I was talking with some friends-who-are-also-colleagues at work about a subject that, if addressed, would “open up a can of worms.” As the expression indicates, addressing this subject would force us to face a slew of other issues.
In the case, though, being forced to face these other issues felt healthy, necessary, and valuable. I asked my colleagues for a better metaphor for opening a can of good worms.
Thanks to the magical latency of Zoom, they both simultaneously and independently invented the phrase “opening a can of gummy worms.”
The heroes for me this week are all of the preschool and elementary school teachers. They are using every muscle in their face to smile with their eyes to welcome nervous kids to school behind masks.
(don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re wearing masks too)
Of all the new music I’ve heard this year, the song that has stuck with me most is a joke. Like all great joke songs, it’s a great song first.
Bo Burnham’s Netflix musical comedy special, INSIDE, culminates in a song call All Eyes On Me (YouTube, Spotify). There’s a concluding song that comes after it, but this feels like the emotional apex of the special before it wraps up.
All Eyes On Me is three-and-a-half minutes and includes a monologue. It’s best consumed with the visuals, ideally in the context of the full special. The hook has been stuck in my head for weeks.
It’s a joke song, but it’s also kind of a great song.
I would love to see this performed live even thought its power may come from the isolation from which it was created and performed.
I had a few conversations with friends and family recently where we ended up compiling a list of requirements for a place to be called a “cottage”.
If your so-called “cottage” has any of the following, then I’m sorry, you don’t have a cottage. You have a Summer Home.
A foundation
A dishwasher
Air conditioning
Insulation of any kind (some exposed/visible insulation may be allowed)
You may be allowed one of the following, but two or more will disqualify you from the “cottage” designation:
A new mattress
A complete/matching set of dishes or cutlerly
A full-size washer and dryer
Cable TV or high-speed internet access
If you have recently chased a bat, bird, or other rodent out of the building, or if you have crawled under the building to jack it up in the spring, you may use the “cottage” designation for one year.
My friend and colleague at silverorange, Stephen DesRoches, has been an accomplished photographer for years. Recently, though, I feel his work has crossed into the could-be-a-default-Apple-wallpaper level of quality. I can imagine this photo as a default wallpaper for macOS Cavendish in 2023 (I’ve since learned this shot is from Bermuda).
Every time you throw an apple core out the window of a moving car on a country road, you hit the ghost of Leslie Nielsen in the face and knock him off a horse.
Here in my home province of PEI (née Epekwitk), we have two primary dairy brands: Perfection/ADL and Purity. They both use similar white plastic bottles in four common milk-fat amounts: 3.25%, 2%, 1%, and Skim (fat-free).
Both dairies use color to differentiate the milk-fat variations. For 3.25% milk, they both use red. For 1% they both use a light blue (sort of, I’d call the ADL variation here teal, but it’s close enough). For 2% and skim milk, though, they colors don’t match, and worse still, blue is used for 2% Perfection, but Skim from Purity.
Our household has a wide variety of milk preferences and needs, and the inconsistency makes it easy to mix up milk types across brands. I ask you, the milk-producers of Prince Edward Island: come together and standardize!
I guess I’m the kind of person who makes tables about milk label colors.
If Big Dairy of PEI wants to pay me to be the milk label czar, I’d use the rainbow to go from heavier to lighter milk variations: RED3.25%,ORANGE2%,GREEN1%,BLUESkim.
Both brands already get the color right for chocolate milk: brown, like the cows it comes from.
Today at work we were talking about the concept active listening. Hearing the practices of “reflecting back what is said”, “asking for clarification”, and “summarizing” made me think of Bob McDonald.
Bob McDonald is the host of the CBC Radio science program, Quirks & Quarks. I also loved watching his science TV show Wonderstruck when I was a kid. I remember one episode of Wonderstruck about balance where Bob learned to center his mass over the rear axle of his mountain bike and rode around perfectly on the back-tire only.
On the Quirks & Quarks radio show, you can hear the pattern of asking questions of a guest, listening, and then reflecting back what was heard (often in simpler terms). It’s a great way to communicate, and it’s also a great way to host a science show. Keep active-listening, Bob!
I spend a lot of my time on the internet. Much of that time is spend checking the local weather via the Canadian Weather Radar service. Some time this year, one or two of the weather radar stations seems to have stopped reporting data on this page. As a result, a swath of PEI (née Epekwitk) and Nova Scotia is in a radar dead-zone. What gives?
While we’re on the topic, there are a few other interesting things to note on this page:
A recent redesign of this page added many improvements, but also made the large map area something with zooming and panning, which interferes with regular scrolling on the page (you have to make sure your cursor isn’t over the large map before scrolling).
That long narrow rectangle-with-blob near the top right is the geopolitical peculiarity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a territory of France off of the Canadian province of Newfoundland.
