1. Jansen’s creations, which he describes as “a new form of life,” are a true embodiment of art, science, engineering, and performance.
2. What happens when the earth’s humans halt their normal activities? The Year Earth Changed
3. Adriana LaGrange, Education Minister in Alberta, Canada, says coding can be taught with paper and pen.
4. I am way above average. I might need to look into that.

More Friday Finds

1. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
2. David Mitchell is one of my favorite writers. My wife says he’s my spirit animal.
3. Things Fully Vaccinated People Are Still Not Allowed to Do. This is not the list you think it is. It’s so much more important. (N.B. This is a link to an article in The New Yorker; it may require registration.)
4. A good news/bad news/but mostly good news (I think) scenario with vaccine availability. The US is about to reach a surprise milestone: too many vaccines, not enough takers.
5. When aliens invade Earth and demand to see our leader, this is the guy they’re talking about.
6. Is that ship still stuck? Yes. Yes, it is.

1. We’ve been mispronouncing Everest. Also, we can’t seem to figure out just how tall the mountain is.
2. Another reason to consider building your own music library. This happens all too often.
3. Who doesn’t love Yo-Yo Ma?
4. Scott Kelby has published a new book on iPhone photography. (Remember when it was called “iphoneography”?) Scott is one of my favorite photographers and teachers of photography.
5. As usual, there are important details behind the attractive headline. The new three-foot social distancing guideline is for elementary students only, and only when they stay in cohorts or pods. Middle and high school distancing should remain at six feet unless.

I’ve started using an RSS reader again like we did in the mid-2000s. Maybe I’ll keep this up and maybe I won’t, but here are a few items I found interesting this week.

1. A good leader knows they don’t know everything, including some of the details of the jobs of the people they lead. Julia Evans offers insight on how to help our managers help us.
2. I’ve recently rebuilt my entire music library, much to the boredom of the Micro.blog community where I cataloged many of the decisions and much of the process. One of the questions: lossy or lossless? This ABX test helps you decide whether you can actually hear a difference between lossy audio files and lossless audio files. Listen to the reference (X) and choose which test sample, A or B, sounds the same as X. I got 64% correct. That isn’t a lot more than even chance, but enough to, at least in my own mind, retroactively justify my decision to go with lossless files.
3. Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette tape, died this week.
4. Apple has denied Parler’s request to return to the App Store. After the US election in November, I dipped into Parler just to see what it was all about. It was everything you’ve heard about and more. I’m not one to deny free speech, but this was probably a wise decision from Apple.
5. Zenkit offers up competition for Roam and Obsidian, but with a significant advantage over the other two: a native iOS app.
6. Yet another reason to stop using Amazon for books and music. I just wish there were a strong alternative.
7. There’s still a Blockbuster store. Apparently, it’s alive and well during the pandemic. And speaking of Blockbuster, Netflix will soon air a documentary on the rise and fall of the movie rental chain and will feature that lone store.
8. “This is not a month; this is going to be months.” The pandemic has hit everyone hard without question, but the arts will take much longer to get back to normal than just about anything else. I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow, but I’m not sure where I’ll put it yet: my personal site (probably), my microblog, or HEY.