Curated Commons // Edition 69
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 69th 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).
AI, not there yet
Some truth bombs in this very good piece on state of AI and how we shouldn’t get carried away. - Read here
…the real danger today is not that computers are smarter than us, but that we think computers are smarter than us and consequently trust them to make important decisions they should not be trusted to make.
Meet one of the world’s most rapidly growing networks, hiding in plain sight
That’s the Amazon Sidewalk IoT network that I am referring to. Sidewalk is already powered by Amazon devices such as Echo and Ring by using a tiny portion of the bandwidth to create a mesh network. Now Amazon is expanding it beyond consumer areas by launching a new enterprise device to bring Sidewalk connectivity across industrial areas. A network you should closely track - Read here
Climate change meets perverse bureaucratic rules
Brussels Airlines has apparently operated 3,000 empty or near-empty flights this winter to avoid losing take-off and landing rights at major airports. - Read here
NFT spam is round the corner
New medium, old problem. This time, more expensive.
SIM Swap frauds are in India now
More worryingly, there are already being used against businesses. Which means it is just a matter of time before they are deployed against targeted individuals. When we make the SIM card number the centre of our financial lives, it can wreak havoc in the wrong hands.
Portable potties is a $17 Bn business
Those mobile portable toilets outside sports venues - yep, that’s apparently a $17 Bn business annually in the US. And like you guessed it, most people don’t wash their hands. Good deep-dive. - Read here
Autonomous tractors are here, with humans in the loop, and concerns on data
John Deere introduced a kit that would enable a ‘fully autonomous tractor’, one that you can ‘set and forget’. Like many other fully autonomous systems, it relies on a bunch of contract employees. Nevertheless, still a big step in agriculture showing once again how our focus on autonomous driving in city streets to start off was not probably the best use case. - Read here
On a similar note, such autonomous tractors also give rise to the question of who owns the data that is scooped up by John Deere, given it will likely be sold back to the same farmers as a value-added service? - Read here
Selfies from Mars are here
China takes selfies seriously. So much so that it made a custom probe to take a selfie of Mars and its Mars orbiter. Some fab pics. - Read here
You can run, but you can never hide
Can’t make this up. Mafia boss did not call family for 10 years to evade police. Gets busted thanks to Google Street View - Read here
What might the metaverse economy look like?
Interesting read, drawing parallels from earlier games such as Farmville, in trying to visualize how the upcoming metaverse economy might look like. - Read here ($)
Algorithmic is increasingly a euphemism for oops
The podcast industry is now turning to programmatic ads. And with it the attendant challenges of wrong placement of ads. - Read here
Some stories have it all
This is one of those out-there stories that has it all. One as pure as the Interwebs. A reality star sold her farts (not a typo) in jars. She ultimately got admitted to a hospital for flatulence. She now sells NFTs of her farts. - Read here
Spoiling online reputation. And fixing it. There’s a market for that
There’s a whole set of people that fix reputations for those shamed/bullied online. For a price. But then this works both ways. - Read here
More interesting reads
People are running out of…wedding hashtags! - Read here ($)
Can you (or rather, should you) use Discord for teaching? - Thread
Kazakhstan’s political troubles and bitcoin mining - Read here
Would you like to lick that flavor off the screen? Like, literally? - Read here
Fascinating research product on texting with the tongue - Read here
Did you know - the pandemic might have led to lightning activity dropping by 10% ? Fascinating read on lightning - Read here
Beautiful story of how a nursing assistant spotted a mole on the neck of a stranger and passed on a message urging him to get it check if it was cancerous. It was, and he got rid of it. - Read here ($)
Radar tech, cold war era, from SAGE to IBM - good trip down computing’s memory lane - Read here
And finally, meme makers rock!
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.