Weekly Review #124: Boat living, the death of marketing, and smell dating
I saw WaitbutWhy's Tim Urban speak at the Coinbase office this week about his usual shtick - future, how insignificant humans are, and the like. I found it incongruent how excited he is about his material and how much he still struggles with procrastination while writing them. He likened his waiting audience and impatient girlfriend as 'forcing functions' without which, he'd never finish. Just like without the Space Race's forcing function, the world forgot about extraterrestrial opportunities.
I also had dinner on a delightful boat moored on a San Francisco wharf, where a dozen or so people live. It's a former Icelandic ferry converted into a cozy living space, which somehow is allowed in some grey area of law. So cool!
Tech
A Visual Introduction to Machine Learning
Clever and graphical introduction to machine learning is way more interesting than my high school statistics class.
Share Your Pocket List - Sharedli.st
Indie service open sources your Pocket reading list. Somebody should build a dating service on top of this! What I save to read in Pocket is a better representation of my Likes on Facebook, that's for sure.
This is Uber's playbook for sabotaging Lyft Uber is arming teams of independent contractors with burner phones and credit cards as part of its sophisticated effort to undermine Lyft and other competitors.
Watch Machine Zone’s CEO freak out a room of media people — full interview Code/Media 2016
Machine Zone (behind Game of War, Kate Upton ads)'s CEO -"Programmatic ads are the future and traditional marketing is utterly dead. Now that you can measure what you pay for, concepts like 'branding' or extinct."
My Year in Startup Hell at Hubspot
Entertaining, though overly contrived, anecdote of one old guy at a young company.
Lifehacks
Hacking the Tripping Mind: A Fantastic Voyage Through Inner Space
"Doyle calls psychedelics "information technologies" that work through the capture and management of attention. By managing attention, you manage the overall field of awareness, and thus you can influence your perception of reality."
Our thoughts shape our spaces and our spaces return the favor. What we construct, what we architect, architects us in return.
Using psychedelics to aid in both perceiving and understanding the effects of language, music, architecture, and culture on our consciousness, can offer an awareness of the degree to which we have the “ability to affect our own consciousness through our linguistic and creative choices.""
Whitelabeled Kickstarter for big brands to figure out what to sell next. Interesting model of enterprise adopting smaller industry innovations.
Fun
Somehow this is real. Sign up and get a stranger's tshirt mailed to you. If you like their smell, it's a match!
ALADDIN MAGIC CARPET SAN FRANCISCO
Same recipe as the NYC one - Aladdin costume plus a rug on top of a boosted board. But so effective! And with Jasmine this time.
Cards Against Humanity, but with nonprofit/aid worker references. What other industries could support such a model?
Outschool - Classes and field trips for kids
Platform for homeschoolers to learn and take field trips together. Of course this should exist!
It's truth or dare, but with real stories from your life. Way better.