This week Mike and Bryan talk about the Superbowl, Star Wars product marketing, the Phoenix Open, golfing in Napa, De La Soul’s Kickstarter album, and the movie The Martian.

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Over at The 42, Paul Dollery on Conor McGregor’s 2012 fight with Dave Hill:

Since his subsequent rise to the top in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, much has been made of Conor McGregor’s apparent ability to break his opponents mentally before the fight has even begun. Not only is he an immensely talented fighter, but he’s an expert at mind games too.

One wonders how psychological warfare can become such a key component of a contest between two professional fighters. Regardless of whether mind games have been involved, the story always culminates with the athletes settling their differences by locking themselves in a cage and trading blows.

How do words and actions beforehand manage to make that a more intimidating prospect? Hill mentions that he felt “overwhelmed” by McGregor, both at the weigh-ins and during the fight, but how has McGregor managed to master that?

“I think it’s his inner confidence. He’s obviously such a confident bloke. I cleared my head after the weigh-ins but then during the fight he started talking again. He was saying: ‘I’ll go all day with you, you look soft, I’ll go five rounds if you need to.’ Then I started wondering if I should say something back, because I’d never been in that position before.

“So you start thinking of how you’re supposed to react and that kind of messes with your head as well. It’s definitely his confidence and that shows in the way he fights. He’s constantly moving forward, pushing you back and inflicting his game on you, so you don’t get a chance to inflict your game on him.”

Talk all you want about how much you may hate McGregor’s cockiness but he’s the champ and for good reason.

The Website Obesity Crisis // How to Optimize Your T-Shirt Designs for Max Wearability (don’t forget to break the rules once you know them) // Conversation As Interface —Landscape & Future of Mobile Design // Redesign concepts for popular websites #1 // Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture // The Commericial Zen of Muji // Crafting Your UX Portfolio — A Weekend Guide to Getting It Done // CBGB is Reborn … As a Restaurant in Newark Airport – NO. NO. NO. //

MIT Technology Review on the majority illusion:

One of the curious things about social networks is the way that some messages, pictures, or ideas can spread like wildfire while others that seem just as catchy or interesting barely register at all. The content itself cannot be the source of this difference. Instead, there must be some property of the network that changes to allow some ideas to spread but not others.

The definition:

This is the majority illusion—the local impression that a specific attribute is common when the global truth is entirely different.

And:

And the majority illusion can occur in all of them. “The effect is largest in the political blogs network, where as many as 60%–70% of nodes will have a majority active neighbours, even when only 20% of the nodes are active,” they say. In other words, the majority illusion can be used to trick the population into believing something that is not true.

That’s interesting work that immediately explains a number of interesting phenomena. For a start, it shows how some content can spread globally while other similar content does not—the key is to start with a small number of well-connected early adopters fooling the rest of the network into thinking it is common.

Stay vigilant.

via Noah Brier

Low-Income Americans Face Internet Access That Is Slow, at Risk of Disruption:

The good news is that the vast majority of Americans, even low-income ones, now have some access to the Internet. The bad news is that many are “under-connected,” with mobile-only access that is subject to data caps or interruption due to payment issues.

A new study of lower-income parents found that 94 percent had some kind of Internet connection, but more than half said their connections were slow and almost a quarter rely solely on a mobile device. One in five said their Internet was cut off some time in the last year due to inability to pay. The study, conducted by Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Rutgers University, also found disparities based on ethnicities.

Remember when the Internet was talked about as being “the great democratizer”? Good times.

Compared with other countries, Americans still pay the most for the slowest service.

On top of this knowledge, a liberal education should make certain habits of rationality second nature. Educated people should be able to express complex ideas in clear writing and speech. They should appreciate that objective knowledge is a precious commodity, and know how to distinguish vetted fact from superstition, rumor, and unexamined conventional wisdom. They should know how to reason logically and statistically, avoiding the fallacies and biases to which the untutored human mind is vulnerable. They should think causally rather than magically, and know what it takes to distinguish causation from correlation and coincidence. They should be acutely aware of human fallibility, most notably their own, and appreciate that people who disagree with them are not stupid or evil. Accordingly, they should appreciate the value of trying to change minds by persuasion rather than intimidation or demagoguery.

I believe (and believe I can persuade you) that the more deeply a society cultivates this knowledge and mindset, the more it will flourish.

