Welcome to this week's edition of our Friday 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.
Note: I normally spend more time fussing over the photos and other images I put in these columns — tracking down hi-res versions, getting original photo credit links (sometimes harder than it sounds!), resizing and editing, etc — than I do writing the words themselves, mostly because I love the way this site makes them look. However, this week I'm very pressed for time (honestly not trying to self-importance-brag here) and won't be adding images to the links. Hope the column still reads okay for you. —Chris
How to Get Rich (Without Getting Lucky) »
We'll start this week's column with a Twitter thread by AngelList CEO and co-founder Naval Ravikant, who knows a thing or two about wealth. I'll pick out a few good ones:
Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
Specific knowledge is knowledge that you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else, and replace you.
When you're finally wealthy, you'll realize that it wasn't what you were seeking in the first place. But that's for another day.
Valuable Lessons from Pointless Machines »
Designer Khoi Vinh points out the similarities between creating Rube Goldberg machines and the very process of design:
Indeed, looking at any successful Rube Goldberg machine offers a lesson in how we might appraise design. In design, we often emphasize the simple metric of whether a something works or not. Some people argue—some designers among them—if it accomplishes its goal then it’s hardly important whether it looked great or not, whether it offered any kind of ineffable aesthetic qualities. I think that’s a false dichotomy though; I think it’s important that a design solution should work and that it’s beautiful.
This was the one exception for my "no images" policy, and I still spent too much time making it ?
The Cinemile Podcast »
I'm always one to try a new podcast with an interesting premise, and The Cinemile is one that recently caught my eye (ear?):
A Walk Home From the Movies: Married couple Dave [Corkery] and Cathy [Cullen] podcast their walk home from the movies. Sometimes with their baby.
Warning: This podcast includes some swearing and mild married-couple-bickering.
One of my favorite things about going to the movies these days is discussing and analyzing them with my wife afterward. This podcast captures that feeling delightfully, and as one would hope, the hosts have wonderful chemistry.
I Don't Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore »
It's almost eerie how much Dan Nosowitz's experience of the web over the last decade-and-a-half echoes my own:
There is an argument that this my fault. I followed the wrong people; I am too nostalgic about bad blogs; I am in my 30s and what I used to think was fun time-killing is now deadly. But I don’t think so. What happened is that the internet stopped being something you went to in order to separate from the real world — from your job and your work and your obligations and responsibilities.
This is probably why recent years have seen a resurgence in hands-on artisanship and craft. Going outside and working with one's hands? That's the distraction now.
Recipe: Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe »
I'm all about simple, classic pasta dishes, and Lidia Bastianich's spaghetti with crushed black pepper and pecorino cheese is as easy as it gets. I love how, instead of draining the pasta water immediately, she uses some of it while mixing the pecorino romano cheese into the spaghetti to create a kind of sauce.
Buon appetito!
Being Bored is Fun and Good, Sorry »
I love everything about this piece by Monica Heisey:
In 2018, it is easy and common to be tired, depressed, burnt out, dulled, vibrating with mundane panic, desperate for the sweet release of death, etc. But to be peacefully understimulated with no relief in sight is almost impossible. The average person’s life is full of little tasks to complete, group chats to respond “haha, yeah” to, emails to circle back on, and people you went to high school with to determinedly ignore on the bus. The entire world is one giant beeping alert to things we should do or can do or will do in the future, things we are doing at that moment but could be doing faster. It’s more or less impossible to be bored. Bored means there are not thousands of to-do’s to accomplish. Bored means it doesn’t matter that there’s not. Bored means you are free. In a time of endless, empty stimuli, it is a thrill to be understimulated. Being bored is wonderful and relaxing and I am going to help you get there. The first step is reading this article and then everything else I have ever written, ha ha, but shhh. Listen now.
Via [Tim Carmody on kottke.org](), who adds (emphasis mine):
Opportunities for boredom can also be opportunities to be something better than busy, if you approach them the right way.
Neat Stuff We Published This Week
- Chess as decor: “Straight Up Chess” Vertical Chess Boards
- ☀️ → ?→ ?: Anker PowertPort Solar 21-Watt Charger
- Just the right size for those tiny Nintendo Switch cartridges: Maxgames “Card Pocket Mini” Keychain Cases
- The twenty most essential cooking concepts in one book: Ruhlman's Twenty by Michael Ruhlman
- Hefty security for your bike: Kryptonite New York “Fahgettaboudit 1415” Bike Chain
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.