10th January 2014

1) The wonderful Ira Glass on  The Taste Gap – The Secret of Creative Success (video)

“Nobody tells people who are beginners – and I really wish somebody had told this to me – is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste”.

2) CES is on this week. Here, for a bit of light entertainment,  are some of the strangest things you can find at the show.

….and here, a little more usefully, a Realists Guide to CES.

3) A summary of the best stories in 2014, from my most favourite weekly newsletters and best content curators in the business ( if you aren’t subscribing to these, then you really should be ).

Storythings.

BrainPickings.

The Next Draft.

4) Wonderful – Rare Footage of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac & Other Beats Hanging Out in the East Village (1959)

5) From Kickstarter  Connected Everything: Our Tech Predictions for 2015

6) Now in its second year, love the  IK Prize from Tate and the ideas that come out of it – “Supported by the Porter Foundation, the Prize is awarded annually by Tate to an individual, team or company for an innovative idea that uses the power of digital technology to connect broad audiences with art. The winner is given the opportunity to turn their idea into a reality in collaboration with Tate”.

7) Worrying?  The Military-Industrial-Googleplex is Creating Artificial Intelligence.

“What could possibly go wrong with Google creating military-grade artificial intelligence (AI)? Stephen Hawking, a world-leading scientist, warned on the BBC that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race” in part because it involves “developing weapons we cannot even understand.”

8) I’m not sure I would get much sleep in that tent… Hardest climb in the world? Climbers finish 9th day of attempt to scale Yosemite’s El Capitan….

9) McSweeney’s most viewed story of 2014 –  Client Feedback on the Creation of the Earth.

10) We’ve had this before, but such a classic it’s worth including again . From The Guardian –  Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time ‘Every time a public figure behaves with less-than-stellar competence ,we’re incredulous. We probably shouldn’t be.’

11) Is TV Advertising Sexist?  Great spoof from the BBC’s That Michaeland Webb Look.

12) Extraordinary – Whittier, Alaska, is a town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in a 14-story former Army barracks built in 1956.

13) This Go Pro video is about as close as you will get to  being on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

14) Extraordinary visual from the FT that shows the amount spent by English soccer clubs on players, vs clubs in other countries (subscription may be needed).

15) Brilliant – US States  where you can get high at a same-sex wedding, in one chart ( spoiler alert – there aren’t many of them ).