Weekend Reading: The Why Do I Keep Pretending There Is a Theme Edition

When I signed Pumpkin up for a make-up gymnastics class this afternoon, I thought this would be a good day to do it, because I wouldn't be too busy. I was wrong! I spent roughly 2 hours on Wednesday shuttling paperwork for our house remodel and getting the kids signed up for summer camp... so I'm a bit behind on my to do list for the week.

So once again, my links list is going to be a bit terse. Sorry about that! However, the links themselves are all great, which is hopefully some consolation.

This article by Jen Dziura has some really great ideas for how to make sure you split the parenting work fairly. (It also has a really annoying format, but the content is worth the annoyance.)

This article about the pioneering programmer Stephanie "Steve" Shirley provided me with a new favorite quote:

"You can always tell ambitious women by the shape of our heads. They’re flat on top from being patted patronizingly."

Here's a piece from another pioneering woman in tech, successful entrepreneur Heather Hiles, about the diversity problem in Silicon Valley's venture capital firms.

Kate Heddleston is writing a great series of posts about the aspects of tech culture that work against diversity. Go read her posts about the problem with argument cultures and why criticism is ineffective feedback. Anyone who gives anyone else feedback should really read that piece about criticism: it is an excellent introduction to how to give effective feedback. The fact that it also explains why negative criticism is more harmful to underrepresented groups is a bonus.

Her most recent post in the series is about onboarding.

Turning to problems in popular culture. Anne Thériault got a lot of online abuse when she wrote about GamerGate. Here, she writes about how the misogynistic trolls used her love for her child against her.

This is a really interesting piece about the color of people in comics.

Here is a post from the mother of the young man at the center of the uproar about the school that said the pledge of allegiance in Arabic. I'll just note that since my daughter goes to a Spanish immersion school, she says the pledge in Spanish every day. My husband thinks the entire pledge this is a bit weird. Since I grew up saying it, too, I never thought much about it, but now I'm inclined to agree with him. Having our school kids say the pledge of allegiance every morning is a weird thing we do.

In other news, California is in the midst of a very bad drought. Bad Mom, Good Mom discusses the problem, and provides a lot of links for people who want to know more. And you should want to know more if you live in the US: chances are, a lot of your food comes from California. Here's an LA Times story with more information about our drought.

The San Diego Police Department has been trying out body cameras. Here's how it is going.

Every once and awhile I run across something online that just bends my brain a bit. This post about how "pop up" cities in the Canadian Arctic might be models for future installations on other planets is one of those things.

This is a really interesting piece about Medium and blogging. I'm not sure yet what I think of its arguments, but there is certainly a lot to think about in it.

And, of course, some happy things at the end:

Here is a nice article about women surfing in Iran.

Here's a tumblr of snarky opt out messages.

Awwww... what are the chances?

I love this picture.