Published

April 6, 2018

Written by

Chris Gonzales

Photography

Aziz Acharki

Welcome to this week's edition of our Friday Quality Linkage column. Please enjoy this week’s [evening] collection of interesting and entertaining links. Brew a fresh cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax.

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Microorganisms Size Comparison »

You know those videos that compare the sizes of celestial objects to make you feel even more insignificant in the universe? A few months ago the same treatment was given to microorganisms like viruses, blood cells, neurons...all the way up to a frog's egg. I always thought of these things as generally the same size, but this video sure proved me wrong.


 

1.1.1.1: A Faster, More Private DNS Service »

This could be useful: Cloudflare has announced 1.1.1.1, a consumer DNS service with speed and privacy at its forefront:

DNS itself is a 35-year-old protocol and it's showing its age. It was never designed with privacy or security in mind. In our conversations with browser, operating system, app, and router manufacturers nearly everyone lamented that, even with a privacy-first service like 1.1.1.1, DNS inherently is unencrypted so it leaks data to anyone who's monitoring your network connection. While that's harder to monitor for someone like your ISP than if they run the DNS resolver themselves, it's still not secure.

What's needed is a move to a new, modern protocol.

This would've been so handy back in my tech support days.


12 Letters that Didn't Make the Alphabet »

M. Asher Cantrell of Mental Floss takes a fascinating look at some obscure, discarded letters from the English language:

You know the alphabet. It’s one of the first things you’re taught in school. But did you know that they’re not teaching you all of the alphabet? There are quite a few letters we tossed aside as our language grew, and you probably never even knew they existed.

If nothing else, you'll learn something new about the ampersand (&).


Making a Chef's Knife from a Roll of Aluminum Foil »

Here's one of the weirder videos I've seen in a while. I guess it makes a sort of sense though; heat and hammer down a roll of foil enough, and of course it would simply become a solid block of metal to work with.

Two things I like about this:

  1. The sped-up, sort-of-satisfying hammer sounds.
  2. The use of a kitchen stove as a mini-forge.

Need more of this type of thing? You're in luck because whoever runs that YouTube channel also made knives out of pasta and chocolate. Yep.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGWuyMKT8wU

The Philharmonic Turntable Orchestra »

A group of DJ world champions and other turntablists collaborated as an "orchestra" to perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor. Really shows how flexible the turntable can be as an instrument.

The group also made a short "Behind the Beats" video to document the making of the project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2KK3vqJqog


Intensity vs. Consistency »

British author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek gave a talk on the importance of consistency when it comes to making long-lasting change in a company. It has since been animated by Jocie Juritz, resulting in the video above.

Animation is the process of making small, repetitive, consistent actions, over and over, until you suddenly find you have created something you are proud of. Simon Sinek's wonderful talk for The RSA is about applying that positive attitude to work and life.

Saent cofounder Tim Metz agrees:

Yet paradoxically, to achieve this level of consistency, it’s also important to be flexible and assume you’re going to encounter failure. Of course there are going to be some missed days. Of course you’re going to have days when you can’t find the motivation (certainly in the beginning). The key is to not let that be a reason to give up. Instead, forgive yourself and try again until the new behavior becomes habitual and those bumps in the road become less frequent.


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Neat Stuff We Published This Week

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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.