An argument both for and against Instagram - addressing the rights issues, filters and admitting that yes, Instagram is a repository for cute animals.
The best kept secret: There is no invisible hand.
According to this Harvard Business Review article, “one of the best-kept secrets in economics is that there is no case for the invisible hand.” Jonathan Schlefer explores why this has become a rumor that just won’t die and how it’s affected the euro crisis. Even for those not well-versed in economics, this is an interesting read.
The creative monopoly: Why it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
In this NYTimes Op-Ed, David Brooks tells the story of Peter Thiel: “As a young man, Peter Thiel competed to get into Standford. Then he competed to get into Stanford Law School. Then he competed to become a clerk for a federal judge. Thiel won all those competitions. But then he competed to get a Supreme Court clerkship. Thiel lost that one. So instead of being a clerk, he went out and founded Paypal. Then he became an early investor in Facebook and many other celebrated technology firms.” And now he’s teaching a class (yes, at Stanford) about everything he’s learned thus far. Which includes finding your own monopoly (no, not the illegal kind.)
A great round up from The Next Web including the incredibly useful and the incredibly bizarre Google products that you probably haven’t heard of - From Google Takeout (no, it’s not actually a food delivery service) to Google HotPot (food review and recommendation services that sits on top of Google places) and everything in between.
Forget Google goggles, these contacts have the potential to be much more awesome. Since you also have eyes, you probably know that you can only focus on one distance at a time. But these contacts let you view two distinct images at the same time. And The Pentagon has signed a contract with the creators, iOptik, reportedly to develop display screens on the lenses themselves.
John Naughton argues our kids will be ”hamsters for the glittering wheels of cages built by Mark Zuckerberg in his kind,” unless: “Starting in primary school, children from all backgrounds and every part of the UK [should] have the opportunity to: learn some of the key ideas of computer science; understand computational thinking; learn to program; and have the opportunity to progress to the next level of excellence in these activities.” Also related: the above FastCo infographic looked to understand why we don’t have more female in tech. Their infographic showed that girls are typically smarter (& take more Math/Science classes) when they’re younger, but then tend to question their ability and change fields in college.
While email overload has been a well-documented phenomenon, we still haven’t cracked it: How do we get the information we need while eliminating the pain of reply-all email threads? Daivd Lavenda explores the idea of using a stream (think Twitter, Facebook newsfeed) taking over the enterprise world. [It should be noted that while I love the idea of a new email, I think the value of a ‘Thank You’ email - especially in this article - is vastly underrated. Let’s argue about it over pints ;)]
When Yahoo first helped Andy Baio file his patents, he never knew they would be used to crush another person’s creativity, or so he says. While a friend of mine in patent law says that thinking is a bit naive, I’m confused how software patents still exist. As Baio says, “Software patents should be abolished, plain and simple, Software is already covered by copywriting, making patent protection unnecessary.”
