You may have seen that I’ve recently launched a production house (neuemotion.com) after leaving Twitter/X and with that has come a ton of heavy lifting to get things off the ground. For the record, AI & Google make an incredibly difficult thing just a smidge more bearable - thanks, Internet!

As a result, I need to take the month of December off from this newsletter. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in January, but for now you’ll find me … building a company. You can follow along pretty much everywhere - the handle is neuemotion on your platform of choice.

One last thing, if you’d like to support me in this, but don’t have any production needs yourself at the moment - you can pre-order my course The Power of Attention here. If you use code: MOTION at checkout, you get $50 off for being early. It launches in January so be early and save $50!

If you do need some video work done - well, just reply to this email or send me a note via the contact form. Some exciting work is in progress, but there’s always room for more.

Merry (early) Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Ted

Today we’re going to cover some things that aren’t quite life or death terrifying, but are unsettling nonetheless.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Your own microplastic consumption at this point could be up to a credit card’s word a week.

“The single largest source of plastic ingestion is through water, both bottled and tap, all over the world.”

Yikes.

I don’t know what your recurring dreams are, but according to this map most of you are dealing with your teeth falling out in the middle of the night.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: An all female shark tank suddenly had an offspring recently.

“The zoo says this is the second known case of apparent asexual reproduction producing an epaulette shark pup in an accredited zoo or aquarium.”

Parthenogenesis is to blame here, but doesn’t make it any less odd.

It’s unsettling …

I’m warning you now, you’re about to cringe.

You know the sound of nails on a chalkboard? Metal scraping metal? Do you want to know why you’re tensing up just thinking about that noise or why those noises can give you a physiological reaction?

Your ear is designed to capture sounds around it. If you stare at yours long enough you can kinda see how the structure of an ear only makes sense for that one job. When you capture a sound like that with your ear, it funnels down the ear canal, through the middle and inner ear, and hitting your auditory nerve to send to the brain for processing.

When your brain doesn’t like a sound’s frequency, it gets sent to the amygdala to process. You may be thinking, “great, what does that mean?” (I mean that was my reaction at least). It turns out, I forgot a bit of middle school biology. The amygdala is responsible for your fight or flight response. Your brain assigns bad frequencies to the amygdala to handle and therefore we cringe, get goosebumps, etc.

Helpful when you’re on edge at night and hearing noises of an intruder crashing through a window. Not helpful at all when you accidentally set your glass down in an odd way and the noise causes you to shiver.

Today we’re going to be hit in the face with how rapidly the Internet, and therefore we, are aging.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: For less than $1 million, and taking 18 days to shoot, Sharknado was born.

“I will give him credit for the idea of throwing propane bombs into a tornado.”

This is worth a read.

I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet by following along with this newsletter, or just reading the title of today’s entry, but the Internet is aging. Here are a few things that are a few years further removed from today than you probably realized.

1. Kim Kardashian “Breaks the Internet” - (9 years ago)

2. One does not simply … create a two decade meme - (19 years ago in January)

3. The entire Bee Movie script phenomenon - (7 years ago)

4. Hitler rants - (17 years ago)

5. Charlie Sheen is Winning - (12 years ago)

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: Someone spent 11 years building a Line Rider course, and apparently there is like a whole community around this game (which has been reverse engineered since you last played).

There’s a LOT to unpack here. Also, if you are unfamiliar with what Line Rider is … start here.

Entering Adulthood …

On the list of things you may not have realized, is that the “social” Internet was born in 2003 with the launch of MySpace - over 20 years ago.

I’ve had a unique vantage point of the Internet’s progress, having worked at Twitter and all, and something I’ve noted time and time again is that since 2003 you can almost perfectly track the Internet as a whole against the development of a person.

2003-2008: What is this new world? Everything is exciting! (Pre-k)

2008-12: Haha I laugh at dumb jokes and stir up a bit of controlled chaos! (5-9)

2012-2015: Pre-teen hopefulness (9-12)

2015-2019: Teenage angst (12-16)

2020: An early post high-school gap year to explore humanity (17)

2021-2023: Faux philosophy part of the college years (e.g. “that’s so deep!” meanwhile, it’s just a basic human truth) (18-20)

The jury is still out on what a mature Internet will look like, but thank goodness it’ll have to get a job soon.

Also, I probably ought to write a more comprehensive essay on this topic. Like the Line Rider story, there’s much more to unpack here.

Today’s post is an excerpt from my book, Entrepreneurial Creativity.

… Failure is the last cog in this machine of creativity. It’s also the one I can’t claim to be the sole person to understand is most essential in success. A quick google search for quotes on failure will result in two trillion one hundred eighty billion matches in a matter of 0.68 seconds (one can trust me, as I just did this). This makes saying anything new about something so obvious quite difficult.

Yes, “success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm” just like Winston Churchill said. Henry Ford’s version, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely” is also good. We can agree with Michael Jordan who said, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life ... that’s why I succeed.” Then there is Brene Brown with another iteration, “There is no innovation and creativity without failure, Period.”

Eight billion people on the planet, and it seems they all have something to say about failure as it relates to success. That’s why I can really only add that we have to stop talking about it and do it. Not doing anything isn’t failing, it’s quite literally nothing. Failing is something. Fail hard enough to have a failure quote on the first page of a Google image search on the topic, and you’ll inevitably be a success.

Anyone who sets about taking the various approaches presented in this book is bound to fail spectacularly in their objectives multiple times. This failure will lead to new discoveries, better work, and more satisfaction. It will lead to outputs they can either physically or digitally point to instead of work they spend years talking about until one day people stop asking about it and then another later day when the concept fades from the originator’s mind completely.

