are unhappy with the timing, and are pushing Alibaba Cloud hard. - Read here ($)
Are you disrupting yourself?
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.