Weekend Links 4-3-20

Happy Friday! Hopefully you are staying safe and hunkered down at home. Here's your assortment of links of interest for your weekend reading.

You can virtually ride Disneyland and Disney World rides from the comfort of your own couch.

If you are like me and thought that word games began with the invention of the crossword you would be wrong. 

Due to the national shortage of hand sanitizer, many craft distilleries like this one in Massachusetts are stepping up production to help out.

Fashion inspiration from Ken Burns' Baseball. Incidentally, the series is free to stream from PBS right now.

How and why crime books (especially Penguins) embraced the color green.

These are tough times for bookstores but they can be saved. 

I couldn't agree more: Animal Crossing is the perfect way to spend quarantine. Full disclosure: our entire family of four has been playing since the day the game released. We may or may not have bought our Switch solely to be able to play the game.

The true story of Thomas "Toad" Ramsey (yes, that really was his nickname) who invented both a cocktail and the knuckleball. 

This is what happens when you are home with your kids with too much time on your hands.

Been isolating at home with my wife & kids for a week now. For my contribution to home schooling my kids (aged 6 & 4) I chose the most obvious thing - creating a shot-by-shot recreation of the jet pack sequence from THUNDERBALL out of LEGO. [turn sound on] #JamesBond @LEGO_Group pic.twitter.com/s1ivrODq7s

— Jon Opstad (@JonOpstad) March 27, 2020

This is fantastic.

Podcast of the week: Faithwire - Love in the time of Coronavirus. This is a very insightful podcast with Andy Crouch and Sarah Pulliam Bailey. A very interesting discussion about how things will change as a result of the pandemnic. Also helpful is this article which is referenced in the podcast that takes the view that this is only the beginning of a host of changes we are facing as a culture and that organizations would be well served to face the fact that changes are coming.

Weekend Links 1-17-2020

While you are waiting for me to get my act together and write some original stuff here are a few items of interest I ran across this week:

I am a traditionalist when it comes to the designated hitter rule in baseball. I am strongly opposed to it. If I were commissioner I would abolish it in an instant. However, I understand with the entrenchment of the DH in the American League it's only a matter of time before the National League adopts it. This proposal from Jayson Stark (subscription required) might be the best proposal yet:

Did you know the designated-hitter rule has been around in the American League for nearly 50 seasons now? So apparently, this isn’t going to be a short-term fad. In fact, it’s hard to find anyone in the game who doesn’t believe that one of these years — possibly as soon as 2022, once the new labor deal is done — every team will be writing a DH into its lineup. 

But wait! Here’s one possible wrinkle that has been kicked around in behind-the-scene brainstorming sessions: How about a rule that would allow teams to use their DH only as long as their starting pitcher remained in the game? Then, once the starting pitcher exited, that game would revert to old-school rules. The more we think about this idea, the more we like it. Starting pitchers would no longer hit, which would eliminate some teams’ injury paranoia. It would create incentives to keep starters in the game longer, which could lead to more offense. And it would preserve some elements of late-inning managerial strategy that fans of “NL rules” still love. 

 OK, so this part of the plan might never happen. But it’s at least worth having a long conversation about – even if it’s just a segment on “MLB Now.” 

There's lots more bold predictions about how baseball will change in next decade that are worth reading. Incidentally, I find The Athletic to be an outstanding source of sportswriting. It's well worth the cost of the subscription. 

Also at The Athletic, Molly Knight follows up on the sign stealing story from last weekend's post. Her solution is to abolish instant replay. (language warning) Emma Baccellieri adds her own thoughts. While I believe it's important to get calls right the whole system has done more harm than good.

I had no idea that Charles Schulz once worked as an art instructor. This is fun:

An instructor for the mail-away Art Instruction Schools in the late 1940s, Charles Schulz reminisced, “Those were days filled with hilarity...[We'd] receive drawings of thumbs, and...realized...a student had misunderstood the expression ‘making a thumbnail sketch.’" [📸 c.1949]. pic.twitter.com/u6eo3rZPPd

— Charles M. Schulz Museum (@SchulzMuseum) January 14, 2020

When No Time To Die premieres in April, it will mark Daniel Craig's last appearance as James Bond. Here are 10 things that his Bond did differently that the franchise should keep. Related: the recipe for James Bond's Vesper martini.

Solving life's important mysteries: why button down shirts have loops on the back.

An interesting observation:

Observation:

We tend to be political REALISTS with our FAVORED party or candidate (overlooking flaws, acknowledging the inevitably of compromise etc) and political IDEALISTS with our DISFAVORED party or candidate (condemning them on principle; noting inconsistencies etc).

— Jonathan Leeman (@JonathanLeeman) January 10, 2020

Daily Links 2-28-14

Your weekend roundup of links: cooking with Jane Austen, the cult of the visioneer, perfecting timekeeping, romantic Disney moments, why we sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch, and more.

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You love Jane Austen's novels. You also love to cook. This literary cookbook is just for you.

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When wading into the fashion wars with your kids it's best to tread lightly.

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Why Christians should engage with non-Christian art. Good food for thought.

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How often have you heard it said in a church that "God has given the pastor a specific vision and it's up to us to follow it"? That's a very dangerous line of thinking as Todd Pruitt explains. Background on this issue here.

Hat tip: Challies

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Another endorsement for The Gospel at Work. 

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How Omega has perfected the art of timekeeping.

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The most romantic moments in Disney movies.

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What you have to do first before you can agree or disagree with someone (from How to Read a Book).

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Why we sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch at baseball games. You can thank Harry Caray and Bill Veeck for this tradition.

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Do the math: there are plenty of reasons to order the bigger pizza.