Friday’s Finds

Every fortnight or so, I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Experience plus reflection is the learning that lasts.” —Charles Handy, via @olliegardener

On internet privacy, be very afraid [including the canvas fingerprinting on this link] via @courosa

“Unfortunately, we live in a world where most of our data is out of our control. It’s in the cloud, stored by companies that may not have our best interests at heart. So, while there are technical strategies people can employ to protect their privacy, they’re mostly around the edges. The best recommendation I have for people is to get involved in the political process. The best thing we can do as consumers and citizens is to make this a political issue. Force our legislators to change the rules.”

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Cars are like pharmaceuticals. There’s a legitimate place for them, but we resort to them too much.” —Peter D. Norton, via @grescoe

“And then you automate it, and it makes that same mistake hundreds of millions of times.” —@eskokilpi

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@white_owly : “Lies, damn lies and people who purport to understand blockchain.”

@zeynep : “Silicon Valley still mostly run like they are legos for grownups; once something cool is assembled, the real business, people, are ignored.”

@alaindebotton : “Academia: an invention of genius to keep the brightest, most enquiring minds from tampering with the status quo. Paddocks for intellectuals.”

“Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.” —Bertrand Russell, via BrainPickings

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@alaindebotton: “Academia: an invention of genius to keep the brightest, most enquiring minds from tampering with the status quo. Paddocks for intellectuals.”

Is Teal the new Black? Probably Not

“I suspect that the clean, uncomplicated notions put forward in the book [Organizing for Complexity, by Frédéric Laloux] will be undone by context, the actual details of implementation and to a large extent power-dynamics (for example, autocratic ‘Teal’ leaders making ‘non-Teal’ people do things they don’t want to do). In other words, I’m not sure I actually believe Teal even exists. I’m not sure I believe any of the ‘stages of development’ actually exist.

I believe the colour schema is an instrument, a not very accurate map. And like all instruments it appeals to a certain instrumental logic, one that craves a simpler world and shies away from complexity. In my opinion, this cognitive style mostly serves to distract from the important questions of who we are and what type of organizations we want to be creating.”

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins.” —Ellen Ullman, via @CodeWisdom

@Eric_Weiner: “All travel is time travel. We journey in order to transport ourselves to another era or, better yet, change the rhythm of our lives.”

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Every fortnight (or thereabouts) I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@ScottSantens: “Our problem is not that jobs are going away thanks to technology. It’s that we require jobs for income, and believe 40 hours is ‘full-time'”.

@Richard_Florida: “Cities need to be places of chance encounter and eccentricity, rather than exclusivity and segregation.”

What are the lessons people most often learn too late in life? by @dsearls

“Humans are learning animals, and among the things we all learn eventually—or should—is that knowledge is provisional, truths are opinions, and our first calling is to learn more and keep our mind open, even though that gets harder as experiences accumulate and prejudices with them.”

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. My initial post in this series was made in May 2009. The first three years of these posts were weekly. This is the 300th post of my Friday’s Finds.

@SebPaquet: “Any sufficiently advanced work is indistinguishable from play.”

Warren Buffet: “Honesty is a very expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people.” via @dankeldsen

@R0BY0UNG: ‘On the train today, the guard said, “We’re now arriving at the wealthy town of Wokingham. Mind the gap … between rich and poor” Inspired.’

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@DonaldHTaylor: ‘In Turkish you never ask “Did you understand me?” It’s rather rude. Instead, you say “Anlatabildim mi?” – Was I able to explain?’

@suitpossum: “The world is not data. The world is soil, sun, water, bodies, communities, sweat & oil. Data is an echo of these. It is not ‘the new oil'”

@Tom_Peters: “Zuckerberg has a “vision”: To know every conceivable thing about me including things I don’t know; then “monetize” every bit and byte of it.”

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Hire character. Train skill.” — Peter Schutz, former CEO of Porsche via @2080strategyex

“Human beings augmented by other human beings is more important than human beings augmented by technology” —@eskokilpi

“Interesting that there is now a whole ‘mindfulness’ industry when all it takes really is to just get out & play/explore.” —@DebraWatkinson

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@wimleers : “We’re building tools for authoritarianism just to get people to click on a shoe ad” — @zeynep at @DrupalConNA #DCzeynep (i.e. @facebook)

Automation is transforming work and the US isn’t ready, via @scottsantens

‘The latest study reveals that for manufacturing workers, the process of adjusting to technological change has been much slower and more painful than most experts thought. “We were looking at a span of 20 years, so in that timeframe, you would expect that manufacturing workers would be able to find other employment,” Restrepo said. Instead, not only did the factory jobs vanish, but other local jobs disappeared too. Acemoglu and Restrepo say that every industrial robot eliminated about three manufacturing positions, plus three more jobs from around town.’

Alien Knowledge: When Machines Justify Knowledge

“Since we first started carving notches in sticks, we have used things in the world to help us to know that world. But never before have we relied on things that did not mirror human patterns of reasoning — we knew what each notch represented — and that we could not later check to see how our non-sentient partners in knowing came up with those answers. If knowing has always entailed being able to explain and justify our true beliefs — Plato’s notion, which has persisted for over two thousand years — what are we to make of a new type of knowledge, in which that task of justification is not just difficult or daunting but impossible?”

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