Parenting advice: Stop asking your teen how their day was.
https://slate.com/life/2025/01/parenting-advice-teen-daughter-school-family.html?via=rss
“Just being quiet in the car ride home has made all the difference in my relationship with my daughter.“
Opinion | The Best Sentences of 2024 - The New York Times
“To read what some of the most talented writers can do is to be reassured of human ingenuity, human sensitivity, human spark. We’re a cunning and capable species, even if we spend much of our time (and many of our elections) trying to prove otherwise.”
Healthier Cities Will Require a Strong Dose of Nature
https://www.wired.com/story/healthier-cities-will-require-a-strong-dose-of-nature/
“If we can’t get to the forest, the forest must come to us, in the form of cities designed around green spaces.”
19 Psychological Reasons Why People Believe in Astrology (Even Though It Doesn’t Work)
https://psychologycorner.com/19-psychological-reasons-why-people-believe-in-astrology
This applies to many other beliefs and ways of thinking as well.
Background Noises • Ambient Sounds • Relaxing Music | myNoise
A great site (with mobile apps) and an infinite number of soundscapes, because you can configure them yourself!
From the site: "Discover a world of immersive and customizable soundscapes that can enhance focus, relaxation, and sleep. Choose from noise generators, nature sounds and ambient music to create your perfect audio environment. Explore our vast library of interactive sound generators and find your audio haven!"
The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders
https://nowiknow.com/the-restaurant-of-mistaken-orders/
“One older woman shows her guests to a table and then sits down with them. Another serves a hot coffee with a straw. Yet another older woman struggles to twist a large pepper mill, not entirely sure that the pepper will fall where it’s wanted. Everybody at the table pitches in to help, and with cries of “We did it!” all join in the laughter. However, “The restaurant is not about whether orders are executed incorrectly or not,” notes Oguni. “The important thing is the interaction with people who have dementia.””
100 Little Ideas
https://collabfund.com/blog/100-little-ideas/
“A list of ideas, in no particular order and from different fields, that help explain how the world works.”
Amazon's now-hidden Q&A
One of the many ways Amazon has become disappointing (besides long shipping times even for Prime stuff, and most egregiously, the insertion of ads into Prime Video) is the removal of browse access to the Questions and Answers. (For those new to Amazon, you used to be able to see the entire collection of questions and answers.) You can still ask a question, and you can search the Q&A for specific words; but you can no longer browse through all of them. I found this activity to be very valuable, as I’d often find facts, or problems, that I never would have thought to search for. Yes, there were lots of repeated questions, and an irritating amount of lousy answers, like “I don’t know I bought it for someone as a gift”, or my least favorite: “Ask the seller/manufacturer”. But I could wade through those easily and learn a lot about a product.
As of this writing it’s still possible to see all the questions by editing a URL:
- Find the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) of the item from the URL
Example, with ASIN highlighted: https://www.amazon.com/Enhancer-Dispenser-Packets-Calorie-Flavoring/dp/B003YP3MUS/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3JB81XUN26IFV&keywords=true%2Blemon%2Bpackets%2B100%2Bcount&qid=1703958856&s=grocery&sprefix=true%2Blemon%2Cgrocery%2C125&sr=1-4&th=1 - And just add the ASIN after https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/asin/
In this example, the finished URL is: https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/asin/B003YP3MUS
If someone could write a browser extension to do this, it would be most appreciated.
Another disappointment: some years ago I chatted with Amazon support, and suggested that the emails they send out to product purchasers with the submitted questions have an “I don’t know the answer” link that leads to some gentle message thanking them but not leading to a published answer. It must have been misinterpreted, because somehow after that I no longer received emails asking me to answer questions for things I’ve purchased or reviewed. That’s too bad, because I believe the Q&A and reviews are the most useful things offered by Amazon, and I liked to help answer questions.
Most people think the U.S. crime rate is rising. They're wrong.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/people-think-crime-rate-up-actually-down-rcna129585
“Almost 80 percent of Americans, and 92 percent of Republicans, think crime has gone up. It actually fell in 2023.”
Klortho's racks
One of my favorite absurdist exclamations is “By the mighty fish-drying racks of Klortho!”
I picked it up from some really fun discussion forum, I think on Usenet, but I can’t remember which one.
How gas utilities used tobacco tactics to avoid gas stove regulations
https://text.npr.org/1183551603
I’m going to start using a new phrase: “Now you’re cooking with induction!”
(Induction burners are electric, and use highly efficient magnetism to heat pans.)
Cubicle Rebellions
https://kk.org/cooltools/airport-belts-solar-powered-watches-cubicle-rebellions/
The Return To Office Tug-of-war
Corporate efforts to get people to commute to cubicles again are not going well. Widespread employee satisfaction drops in surveys seem to be correlating closely with back-to-office demands. When dating app Grindr demanded that its workers return to the office, almost half of them said, “No thanks” and quit. At Amazon, efforts to drive workers back to the office have become a PR nightmare for the company and led to very public departures and protests. Meanwhile, remote companies are finding higher worker satisfaction, less turnover, and more diversity in their workforce. Remote work is a godsend for those who are trying to balance work demands with taking care of the kids, so why are “pro-family” leaders so hung up on butts in office seats? I believe the most obvious explanation is the most plausible: roughly half of commercial office space is sitting empty and a lot of powerful people own those buildings—or collect taxes from them.