—Steven Pinker

via Twitter

Google wants everything on the web to be travelling over a secure channel. That’s why in the future your Chrome browser will flag unencrypted websites as insecure, displaying a red “x” over a padlock in the URL bar.

With this upcoming change in Chrome, Google makes it clear that the web of the future should all be encrypted, and all sites should be served over HTTPS, which is essentially a secure layer on top of the usual HTTP web protocol. Several companies and organizations have been pushing for more encrypted sites as part of a campaign to “Encrypt All The Things,” which consists of promoting more websites to abandon the traditional, less secure HTTP protocol and adopt HTTPS.

Why, you ask?

The rationale is that on every website served over HTTP the data exchanged between the site’s server and the user is in the clear, meaning anyone with the ability to snoop on the connection, be it a hacker at a coffee shop or a repressive government, could steal passwords, private messages, or other sensitive information.

But HTTPS doesn’t just protect user data, it also ensures that the user is really connecting to the right site and not an imposter one. This is important because setting up a fake version of a website users normally trust is a favorite tactic of hackers and malicious actors. HTTPS also ensures that a malicious third party can’t hijack the connection and insert malware or censor information.

It’ll be interesting how quickly HTTPS gets adopted. I wonder if it will be like the migration from standard definition to high definition in TV broadcasting.

Study Finds Social Media Leads To Sleep Disturbance – stay the fuck off Facebook and you’ll feel better // Video: Apollo Robbins, professional pickpocket on the art of misdirection (via Open Culture) // Seth Godin on how famous colleges and in the industrial-education process are not preparing students with practical skills // Frank Chimero tells the story of how he discovered the caption that works on every New Yorker cartoon // Antoher Kickstarter hardware project burns through their money: Jolla announces that it is unable to fulfill all Jolla Tablet crowdfunding perks // So, what exactly is branding? // “Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for” (via swiss miss)

The DeLorean Motor Company has announced its intention to manufacture the iconic DMC-12 sports car again, 30 years after the vehicle was immortalised in sci-fi movie trilogy Back to the Future.

—Dezeen:DeLorean goes back to the future to reproduce DMC-12 car

When you buy a Hellcat, you’re given two keys: a black key and a red key. The red key unlocks the car’s full performance potential, giving it a raucous 707 horsepower. The black key, however, “limits” the Hellcat to a conservative, rational 500 horsepower.

—Jalopnik: I Drove A Challenger Hellcat And I Almost Crashed It

via DrewBot

Uber drivers are protesting Uber again:

Drivers wielding megaphones stood atop giant piles of dirty snow in Queens this morning, railing against Uber’s recent decision to cut fares by 15 percent. “Shame on Uber,” chanted hundreds of New York City-based drivers, in between the airing of grievances. As the crowd occasionally got too close, Uber’s private security guards would emerge to shoo protesters away — only to be met with a chorus of boos. They all want to get paid.

And:

Uber says that since the fare reduction went into effect, driver earnings have gone up 20 percent, compared to the prior two weekends before the fare cut. “That’s a lie,” Diallo said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t take a math degree to know that less does not mean more.”

Back in December of last year it was reported that Uber was raising funding giving it a valuation of $62.5 billion.

Seems there’s not enough money to go around to all the drivers.

Oh, and remember, having pesky humans driving is only a stop gap before Uber deploys their driverless cars.

This week Michael talks to himself about The Godfather Trilogy, being in Jersey for Christmas, how nothing is better than Breaking Bad, the glasses frames racket, where hip hop samples come from, and the music he’s listening to.

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Seth Godin on software (and everything else in life):

The reason it’s so difficult to test and improve is that it requires you to acknowledge that your original plan wasn’t perfect. And to have the humility and care to go ahead and fix it.

Making shit work is the easy part.

Making sure it doesn’t break is the hard part.

Pentagram’s Emily Oberman brands Snoop Dogg’s new line of weed products:

Pentagram partner Emily Oberman has crafted the identity for Snoop Dogg’s new line of cannabis-based products called Leafs by Snoop. Adopting a “laid-back California cool” aesthetic for the rapper and ganja lover’s range, a leaf motif features throughout. A mix of pastel gold colours and imagery like palm trees, fish, birds and cloudy skies completes the sunny identity.

You know you’re mainstream when Pentagram does your product branding for you.

I love the deliberately incorrect spelling of the product.