Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #51

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Tourist Fakes: The Quest - Part I, Foreword - CoinTalk. "My friend, Shane Simmons , is a screenwriter, aviation buff, and film critic. Until recently, I didn't know he was also into coin collecting. When Shane was in Europe this year, he set upon a quest to buy fake coins. Which, it turns out, is difficult since the vendors insist that they're real. What's it like to buy something that both buyer and seller know is a fake? Funny, as it turns out, and Shane chronicles the experience in a series of five posts on the CoinTalk forum. The URLs for the other posts are http://www.cointalk.com/t171490/ , http://www.cointalk.com/t172980/ , http://www.cointalk.com/t174346/ , and http://www.cointalk.com/t175779/ , since it's a bit hard to follow the threading on the forum." (Alistair for Hugh).

The Ansognosic's Dilemma - Opinionator - The New York Times . "In a recent Vanity Fair Proust questionnaire, Tina Fey said the trait she most deplored in orders is people who are proud of their ignorance. This piece by filmmaker Errol Morris offers a possible explanation for our preference of what Stephen Colbert dubbed 'truthiness', instead of actual facts and debate. The nut of Morris' piece is this: Smart people know they're not as smart as they could be; but incompetent people lack the ability to understand their own incompetence. It'll make you feel smart for reading it -- but maybe you're kidding yourself." (Alistair for Mitch).

Jeff Bezos With A Super Awesome Explanation Of Why He's Not Scared Of Failure At Amazon - Business Insider . "How Amazon approaches risk, and doesn't fear failure." (Hugh for Alistair).

Why GM Couldn't Be Apple, According to a Former GM Exec - The Atlantic . "How businesses driven by cost estimates and savings (the American auto industry) will drive itself into the ground; while businesses focused on customer joy (Apple) will prevail." (Hugh for Mitch).

Groupon is Effectively Insolvent - Minyanville . "I'm not much of a finance guy, but this was a fascinating read as both a business owner and an entrepreneur. It's easy to get caught up in the mass media financial news hype about a company. It's equally fascinating to read how individuals dissect and analyze a story as interesting as Groupon 's IPO. It makes you think twice (and want to dig a little deeper) when something is presented to the masses as 'the next big thing'." (Mitch for Alistair).

Bulb In, Bulb Out - The New York Times Magazine . "What would the world be like if the lightbulb - as we know it - went the way of the dodo bird or the eight-track tape player? There are so many technologies that haven't really had any major breakthroughs in almost a century. The light bulb is one of them. We live in a world where we transition from desktop PCs to smartphones like we're buying fresh underwear. It's easy to forget and not marvel at so many things that haven't changed or had a level of innovation... until now." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags:

alistair croll

amazon

apple

bitcurrent

bite-sized edits

business insider

coin collecting

cointalk

complete web monitoring

errol morris

gigaom

gm

great links

groupon

hugh mcguire

human 20

jeff bezos

librivox

link

linkbait

managing bandwidth

mass media

media hacks

minyaville

pressbooks

rednod

shane simmons

stephen colbert

the atlantic

the book oven

the new york times

the new york times magazine

tina fey

vanity fair

year one labs