Turns Out: Québec “likes to think of itself as a generous society capable of great social solidarity”, but as this sociologist points out, the pandemic has proven much of how we think of ourselves to be false.
Watch This: Iron Maiden's “Fear of the Dark”, arranged for symphony orchestra, and performed remotely by 160 musicians around the world.
Elsewhere is a series of interesting things I came across during the week, published every Sunday.
We Hate You Now is an op-ed exploring the feelings developing amongst people who've worked and sacrificed to slow down the spread of COVID-19, and what happens when they meet those that didn't.
Related to the above, an empirical report suggests that “lower levels of empathy and higher levels of Callousness, Deceitfulness, and Risk-taking are associated with lower compliance with [COVID-19] containment measures” like mask wearing and physical distancing.
We don't have children, so it somehow never occurred to me that the concept of affordable daycare is foreign to people outside of Quebec. It's not a perfect system, but this op-ed puts forward a strong argument for how it helps bring tenderness and compassion to communities.
“Don't scale past the number of users you can excellently serve” is one of the best mantras I've read in a very long time.
While I'd like to believe that fast fashion is dying, the fact remains that craft labour —which you absolutely should support, if you can— is priced way out of reach of the average person. Ethical consumption is, unfortunately, for the privileged.
Speaking of fashion and style, this thread on why you look like shit in your clothes shines a light on a) the outsized impact of low-cost alterations, and b) the value of finding your neighbourhood alterations guru.
Because I'm a sucker for methodologies: Johnny.Decimal is an interesting Dewey decimal system-like approach for organizing projects (H/T Jack).
This Glitch app customizes a Ron Miller-inspired practice guide for your craft.
Elsewhere is a series of interesting things I came across during the week, published every Sunday.
This Twitter thread shared an important reflection on the universality of pain, as well as the universality of how we run from pain, individually and collectively. (H/T Cassey)
Some musings by Simon Willison on running office hours on open-source projects as a way to combat the feeling of “publishing software into the void”, getting feedback from those using your project, and potentially generating some revenue for the project as well.
Turns out, the “mayday” distress call comes from the French phrase «m'aider» (“help me”). (H/T Katelyn Thomas)
Alexithymia is the condition of not being able to express emotional feelings as words or images. Not being able to do so leads to harmful physiological effects; it is “the development of this capacity – the psychic elaboration of emotion – that leads, quite literally, to continued mental growth.”