Web Miscellany: Compilation #67

Hi there! How are you and what have you been up to over the last week? In the midst of local, national, global chaos in the forms viral pandemic, civil unrest, broken relationships, and nuclear threats, I’m finding contentment in the minuscule momentary pleasures. My garden is sprouting, my houseplants are happy, and the finches have finally discovered my bird bell. I made chocolate chip cookies, met my six-week-old niece over video chat, and can see the cotton candy sunset over Camelback mountain from my front door every night. And snowy owls keep passing over Phoenix. In spite of everything, life is beutiful.

I hope that your year is filled with contentment and hope. I hope that you and your loved ones continue to stay safe and healthy. Here are a few links from around the web. Feel free to share anything interesting you’ve stumbled upon in the comments.

Product recommendation: Some Lines A Day – the 5 year memory book. Write a few lines each day over 5 years. We started this last year and it’s been amazing to recall tiny, forgotten memories from the past as we add an overview of the current day’s events.
Ready to get creative? #The100DayProject is a free, global art project. The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every day for 100 days, and share your process online. Anyone can participate (yes, that means you!). The next round starts January 31st, 2021.
How to Escape a Sinking Ship (Like, Say, the Titanic) on Wired. I enjoyed this it’s a blow-by-blow account of the sinking of the Titanic, but told in the form of a practical explanation.
How to Make Friends as an Adult from David at Raptitude.
When the country shut down and the highways thinned out, a stealthy group of amateur car obsessives glimpsed an opportunity to revive the fabled cannonball run—the highly daring, absurdly illegal cross-country endurance race. And in the record-breaking frenzy that followed, they became legends of the unlikeliest pastime of the pandemic age. The Incredible Story of the Great Cannonball Boom by Alex W. Palmer on GQ.
Is it a resolution or is it capitalism by Anne Helen Petersen. “Americans love New Year’s resolutions because we are perpetual strivers obsessed with self-improvement.”
7 Things You Definitely Won’t Need This Year (or ever again) from Be More With Less.
Rowan Atkinson on cancel culture: “It’s important that we’re exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn.”
Researchers are testing 64 coronavirus vaccines in clinical trials on humans. Here are explanations about how eight of the leading vaccines work.
“In the blood-heat of pursuing the enemy, many people are forgetting what we are fighting for. We are fighting for our hard-won liberty and freedom; for our Constitution and the due processes of our laws; and for the right to differ in ideas, religion and politics. I am convinced that in your zeal to fight against our enemies, you, too, have forgotten what you are fighting for.” ― Julia Child, My Life in France