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.
💁♂️🤦♀️: If you haven’t caught on by now, emotional labor is a real problem in many cis hetero couples, and has been since forever. Just because it’s only now hitting the “mainstream” in men’s minds doesn’t mean it hasn’t been an ongoing issue.
As time goes on, this cognitive gender gap is going more and more from something women have instinctively known all along to being the subject of real sociological research, as detailed in a recent paper published by Harvard Ph.D. candidate and Princeton graduate Allison Daminger, who was interviewed about the study by Jessica Grose of the New York Times:
“I found that in the majority of cases, decision-making that rose to a certain level was very collaborative. So, not necessarily the decision of what we’ll have for dinner, but decisions about how we’ll parent, where we’ll send our child to school, things like that. Both partners were consulted before moving forward.
But the act of putting the item on the agenda seemed to be overwhelmingly something that women were doing, as well as on the back end, following up once the decisions had been made. And that was true, even in domains of life like household maintenance, where it was pretty clear to both parties that the man was ultimately responsible for clearing the gutters.
Women’s antenna seemed to be constantly up and looking for these things. Whereas men were often very happy to help once their partner had alerted them to the issue and they might’ve gotten to it eventually on their own, but women were consistently getting there first and either doing it themselves or saying: “Hey, this is the thing you need to handle. Are you thinking about it?”
And then the $1 million question is what to do about that.”
Gentlemen, we have a lot of improving to do, and it’s way past time we stepped up.
🏠🚱: Another, different kind of problem that requires attention from all of us is the ongoing crisis that suburban lawns present to the environment and our shared water supply:
One percent of metro Phoenix homeowners continue to use flood irrigation practices, dousing their yards in 60,000 acre-feet of water last year. That practice alone accounted for 7.5 percent of the water that the local water utility Salt River Project provided to the entire area. It’s as much as the entire city of Chandler, Arizona, used in a year.
This isn’t just an issue for arid cities, either. Maintaining these manicured lawns anywhere requires vast quanities of water with little to show for it, other than continually decreasing biodiversity, pumping out unnecessary emissions from non-electric lawn mowers, spraying pesticides everywhere, etc…and for what? An “aesthetically appealing” (read: empty and boring) space you’re not even using most of the time?
It doesn’t have to “bee” this way. Do your research on eco-friendly lawn alternatives and make the switch sooner than later. Future generations (your children included) will thank you.
🥚: On a lighter note, I’ve found myself being introduced to a number of TikTok egg tricks lately, like the method for peeling hard-boiled eggs (even if you’ve done the ‘shaking in water’ thing before, you might not’ve known to lightly crack the shell on the bottom before boiling) and chef José Andrés’ creamy microwaved omelette (???).
🖥🖼: Maybe this one’s a little more useful for people like me than the general non-blogging population but maybe you’ll also get some use from Stéphanie Walter’s guide on making your blog images stand out. Can also apply to conference slides and such.
🍦: I’ll thank John Gruber for linking the archived (captcha’d) version of WIRED’s surprisingly crazy exposé on McDonald’s notorious ice cream machines and the small company trying to do something about it.
(This is now the second week in a row where I’ve linked to something McD’s related. Who knows what next week holds in store…?)
📺😯: Listen, I do NOT want to promote buying plastic-bottled beverages on here, but this mostly-practical-effects commercial for Japanese sports drink Pocari Sweat (not my favorite name ever) is insane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn5lk6isyGc
You can read a bit about it here, watch their short behind-the-scenes video, and be amazed at the techniques they used every step of the way (literally).
🧈🍪: App developer David Smith has followed the, er, breadcrumb trail left by Apple as an Easter egg at the end of their recent product event, which apparently semi-revealed the shortbread recipe from the delightful Ted Lasso — which, if you’ve seen the show, you don’t need me to tell you to click that lin- ah, I see you’re already gone.
Well then, everyone else, you should know that season 2 is coming soon so there’s no better time to get caught up on the first one. You won’t regret it.
🎨: If you need me, I’ll be poring over Loe Lee’s almost Ghibli-like “Hope in NYC” illustration series, “depicting creatures of hope walking through the different parts of New York as it recovers from the devastation of COVID-19.”
On her Behance page she writes:
It was heartbreaking (especially as a native New Yorker) to see NYC endure such crippling loss and confusion. Yet despite everything, I still saw people striving with unshakable resilience and strength. This series depicts creatures of hope walking through different parts of New York City as an embodiment of the NYC-spirit I saw everyday.
Neat Stuff We’ve Published Recently
- Stretchy and comfortable for all-day wear, this braided solo loop band for Apple Watch is easy to slip on and off, and comes in a lot of great-looking colorways.
- The perfect tool for drawing and measuring circles, adjustable by simply rotating the rings to open and close its aperture mechanism.
- This multifunctional stand/tray lets you create a mobile workspace (or relaxation station) just about anywhere.
- With OXO’s plunger-like adjustable measuring cup, you’ll never again have to rely on a spatula to extract those annoyingly sticky ingredients (peanut butter, I’m looking at you).
- A line of larger-than-life yet anatomically accurate human body puzzles that reveal our hidden inner-workings.
- Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Leadership: In Turbulent Times profiles the careers and leadership qualities of four influential US presidents: Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ.
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.