Curated Commons // Edition 77
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 77th edition of Curated Commons. The newsletter is free but do consider paying for it by sharing on your social networks if you like it! Let’s dive right in ($ indicates potential paywall).
From China, to Hollywood, and beyond
Fascinating interview with a longtime entertainment report on his new book on hollywood and how China is now furthering their cultural agenda through movies, by the sheer size of their market. - Read here
Comic Sans might not be a bad font
Good read from a designer on why comic sans might not deserve all the scorn it keeps receiving. It’s apparently popular in the disability and writing spaces. - Read here
“Carpe Your Crypto Diem”
The crypto industry is crying out loud for people who can help explain crypto, for an outsider.
A history of bikesharing
Very good read into the history of bikesharing and how a bunch of anarchists helped spark the initial growth. - Read here ($)
Robots, for plucking apples
Apparently a lot of Apples in vineyards in the US are left to rot, for lack of human labor to pluck them. A job, ripe for automation. - Read here
Amazon decides it has had enough physical retail
Amazon.com is too much of a competition for Amazon’s retail stores. It’s shutting down all 68 of its stores in various formats. Next steps - fully-automated stores alone (and Whole Foods). - Read here
And when it is retail, it the new future of retail store that Amazon envisages, as seen in this good story on a newly revamped store in Washington - Read here ($)
How ‘real’ do you want your boss?
If you thought bosses on zoom calls with video was bad, wait for what’s next. Life-size holograms inside a 7-foot-tall box apparently. - Read here ($)
Bacteria from air sprays
This was a instructive read for me. Apparently, a batch of an air freshener sold in Walmart in the US also had traces of a deadly bacteria not usually found in North America. Two people have died. Watch out before you buy those random air fresheners! - Read here
The tale of two ransomware gangs
Two ransomware actors hit a healthcare provider in Canada using the same vulnerability. Group 1 took the data but did not encrypt the data as it was an healthcare org. Group 2 had no such qualms. They encrypted everything including the ransomware note from Group 1. The times we live in! - Read here
How do genes shape who you are?
Interesting research on the nature Vs nurture question, answered through twins. - Read here
A board game, but for managing aging communities
Japan is an aging society, perhaps ahead of the curve than many other countries on this. And that gives scope for a variety of approaches which we are unlikely to see elsewhere. Interesting read on a board game. - Read here
Twitter wants to reinvent itself
Twitter is many things to many people. Now it wants to become more decentralized and put more control in hands of its users. Also, interesting stat from the piece below. - Read here ($)
In December, conversations about NFTs made up 1.2 percent of the entire conversation on Twitter, a company spokeswoman said. Users sent more than 220 million tweets about NFTs in 2021, making them a larger conversation topic than movies, which generated about 207 million tweets.
Today’s edition of everybody is a bank
Interesting chart from the WSJ that shows that right up to the great supply crunch of last year, car dealers in the US earned more profits from financing and insurance than the sale itself. - Read here ($)
The birth of AlphaFold
DeepMind does some fab stuff, no question. This is a fascinating read on AlpfaFold - Read here
We’d mimicked the intuition of incredible Go masters. I thought, if we can mimic the pinnacle of intuition in Go, then why couldn’t we map that across to proteins?”
Weaponizing tech & finance to de-weaponize
A good read from FT
And on this note, a story on how this weaponization of payment systems was an original fear when India adopted SWIFT - Read here ($)
Influencer, or a CEO?
Top TikTok influencer Charli D’Amelio apparently made $17.5 Mn last year. ExxonMobile CEO - $15.5Mn. - Read here ($)
While on influencers, some of them are apparently inhaling tanning nasal sprays. To get a darker tan. Ahem! - Read here
Meet Disney, the nuclear power
Interesting historical tidbit - Read here
Brain research and the questions it poses
Surgeries are increasingly opening patients’ brains to research. But they also raise complex ethical issues. - Read here
More Interesting reads:
Yale has a happiness Professor. Who’s taking a leave of absence for burnout - Read here ($)
Karma rocks - The Tinder Swindler, he of Netflix fame, apparently fell for an Instagram verification scam. Not much $$, but it’s a start. - Read here
“Ukraine asked for donations in crypto. Then things got weird.” - Read here ($)
The ugly truth of how movie scores are made - Read here ($)
Google/DeepMind continue to push where AI/ML can help in understanding the marvel of science that is the human body - Read here
New study says half an hour a week of activities such as gardening, sit-ups or yoga could help reduce the risk of dying from any cause by a fifth - Read here
People emotionally tied to robots can undermine relationships with co-workers - Read here
This Vietnamese couple came down with COVID-19. Cops culled their 15 dogs fearing they might be a carrier. The couple are now on a dog adoption spree - Read here
Crypto meets video games. No love lost. - Read here
Something to definitely try. Vertical tabs in a browser - Read here
Can looking at art make you a better problem solver? - Read here
An incomplete history of Forbes.com as a platform for scams, grift, and bad journalism - Read here
Stay safe, and happy reading! And if you liked the newsletter, thank you, and maybe considering it? My DMs on Twitter are always open for any feedback.