links dump backlog, part 1/n

[kate_nepveu]

I have eight bazillion links built up and it's getting ridiculous, so here are as many as I can post in the next . . . twenty minutes, say.

• If you are in a position to donate (one-time or recurring), consider your local food bank, which can make a dollar stretch much further than any individual can.

• At the Washington Post:

  • Playmobil’s Plan to Infiltrate Your Workplace: also about the (existing) use of Lego in business contexts. (The kids have a substantial set of Playmobil toys that for several years was a big hit with visiting friends, so I was a little surprised that they're somewhat of the underdog in the space.)

  • As a cookbook writer, I just knew my children would be good eaters. Then they were born. This made me feel better, because I often regret that we didn't take different approaches to feeding the kids when they were very young, and then I remember that there's no guarantees regardless.

• Two stories at Tor.com that I randomly clicked on and liked:

  • How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar by Rich Larson. Summary: "A dark, fast-moving novelette about a high-tech heist in future Spain, planned by a professional thief interested in revenge more than money. The object in question is in the hands of a dangerous crime lord." (Content notes: amputation, homophobic & transphobic slur, mentions of past suicide and partner abuse.)

  • For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll. Summary: "A dark fantasy about Jeoffry, a cat who fights demons, a poet, who is Jeoffry’s human confined to an insane asylum, and Satan, who schemes to end the world."

• At the Guardian, The man behind the great Dickens and Dostoevsky hoax. "When writer AD Harvey invented an 1862 meeting between Dickens and Dostoevsky, it was for years accepted as fact. So why did he do it – and why did he also create a series of fake academic identities?"

• At the New York Times:

  • At the Bottom of the Sea, They Wait to Feast on Alligators. You've heard about whale fall, now learn about alligator fall!

  • One Pot/Pan Meals.

  • Alone on a Mountaintop, Awaiting a Very Hard Rain. "Decades ago, Armenian scientists built a high-elevation trap to catch and study cosmic rays. Physics has mostly moved on, but the station persists — a ghost observatory with a skeleton crew."

• In a similar vein, Why I Went Birdwatching at a Particle Physics Lab at Gizmodo.

• In the category of "Now old news, but I'll probably want these links some day":

  • Here Are 20 Headlines Comparing Meghan Markle To Kate Middleton That May Show Why She And Prince Harry Are Cutting Off Royal Reporters, at Buzzfeed News, and a followup on Twitter from the author.

  • An Interview With the Woman Who Wrote the Viral 1,000-Word Job Listing for a “Household Manager/Cook/Nanny” at Slate.

• Great profile of N.K. Jemisin at the New Yorker.

• uzbadyubi watches The Princess Bride for the first time and is delighted and delightful.

• At Vox, The hottest new thing in sustainable building is, uh, wood. On "The many, many benefits of using wood in place of concrete and steel."

• I somehow missed that mountain_goats does a yearly benediction in honor of the people who stream "This Year" on New Year's Eve. Here's a catchup:

  • 2016
  • 2017
  • 2018
  • 2019

And finding all those put me ten minutes over my time, oh well. I thought it was a good note to go out on.

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Comments

[fitzcamel]

I too was previously unaware of the This Year benedictions. As someone who has in the past played that song loudly at low moments, thank you.

[kate_nepveu]

welcome!

[sovay]

I have eight bazillion links built up and it's getting ridiculous, so here are as many as I can post in the next . . . twenty minutes, say.

I had not seen a number of them and appreciate it!

[kate_nepveu]

glad to hear it!

[thistleingrey]

I hadn't seen the interview with the CEO looking for very specific skills in a nanny (I had seen the tweet). It's true that many moms have such a skillset. I do, down to the cooking for allergies thing, though I've never been skiing. But the idea that I'd do that much for someone else while not yet "grandmotherly," as she puts it, beggars belief. I've learned some of those skills while parenting my own kid. And if she'd like only to hire physically active individuals who've lost their own child early or something, well, that'd be much much too specific.

[kate_nepveu]

I would love a follow-up to hear how the search went!

[thistleingrey]

Oh, indeed. That'd be interesting no matter how things tilted!

[lannamichaels]

Thanks for the links! I'd missed that nanny/household manager thing entirely and that was an interesting article to read, especially since I'd seen "household manager" come up in Ask A Manager comment sections and what it entailed, and, yeah, linking it to the I Want A Wife classic is very stark, especially since this person has very specific requirements she wants in that wife. (Like, why is it necessary that the nanny actually swim in the rivers with them? Do you really need someone that athletic?)

And thanks for the benedictions, I'd only seen the last two years of them.

[kate_nepveu]

welcome!