It’s festival time in Northwest Indiana and for the first time I am excited.
I used to drive past all these community events happening and think “Who are these people?” “Why would they want to come out and sit in a field and listen to someone do karaoke?” “Why would you take your free time and go out to a place that isn’t home and sit with a bunch of people you don’t know?”
Then I actually started going, turns out they’re usually pretty fun.
Even last night, the wife, dog and I walked to downtown Hobart for their Summer Market, grabbed some dinner, pooped on the grass (well, one of us anyway) and had a really nice couple hours.
With June just getting started, the opportunity is there for you to take advantage of some of these awesome events, even if they may be a 20-minute drive from where you are.
Get out and do something fun in your community this summer. But first, read the Links of the Week.
The Hollywood Reporter did a solid, in-depth story on Bill Simmons, his departure from ESPN, the launch of Ringer, and his new show coming to HBO next month. He definitely comes across as kind-of a jerk in the piece, but obviously he’s doing something right if he’s making between $7-9 million to talk about sports. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Hot dang, it pays to be really good at sports. [The Big Lead]
Speaking of lots of money, I wish I had enough to be involved with a flying cars startup like Larry Page. [Mashable]
Twitter is a social media tool that I love, but it has struggled as of late both in terms of popularity and making sure there’s a positive cash flow happening. I’ve personally never figured out how they make enough money to have as many millions of users as they do. Anyway, here’s a great and deep dive into the company, who just brought back their co-founder as CEO after 7 years away. [Vanity Fair]
Is the internet “humankind’s greatest masterpiece”? I think so. [NPR]
Google, or at least Alphabet, is now the world’s most valuable company. TAKE THAT APPLE PEOPLE! #TeamGoogle [AdWeek]
Per request from Jenny Craig-Brown, they talked about Schererville on the latest Freakonomics podcast about why mattress stores are popping up all over. So here’s that link. [Freaknomics]
A former patent troll lawyer writes for TechCrunch about why he left the industry that is draining the US economy and causing an insane amount of frivolous lawsuits. Here’s to hoping legislation comes through soon that can more credibly discern the difference between a real claim and a troll claim. [TechCrunch]
Here’s this week’s reminder that the Cubs are awesome. [The Ringer]
Chuck Klosterman has a new book out, “But What If We’re Wrong?”, which takes a look at some popular and deeply-held beliefs, then takes the long view in that, 300 years from now, are our children’s children’s children going to look back on what we’re doing now and think we’re completely wrong? GQ has an excerpt on the chapter about football. [GQ]
I would also not do well being roasted. Have a good weekend.