Linkwad.

1. Designing things to fail better.
2. A torture lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld will go forward. Who knows if this will ultimately accomplish anything–I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it reach the Supreme Court (which most likely means it’ll die there).
3. Edgar Allen Poe house museum is in trouble.
4. Leftover carnitas + the first NFL preseason games = pulled pork empanadas.

Linkwad.

1. The surprisingly-endearing (and self-explanatory) My Drunk Kitchen vlog definitely embodies “adultolescence.” Via @BEngmark.
2. A new study suggests time spent indoors can lead to nearsightedness.
3. For job seekers: look for education and health care gigs (coincidentally, the two fields my fiancée and I work in).
4. Supreme Court to women: Wal-Mart’s gender discrimination goes against its own policy, so it doesn’t exist! I think Dahlia Lithwick is too kind when she says “devotees of strict construction and plain meaning are so enamored of the printed word that they often seem inclined to accept no other type of evidence.” When Scalia conflates and dismisses “statistical and anecdotal evidence,” he’s really saying “Well, that’s not the answer I wanted, so fuck you anyway.”

Linkwad.

1. Athletes are a generally-conservative bunch, so it’s good to see Ravens linebacker Brendan Ayanbadejo supporting gay marriage.
2. I hadn’t heard of potato pickles before today, but they sound pretty enticing. This was the most-frequently-stolen version of the recipe I found, so it might be worth a shot.
3. Another profile of 4Chan and Anonymous. And here’s a counterpoint arguing against online anonymity (or, depending on your stance, it might be a second argument against it).
4. “The first step of indie rock going Vegas.” Good stuff.

A man got to have a code.

Aggravated by the behavior of some eliminated contestants on this season of Top Chef, Tony Bourdain sounds positively patriarchal:

[I]t is useful to have a sense of humor about oneself. And when one is a professional, facing other professionals, and the chop comes down, it is always useful to comport oneself with dignity — and a measure of grace. Regardless of what one might think — or what pain and heartbreak may boil inside — one thanks one’s executioners. One stands tall and proud. One leaves this world — to whatever degree possible, looking GOOD.

Point the first: this is obviously excellent advice, especially given the myriad ways to find information on people nowadays, which I try to follow (though not always successfully). He also gets points for opening and closing with references to The Wire.

Point the second: Bourdain would look unbearably badass in a bespoke three-piece, right?

A new direction.

I’ve noticed that this blog, while reflecting a few of my interests in depth, rarely reflects what I’m doing or thinking about most of the time. So I’ll try and offer up fewer “here’s a bunch of stuff I found interesting” linkwads without any meat on the bones (I’ll save most of those for Twitter), and actually do a bit of writing here and there.

Cooking seems like an ideal topic to bridge the gap. Guesting for Andrew Sullivan, Zoë Pollock notes a study about men and women in the kitchen:

[W]omen and men see cooking in profoundly different terms: most women see it as a “sensual” act—something that “gives pleasure,” whereas men see it as “a performance and an activity at which they can impress.” Sounds familiar. See: other activities, other rooms.

Here’s a part of the research that’s easy to believe: when men do cook, they “enjoy the fruits of their labor more than women do theirs.”

This is also known as the First Law of Men: “He who rarely cleans or cooks, when does, is utterly proud of himself, which does not mean he shall start to thenceforth clean or cook more often, sorry.”

I’d buy it. I do cook pretty much all the meals in our house, and lean towards comfort food¹, but my version of “helping fold the laundry” would more accurately be described as “sitting on the bed with Quipu and vaguely pawing at a pile of socks.”