Weekly Links & Thoughts #139

Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

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Reading time indicator: 1 = up to 3 minutes, 2 = 4 to 9 minutes, 3 = 10 minutes or more

• Learning Effects, Network Effects and Runaway Leaders (medium.com, 2)
  
  In the age of AI, the more a product learns, the more valuable it becomes. “Learning effects” are following a similar “Winner takes it all” dynamic as network effects do. And of course they can even go into effect simultaneously.
• Software is a Long Con (emptywheel.net, 3)
  
  Food for thought regarding cyber attacks: The public’s and media’s focus on who’s behind distracts from the actual problem: the vulnerable, unpatched and data-hoarding systems.
• Scholars say big ideas are getting harder to find (phys.org, 2)
  
  According to new research, big ideas are getting harder and harder to find. Therefore, an increasing amount of research & development will be needed to sustain even today’s low rate of economic growth.
• Slower turnover for songs and movies (marginalrevolution.com, 1)
  
  Anecdotal, but worth keeping an eye on: More than ever, people apparently just want to listen to the same songs they’ve been listening to already.
• The Media Has A Probability Problem (fivethirtyeight.com, 3)
  
  Not only the media. Essentially everyone. Not surprisingly though, as the brain natively doesn’t handle statistics very well.
• Digital transformation requires capacity building (thewavingcat.com, 1)
  
  A known phenomenon probably not only in Germany: An analog service is being digitized in such an incompetent way that afterwards, all parties are worse off.
• How to use Apple’s terrific document scanner in iOS 11 (theverge.com, 2)
  
  I completely missed this part of iOS 11. It’s a nifty little addition, and really bad news for all the scanning apps out there.
• There Never Was a Real Tulip Fever (smithsonianmag.com, 2)
  
  As the Dutch tulip fever is being mentioned often in debates about the crypto bubble, it makes sense to get familiar with what actually happened. By the way, the other day I saw a truck delivering tulips to grocery stores. Whatever happened a few centuries ago in Holland, as a matter of fact, tulips are still good business, it seems.
• All of 2017’s flagship phones have glaring compromises. Here’s what they tell us about design. (medium.freecodecamp.org, 2)
  
  Design decisions are compromises.
• How Apple Should Fix Apple TV (500ish.com, 2)
  
  It is astonishing indeed how Apple keeps failing to turn the Apple TV into something bigger.
• The Impossible Burger: Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat That ‘Bleeds’ (wired.com, 3)
  
  I hope this whole endeavor will work.
• Why Are Middle Eastern Girls Better in School than Boys? (theatlantic.com, 3)
  
  A very insightful long read.

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