Good morning, wherever you find yourself on this slow Sunday. And more importantly, Happy Mother’s Day! Here’s what sparked my curiosity this week:
1. World’s Toughest Job
Today, we celebrate the ones who brought us into this world. The ones who raised us. Taught us. Fed us. Cared for us. And, on occasion, told us our pants were maybe just a little too tight. A few years ago, American Greetings put together one of the best Mother’s Day campaigns of all-time. If you haven’t seen it (or even if you have), give it a watch here and send it to a mom in your life if she hasn’t seen it yet.
2. 68 Pieces of Advice
Kevin Kelly's a bit of a legend. He’s the co-founder of Wired, writes prolifically on his website, and wrote a famous article in 2008 calling on makers to focus on 1,000 true fans—not just rush to reach millions. A few days ago, on his 68th birthday, he shared 68 pieces of unsolicited advice for "the youngins." They're a comical mix of practical tips with philosophical nuggets. A few favorites:
Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.
Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.
How to apologize: Quickly, specifically, sincerely.
Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time.
Bonus: A handful of similar life lessons from Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, are captured here in a new piece by Ben Casnocha, his former Chief of Staff.
3. Steve Carrell’s New Show
If there's one actor I’ll follow to the ends of the earth, it's Steve Carrell. As the hilarious Michael Scott, the slightly-slow Brick Tamland, or just a fellow alum of my middle school who, years into his fame, narrated the Arts department video while on the set of Despicable Me 3, Carrell is an absolute gem. Now, he's back again with Space Force, surrounded by what surely is a top 10 of TV show casts including John Malkovich, Lisa Kudrow, and many more. I'd be putting it lightly by saying "I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS SHOW!" Check out the trailer here.
4. Too Much To Chew On
In the food world, two awards outrank the rest—the Michelin Stars (given to the world's best restaurants) and the James Beard Awards (excellence in a variety of categories from cooking to literature to film). The latter holds a very special place in my heart as my grandmother, Marian Morash, won the award in 1984 and was nominated again in 1994. James Beard himself even reviewed her original cookbook. (For more on her story, check out this great article my sister wrote about her place in food television history.) The 2020 nominees were announced a few days ago and the list always surfaces several docuseries, books, and podcasts that I missed throughout the year. A few highlights are a couple of episodes from Eater's Handmade series (on knives & pottery), Rotten's Avocado War on Netflix, and Tad Friend's *Value Meal* article in the New Yorker on the future & impact of meatless burgers.
5. Long Live the Long-Press
Do you know what a long-press shortcut is? If you're an iPhone user, you're in luck. This is a way to access key features of an app from your home screen before having to open the app fully. If you're like me, you enjoy finding micro-optimizations like this in your daily life. All you have to do to try this out yourself is press and hold on an app and if the app has these shortcuts enabled, you'll be presented with a few options for immediate actions to take. For example, the long-press shortcut for CityMapper (my preferred transit app) has a shortcut called 'Get Me Home', which immediately plugs in my home address and starts the journey with just that one tap. I posted a short video here showing a few more examples.
6. The Story of Time
Lately, one of my favorite publications is Quanta Magazine. I came across it a few months ago as I was diving into the world of complexity science. 98% of the content is over my head, but it's sort of like the digital publication equivalent of sitting with the super-smart kids at lunch. They just think differently. Recently, they published a beautiful timeline of humanity’s understand of, well… time itself. Did you know that the god of time, Chronos, was frequently depicted as a winged serpent? Or that in ancient China, a civil servant built one of the first mechanical clocks, an elaborate water-powered timekeeper comprised of a giant wheel carrying 36 buckets five stories up and down. Or that global time zones were first introduced in 1884 by a Scottish engineer? I love pieces like this that storytell core aspects of our humanity in simple, informative, and fun ways. If you want to jump into the deep end of the pool, you can check out their interactive map of a little project called Theories of Everything.
7. Just A Glimpse
We spend much of our present determining what our future may hold. Stocks are current expectations of future trends, weather forecasts attempt to pinpoint pressure systems, and so on. Google Trends, which turns 14 tomorrow, has enabled us to explore the relative rise and fall of certain topics across the internet. One of my favorite new tools, which I’ve been using for the past year or so, is called Glimpse—a new trend highlighter. They claim to not only surface trends before they occur, but also to analyze more (or at least different) sources than Google. They focus on three key areas: companies, products, and industries. For example, they show that interest is surging for Blue Light Glasses, Goli Gummies, and Plant Delivery. Check out Glimpse here.
That’s all, folks! Feel free to share this around with your friends or family and tap the little heart if you *really* liked it. Anyone who hasn’t yet can subscribe here. ☺️
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I’ll see you back here next Sunday—have a great week.