Curated Commons // Edition 85
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 85th edition of Curated Commons. Happy reading, and do pass on the newsletter and share it on your social networks if you find it interesting! It’s free!
Let’s dive right in ($ indicates potential paywall).
Slowly…and then…suddenly?
Goldman Sachs makes its first Bitcoin-backed loan. Lending fiat cash against Bitcoin collateral - Read here
More people agree on climate action. In editorials.
Interesting chart on UK publications and their editorials on climate change. - Read here
A forecast you’d rather not read
The climate crisis will apparently result in at least 15,000 instances of viruses leaping between species in the next 50 years! - Read here
Brain-Computer interfaces are no more in the realm of sci-fi
Implants are becoming sophisticated and helping paralyzed people - Read here
Another good read on BCI developments - Read here
Who remembers F%$ked Company?
There’s always a market. And there’s always an antiques collector. This one collects swag from companies with epic ends. - Read here
Meet the Zoom island
There literally is one. Some 550 Km west of Casablanca. Yoga, vegans, crypto, it’s got it all! - Read here
Apple now supports DIY repair
The Vice put is beautifully - Read here
In 2009, Apple started putting proprietary screws on iPhones, MacBooks, and other devices. Thirteen years later, it’s finally selling the screwdriver.
AI + text input = fun paintings!
Smart fitness mirrors are here.
People will go to any lengths to avoid having to step out and run or go to a gym and meet other people. New smart mirrors have arrived where an online trainer appears on the mirror along with your reflection and guides you! How long before we have a “Help! My smart mirror got hacked and someone took my pics!” - Read here
Silicon Valley is still big, but other locations are growing fast
Good read in The Economist on what it takes to build innovation clusters and whether the Valley still has it. The story is positive on Bangalore, but given I haven’t seen this shared much on Twitter, I suppose the story got stuck in the infamous Bangalore traffic and hasn’t reached the Bangalore startup community yet ;-) - Read here ($)
Ad growth on YouTube declines
The TikTok scare is real. And this also means YouTube is now going to start showing ads on YouTube Shorts. (on a related note, YouTube Premium family plan is one of the best plans you can gift yourself if you are a YouTube lover!) - Read here ($)
Get your history, and tech basics right!
This is a hilarious story. Russia apparently staged some sort of a fake assassination attempt. And they seem to have confused sim cards with “The Sims”! - Read here
Is it time to substitute humans with robots for space travel?
Interesting short excerpt from a new book - Read here
Pixels know no privacy
At some point it will be fair to assume that our battles for preserving privacy are only with those companies that haven’t yet figured out smarter ways of infringing it. A private intelligence firm claims to have access to locations of over 3 Bn mobile devices, all mapped to over 2 billion email addresses!- Read here
More Interesting Reads:
Musk loves free speech. His type of free speech. - Read here
Pareto everywhere. 6 gun shops apparently sold nearly 11,000 guns that were used in crime - Read here ($)
There is now a ‘Declaration for the Future of the Internet’ - Read here
Practically every analysis of Muskwitter is from an American lens. And here we thought the Internet made ignorance hard! - Read here ($)
“Researchers See Clear Link Between Twitter Misinformation and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal” - Read here
Bain apparently did some shady $4it in South Africa - Read here ($)
The history of the flash mob - Read here
Twitter
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