Well, it’s December. No thanks to November for sprinting its way off the calendar. We’ve been gone for two weeks; sorry about that. We had “things” to take care of in “places” with “people.” We’re back, though, with a very thought provoking set of links for this week. We’ll take a look at a former Counter Strike legend’s life (it’s actually pretty good), why the Swiss government “gets” it, and how the subtleties of our brain can lead to the invention of processes like Zen-Nippon Chick Sexing. Let’s do this thing.

First up is a great account from Instapaper creator, Marco Arment. Known for his Apple fandom, he argues that perhaps your choice of computer or platform doesn’t really matter much. Rather, he suggests that you should use whatever works for you.

Jeffery Zeldman of A List Apart offers up a solid analysis of SOPA, what it is, and why it will be harmful to the internet and the economic structure behind it.

Discover magazine takes a look at our subconscious and attempts to explain why human intelligence is flexible and provides a series of accounts that make you really wonder who’s running the machines in your head.

Spool engineer Chandra Patni explains how to effectively deliver realtime metrics using Redis Bitmaps.

Ever play Counter Strike? If you did, you’re sure to understand the importance of a good strat caller. The most famous of this breed, John “Juan” Mumm talks about his past fame while playing the game and explains what it takes to become truly “great” at something.

Here’s hoping that the U.S. Government will take heed of the Swiss’ decision to continue to allow online piracy to be legal. I can’t help but make a parallel between the Swiss Government and this clip from the 1993 Disney classic, Cool Runnings.

Through an interesting account, Steve Blank explains how we’ll all die one day why “Carpe Diem” is the most important lesson that we’ll ever know.

That’s all we have for this week. Now, go forth and conquer.

Until next time,
Ryan & Alex

It was a busy week. This week’s links list goes a bit beyond what we normally share. We’ve got an excellent read on the Future of Interaction Design, a re-imaging of Steve Jobs as a “Tweaker,” and a look into The Social Graph and why it…isn’t. Enjoy.

If you had a chance to see Microsoft’s “Productivity Future,” then you’ll enjoy Bret Victor’s take on it and why it lacks the true imagination of a future we want to live in.

Sahil Lavingia makes an affirmation in “whatever works” and why iteration will never go out of style.

Malcom Gladwell looks into the life of Steve Jobs and wonders whether Steve was a genius, or a tweaker.

From Pinboard, a great (but somewhat lengthy) explanation of why The Social Graph is not what we think it is and what’s missing from our current definition.

There’s a been a rift in Silicon Valley over Zynga’s decision to revoke stock rights from employees right before their IPO. An ex-Google employee explains why Zynga’s portrayal of the “Google Chef” in a negative light is disingenuous.

Mozilla announces Popcorn, a javascript framework and tool suite for developing interactive media on the web. Take a look at the Highrise Project, an example of what’s possible with Popcorn.

Brain Pickings takes a look at the “Your Life Work Series: Journalism,” a 1940 film about the ways and means of being a journalist.

Giving a talk or planning one? Zack Holman from GitHub gives some useful tips on what to focus on in your talk.

File sharing site Hotfile explains how Warner Bros. issued DMCA takedown notices for files that weren’t their property. Interesting read on Ars Technica about how it happened and what’s being done about it.

Have a good weekend,
Ryan & Alex

Currently watching this interview with John Ham (CEO UStream) and thought I’d share it with everyone. Gives some great insight into John’s life, the beginnings of UStream, and running a startup.

This week we learn about why some college students are being misled with their degrees, how piracy can’t exactly be labeled as theft, and the launch of ex-Engadget editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky’s “The Verge” and what it means for the future of journalism. Grab a coffee, relax, and enjoy.

1. Alex Tabarrok takes a look at college degrees and suggests that art, psychology, and journalism students are less likely to produce the kind of innovation that drives economic growth.

2. Google Chrome snatches up market share and joins the collection of web browsers that have helped to dethrone Internet Explorer as the browser of choice.

3. Get rid of shit work for your users. Zack Holman from GitHub explains why circles, lists, and other meaningless classification is a waste of your users time.

4. Piracy is not theft. Stefan Larsson explains how copyright law is metaphorically being applied to file sharing.

5. RED announced its new Scarlet-X camera (pictured above) on Thursday, bringing cinema quality photography to the market for under $10,000.

6. Ex-Engadget Chief Joshua Topolsky launched “The Verge” on Tuesday. Nieman Lab takes a look at the new site and suggests a few lessons news sites can learn from it.

