Don't Panic Labs Reading List

DPL Reading List – March 8, 2019

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| March 8, 2019 | in

Here are some of the new and interesting articles we found this week.

Stressed at Work? Mentoring a Colleague Could Help – “So if mentoring is to help mentors, organizations need to account for the resources allocated to mentoring and allow flexibility for those mentoring relationships to grow. Those that commit to mentoring might be surprised by the multidimensional benefits this practice brings.”

A comprehensive (and honest) list of UX clichés – From “people don’t scroll” to the dreaded ketchup metaphor, you’ve likely heard these clichés before–many times before.

How AI Will Rewire Us – “Unfortunately, humans do not have the time to evolve comparable innate capacities to live with robots. We must therefore take steps to ensure that they can live nondestructively with us. As AI insinuates itself more fully into our lives, we may yet require a new social contract—one with machines rather than with other humans.”

How WebAuthn aims to solve the password problem – “WebAuthn is a standard for creating and accessing public key credentials on the web, to enable strong authentication of users. It is the result of a joint effort from the W3C, an international internet standards organization, and the FIDO Alliance, a federation of companies interested in improving identity-based security online. With WebAuthn, users can register and authenticate with web applications using devices such as phones, hardware security keys and laptops/desktops with built-in Trusted Platform Modules (TPM).”

This is why you don’t think you’re creative – “Think you’re not creative? You’re selling yourself short. Humans are inherently creative, born with the capacity to reflect, evaluate, come up with ideas, and find connections, says Rahaf Harfoush, author of Hustle and Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed with Work.”

Faster Fiber Links for Data Centers – “Improvements in digital signal processing chips allow more sophisticated modulation of the coherent light transmitted through the fiber. That can double the data rate carried on one wavelength, although at a cost of higher noise that limits transmission distance. Each fiber in a cable can carry multiple separate signals on separate wavelengths spaced a proper distance apart.”

Explainer: What Is Quantum Communication? – “Quantum communication takes advantage of the laws of quantum physics to protect data. These laws allow particles — typically photons of light for transmitting data along optical cables — to take on a state of superposition, which means they can represent multiple combinations of 1 and 0 simultaneously. The particles are known as quantum bits, or qubits.”