Monday, October 13, 2014

Businessweek writing - by Bennett, Stone, Vance & Homans

There's been a number of interesting stories from the past few issues of Businessweek, including one feature and a number of shorter pieces.

The longest of the stories was "What Can the McLaren Racing Team Teach the Rest of Us?" by Drake Bennett and it was a fascinating look at data science and decisions (in racing or any number of other pursuits) being made based on probabilities derived from a constantly expanding number of data points.

The shorter pieces of note included two from Brad Stone with "California Print Magazine Is Born From Pop-Up Storytelling Show" on California Sunday Magazine and "Thync Lets You Give Your Mind a Jolt" on the at first weird to me, but then more logical when the idea of drinking a cup of coffee considered, idea of mild electrical stimulation of the brain to improve cognitive performance.

The other two short pieces to mention here were "Stand Stand: A Portable Standing Desk for the People" from Ashlee Vance on the Kickstarter-funded standing desk company and a review by Jon Homans of the Walter Isaacson book The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.