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​Friday Inspiration 508​
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May your inner physics nerd (and chemistry nerd, too) keep you sucked into watching this entire video from 1987, which just keeps going and going, even though at times it looks like the chain reaction is millimeters away from being upset, and maybe that’s why it’s so compelling. (video) (thanks, Eric)

A hundred years from now, when historians are looking back at the communication styles we developed in the first couple decades of social media, I really hope they are able to access the many, many jokes that have been written in 280 characters or fewer, including this one, which I am sure will pop up in your head every time you put on a shirt for the rest of your life.

Speaking of social media: I forget where I found a link to this essay titled “How to end your extremely online era,” before I read the whole thing, not so much for the tips on how to spend less time scrolling, but for the observations and banger lines like these two:

• "I couldn’t help but come to the conviction, right there on the bus, that one of the most important questions modern man must ask himself is how much time he is willing to spend being passively entertained."
• “Most of a good life is simply refusing to do what is bad.”

I had to count, but it’s been six months since we wrapped up our Freeflow Institute course in the Grand Canyon, and I continue to be glad that Eliot Treichel joined us for his second Freeflow course, even though he’s a published author and professor of English, because he put together this wonderful write-up about his experience on the trip for NRS’s Duct Tape Diaries.

We interviewed Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, for The Trailhead a few weeks back, and just published the episode this week to coincide with the publication of his book, The Running Ground. I didn’t say this in the interview, but I am not usually drawn to books about people getting faster at running road marathons, but the book held my interest in that exact thing, as well as the stories Thompson pulls into the narrative, about his father’s tumultuous life, his battle with cancer, and his efforts to balance his ambitions of being a good partner and a good dad, having a successful career, and running his fastest marathon in his mid-40s.
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If you are at all moved by a very specific nostalgia for the computers/technology/aesthetics of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, you may (as I sometimes do) scratch that itch with the r/cassettefuturism subreddit, which is full of photos of that sort of stuff, like this 1965 photo of the reception desk at the General Motors Technical Center, or this set of photos of the Brutalist design of the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco from 1973.

Maybe you’re paying attention to the World Series this year, or maybe not. Maybe you did or didn’t know that Game 3 went to 18 innings. Either way, here is a wonderful essay about staying up too late to watch the conclusion of that game, and I don’t think it’s spoiling it to say that the essay includes a mention of (and the trailer for) Invasion U.S.A., a Chuck Norris movie with a 22 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I have a number of new designs for coffee mugs and t-shirts that I’m trying to get out before the holiday shopping season starts ramping up (I can’t believe I’m saying that already, I apologize), and I whipped this one up a while back when I was flogging myself trying to write something about something and of course struggling mightily with it. Which reminded me that no matter what people on LinkedIn say, the creative process is never straightforward, and I don’t think it should be. Anyway, maybe someone in your life would like this mug that says "Please Do Not Question My Creative Process" (and by “someone,” maybe I mean “you”):

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