Episode #425 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

I got a strange email from James Altucher a while back. It was all about stand-up comedy. He was following my blog (which, kind of made me want to tidy the place up a little bit after knowing that), and he could tell that I am both a fan of standup comedy, and a student of the mechanics behind it. I love everything from how comedians develop jokes, to their biographies to documentaries about the art form, and even watching/listening to them being interviewed (yes, big fan of both Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and Marc Maron's WTF Podcast). If you don't know James, he is a trader, investor, writer, and entrepreneur. His bio is an impressive one. He's an investor in Buddy Media (which sold to Salesforce.com for about $800 million) as well as bitly. His latest book is called, The Power Of No, and it's a great read. Also, if you're not following his blog, The Altucher Confidential, you don't know what you're missing. James and I begun a dialogue about how important understanding standup comedy can be for business success. And, after several email exchanges and back and forths, I convinced him to come on the show to discuss just how important standup comedy can be for business success. The point is that neither of us are comedians (we wouldn't even claim to be funny), but understanding and appreciating standup comedy is probably something that everyone in business should study, because we both feel that it was an important factor in our professional journeys. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #425.

Tags: advertising podcast bitly blog blogging brand buddy media business book business podcast comedian comedians in cars getting coffee comedy david usher digital marketing facebook google itunes james altucher marc maron marketing podcast salesforce standup comedy the altucher confidential the power of no twitter wtf podcast

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

• Inventories of war: soldiers' kit from 1066 to 2014 - The Telegraph. "This is the sort of thing the Internet is great at. How military gear has changed as a result of technology and how we fight wars, for the last thousand years." (Alistair for Hugh).
• The $5 Logo - The Folyo Notebook. "Can you get a well-designed logo for five dollars? On the Folyo blog, Sacha Greif decided to find out, which reminded me of my own adventures in design crowdsourcing (see Crapweeding). The answer? Not really - and with it, an object lesson in why client-agent relationships trump the infinite-monkeys model." (Alistair for Mitch).
• Downtown Parking Lot Maps - Skyscraper Page. "A collection of amateur urban planners have taken satellite maps of cites, and demarcated the spaces dedicated to outdoor parking. You can see which cities are built for cars, and which for people. Unfortunately, this set of images has gotten so popular that Photobucket seems to have capped the users' bandwidth and is no longer displaying the images properly - but you can see some of them from this page, and further on in the forum thread." (Hugh for Alistair).
• The Time I Spent On A Commercial Whaling Ship Totally Changed My Perspective On The World - Clickhole. "A very long, but definitely worthwhile, article about one man's experiences on a commercial whaling ship. Turns out the captain is obsessed with chasing after a particular whale. You won't believe what happens next." (Hugh for Mitch).
• An Unusual Cure for Not Enough Sleep - Scientific American. "Not getting enough sleep? Me neither. Who is? People who do yoga and meditate, right? They've got the goods on us. They understand mindfulness, while the rest of us are just a bunch of morons wandering through life, having anxiety attacks and self-medicating over self-imposed deadlines and arbitrary work that doesn't really change much of anything in terms of the greater global good. Ugh. Maybe I shouldn't write when I'm this tired? WRONG! Just tell yourself that you're not tired. That works, right? Actually..." (Mitch for Alistair).
• Lorne Again - Grantland. "It's hard to imagine just how powerful Lorne Michaels is. Some people just know the name as the guy behind Saturday Night Live. Don't kid yourself. He is a media and marketing juggernaut that owns a lot of the stuff that we have all come to know, love and laugh at. With that, comes the story of a fascinating man. We've had hints and glimmers at his life via people who have been on SNL  - and have had the pleasure of being interviewed by Howard Stern - but this is a story that needs to be told. If you're interested in media, television and the entertainment industry, pack and lunch and enjoy this in-depth feature." (Mitch for Hugh). 

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Tags:   grantland alistair croll bitcurrent book a futurists manifesto clickhole complete web monitoring gigaom howard stern hugh mcguire human 20 iambik lean analytics librivox link bait link exchange link sharing lorne michaels managing bandwidth media hacks photobucket pressbooks sacha greif saturday night live scientific american skyscraper page social media solve for interesting the folyo notebook the telegraph year one labs