Welcome to this week’s edition of our Quality Linkage column. Please enjoy this week’s collection of interesting and entertaining links. Brew a fresh cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax.
🖍: The ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has many of us and our kids stuck indoors at home, in desperate need of activities to keep ourselves busy when we’re not working or schooling.
About a week ago, blogger and designer Joshua Blankenship shared a free set of 26 geometric alphabet coloring sheets you can print off for your kids to do. Or for yourself, if coloring calms your anxiety.
🎺🤩: You may have seen the recent video that went around, of various celebrities singing lines from John Lennon’s “Imagine” while self-quarantining. You may have also seen the internet being collectively repulsed by a bunch of rich folks in mansions trying, however nobly, to lift the spirits of the masses who are already struggling financially under the effects of isolation.
Instead of linking that, here’s professional trumpeter Alberto Anguzza playing that same song beautifully for his neighbors from his balcony in Trapani, Sicily:
💡: Here’s our own editor-in-chief Shawn Blanc with a reminder on the importance of creating even if — no, especially if — the outside world feels like it’s falling apart.
🎥🕴: Over the course of a week in 2018, comedic YouTuber Ryan Higa — a self-admitted bad dancer — and his friends took over 4,000 photos to produce a very clever “Dancing Without Moving” stop-motion video.
After watching that, go and see how they made it.
🔳: If we manage to get through this pandemic with our society intact, I would love to see a bunch of big companies do this kind of no-frills product/packaging branding.
🧼👏: About a thousand and one videos on proper handwashing technique have been making their way around social media since the start of this whole thing. You’ve probably seen at least a few already, so I won’t waste your time linking them. However, if you’re still wondering what the big deal is, Popular Science journalist Kate Eschner wrote a love letter to handwashing that might wake you up a bit.
Seriously, take the time to do it right. My pro tip? Turn the water off while you’re scrubbing with soap so you don’t feel rushed and inevitably do a poor job of it.
🍜: The concept of “umami” is one of those things that’s really taken off in the public consciousness in recent years. However, it was actually discovered all the way back in 1908 by a Japanese chemist named Kikunae Ikeda, the story of which was covered in detail by Veronique Greenwood last year for BBC Future.
🌐: I recently wrote about how Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia resources) are a gift to the world. Richard Cooke of WIRED seems to agree, calling Wikipedia “the last best place on the internet.” It’s more than an attempt to complile all of human knowledge — which itself is a lofty goal indeed — it also represents the ideal of a public square online.
Neat Stuff We’ve Published Recently
- Recipe: Spicy & Creamy Avocado Salsa
- FastCap’s “ProCarpenter FlatBack” tape measure features a flat, flexible blade for measuring around curves and corners.
- Bee’s Wrap is a washable, reusable, and compostable alternative to plastic wrap.
- Make your bookshelf a little more magical with these Harry Potter “Hogwarts Express” bookends.
- With dual lav mic set, your two-person recording ventures will sound much more professional.
- NEBO’s “Ultra Socket” tool combines a socket wrench, ratcheting screwdriver, and nut driver into one powerfully convenient package.
- Maintain a fresh and efficient counter space by storing your Chemex brewer and filters in Drip & Brew’s bamboo Chemex Organizer.
Got any suggestions for articles, videos, stories, photographs, and any other links you think we should be posting in our weekly Quality Linkage? Please do let us know on Twitter.