7. We tweeted this one yesterday, but reports are coming in the Google may be working on plans to compete with cable and satellite providers with their own pay tv service.

Here’s to a great weekend,
Ryan & Alex

– The Atlantic has put together an impressive photographic retrospective of World War II. Despite the sometimes chilling accounts, this is a great collection and tells an interesting story about our past.

Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/ww2.html

– If you’re a web geek and understand CSS, you’ll know why these pure CSS logos are pretty incredible. A great indicator of what’s possible in the near future. Hat tip for the Atari logo.

Link: http://www.ecsspert.com/

– The Arduino has become a staple in any electronic hobbyists kit. Read on to learn about how the Arduino came to be and the road to making an inexpensive/open-source microcontroller board.

Link: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/the-making-of-arduino

– An interesting account from an Oakland couple about leaving for a trip and coming home to find that their home had been unexpectedly foreclosed. A good read for those who rent their home.

Link: http://www.mikealrogers.com/posts/foreclosured.html

– Lemonade stands don’t cut it anymore, buy your kid a pop machine.

Link: http://blog.thestartuptoolkit.com/2011/10/my-dad-taught-me-cashflow-with-a-soda-machine

– Check out Scroll, a WYSIWYG approach to magazine-style design on the web (without knowing how to code).

– Netflix is far from dead. This bandwith report shows that Netflix, despite losing customers, still accounts for 32% of download traffic in North America.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/netflix-accounts-for-nearly-one-third-of-north-american-web-traffic.ars

Until next week,
Alex & Ryan

Before we get to the links we have a couple of small releases. First, you’ll notice that we updated our blog. Our old design wasn’t our own and we wanted something a bit more custom. Also, you’ll notice we have a new logo. A big thanks goes out to our friend Ryan Roche for hooking us up, we love it.

1. Cord Cutting of Pay TV Services Accelerates
2. How Accessible do Journalists Really Want to Be?
3. The Lytro Camera
4. Steve Jobs Left Designer Jony Ive More Power Than Anyone at Apple
5. Why You Should Bury Your Signup Button
6. The Inner Workings of IBM’s Watson
7. USA Today Selling Commercial Access To It’s Data

See you next week,
Ryan & Alex

We’re back after missing last week. Here’s what caught our eye:

1. Some Lessons Learned
2. Minimum Viable Personality
3. The Three Terrifying Minutes That Created The Gunstringer
4. Andy Rooney Bows Out From 60 Minutes
5. WABC Shows Off New Digs
6. Why We Need To Separate Our Stories From Our Storytelling Tools
7. Embraced By New Yorkers With Open Arms, Y-Combinator’s Paul Graham Tells Them New York Is Second-Rate
8. Why the “F Word” Belongs on TV

Bonus:
We were fortunate enough to attend YCNYC in New York this past Monday, check out two friends we made at the meetup: 9Magnets & MySyncBox.

– Ryan & Alex

This week’s LOTW take a look at what it takes to be successful, the power of linguistics in interfaces, and what it means to be a great dad and programmer at the same time. If you like what we’re sharing, let us know and suggest your own links of the week for us to add in.

1. The Long Grind Before You Become An Overnight Success
2. 5 Things Journalists Need to Know About the New Facebook Subscription Feature
3. Chat History
4. Cube by Square
5. Why I Go Home: A Developer Dad’s Manifesto
6. 37signals.com Homepage Evolution
7. The Language of Interfaces

Make sure to take a look at these. A lot of great reads.

See you next week,
Ryan & Alex

Wrapping a short week (for some), here’s edition two of what caught our attention this week:

1. Bootstrapping a Startup
2. What is Going On?
3. Judge: Northwestern Students Must Turn Over Emails
4. How Journalists Are Using the iPad to Enhance Their Reporting
5. Time Lightbox
6. IBC and Broadcasters – Multiplatform Apps – Threat or Opportunity?
7. Ticker Taped

We’re starting something new here on the Conduit blog. We realized that we find a lot of interesting stuff on the web throughout the course of the week and figured we’d start sharing it with our readers. Have a link you think everyone should see? Let us know: hello@getconduit.com.

This week’s links:

1. Journalists Should Join Google+ to Understand What Comes Next
2. The New York Times Info Mirror
3. GitHub Flow
4. Pulitzer Photojournalist Takes a Stand
5. Political Campaign Advice for Young Reporters
6. Netflix to Lose Starz Programming
7. Release Day Economics

We’ll be back next week with another list. Until then, make sure to follow us on Twitter for links, updates, and more throughout the week.