Plunging head first into that awful sci-fi screenplay concept, jumping into welding with no prior knowledge, starting with a beef wellington as a novice chef, these are actual (likely) failures that will lead to success if the attempts continue. We can’t do nothing and claim we’re failing into success. That just simply isn’t how it works.

Application, not apathy, shirks the struggle of art. We ultimately cannot abide being caught up in the unfairness of life, the frustration that mass-produced outputs often matter in a business setting, or our personal justifications and excuses when we are discussing creativity and how to achieve more of it … Creative dead-ends persist across people, teams, and industries, but the solutions are at everyone’s disposal.

It should come as no surprise that it was not just my own personal failures that allowed me to arrive at the model of entrepreneurial creativity. It was also driven by my interpretation of what is/was failing in the industry I am actively involved in. After more than a decade now of digital creative work shifting from “experimental” to “essential” one thing I noticed about the rapidly expanding creative industry at large: it wasn’t necessarily being run by our most creative constituents. This may appear brash, but let’s take a look at every creative person’s favorite thing: the data.

Out of 2 million arts graduates in the United States, only 10 percent, or 200,000 people, make their primary earnings as working artists by the time they are 25.* That is a fairly staggering statistic considering the number of people actually being creative with these degrees past the age of 25 is likely even fewer.

Somehow, even the people who are most naturally inclined to be creative, who were so passionate about their craft that they paid to study the technical skills required to express that creativity, are also the people most likely to find a job merely executing other people’s concepts. For some it’s even worse: they end up taking a job outside of their expertise just to pay the bills so that their passion isn’t completely destroyed. This is done with the intention of working on personal projects that unfortunately, they never get around to executing anyway.

How is it possible that we can find someone with the mental and technical ability to manipulate and create artwork in three dimensional space, and they’re the most likely candidate to be quitting a job after someone tells them to change the background color of a digital banner for the third time?

This book was not written to dissect, correct, or disrespect the creative industry, but it is worth noting that the preceding words are a backdrop - a context - to which the preceding chapters and ideas were written. In theory, creative people want to be creative and those who make decisions also want them to be creative, but the results point to a clear misalignment amongst everyone. This is not just a problem for those with a fine arts degree, it’s for everyone.

That problem can be more clearly stated: the creativity to productivity connection is rarely made or judged accurately, sequestering artistry into a rarely visited corner of the room.

The world rightfully places a high value on productivity over creativity, and creatives have not always been given adequate tools or processes to understand why this is the right hierarchy. As a result they lean further into procrastination and inaction because what they are tasked with is A) extremely difficult, B) probably does require a bit more time than the structures in place, and C) typically assigned by someone unfamiliar with what it takes.

Simultaneously, those with titles that presumably exclude creativity from the job description do not see themselves as creatives and therefore do not seek out how tapping into their own source of it might help them in their own passions and pursuits, as well as those of their teams. For everyone, this is an outward manifestation of the compartmentalization we’ve discussed, and it is driven by two distinct, but important factors:

1. Creatives in the traditional sense are trained to mindlessly execute more than they are to think about the broader context in which their skillset can be applied.

2. Creativity is viewed through too narrow a lens by all, including those with creative proclivity.

Thus, businesses weed out the well studied creative people with a technical skillset by the time they are 25. Creatives get mad at businesses for doing this, and businesses get mad at creatives not understanding the job description …

The absolutely fantastic news upon understanding this, is that we are then barely scratching the surface of elevating individual and professional artistry. Hence, this book. By applying the ideas of entrepreneurial creativity I believe we will achieve practical and prolific outputs for all - individuals, entities, businesses, and beyond. These ideas are the connecting tissue between those of us at odds with others or ourselves, stirring the creativity in all of us to action over inaction. Once we understand that we all want to create, and are supplied with the tools to do so, it makes it easier to get on the same page.

Many hands, and many failures, will then make light work.

Let’s fail today.

Today we’re going to learn about some doomsday scenarios that just … never played out.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: What, if anything, went wrong during Y2k?

“Shortly after midnight Greenwich Mean Time, a printer outage was reported at the Oakland, Calif.-based Oceanic Systems Center.”

A) I love that the Internet just has an article for us from Jan 10th, 2000.

B) This is the opposite of a “wait, what?” moment. The words “printer” and “malfunctioning” are practically dependent on each other.

If you were alive in the year 2000, you probably have some memory of Y2K. Whether you and your family were preppers, onlookers, or just merely existing - nearly everyone has at least one story that relates to this event. Nothing really happened. A classic case of potential panic leading to actual panic. However, there is a date that caused distress to a particular type of person.

February 17, 2011 marked 15 years to the day that the first ever Pokemon game was released. It also marked the day that the batteries inside the cartridges were set to go kaput, making it impossible for you to save your games any longer.

Technically, as with anything relating to batteries, it could have been sooner or later than that specific date but it did cause some minor blow-ups on the Internet starting as early as 2002.

Also, I’m guessing this is a “today I learned” moment for many of you who never rediscovered your Gameboy from 2011 to now. That the game cartridges themselves had a battery that allowed you to save is something you really only discover after the pain of not being able to do it.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: Remember all the hullabaloo about the Mayans predicting the world ending in 2012? Yeah. They never did.

“It turns out that on 21 December 2012 one of their big units rolled over, similar to our date of 1999 turning into 2000. So it's like a new decade or century, that's all.”

November 18, 1992 …

Unless you are a comic book lover, this date isn’t likely to stand out. Yet, it is the date of release of the issue where Superman dies in a battle against … if you’ve been been paying attention you guessed it … Doomsday.

The most fascinating part of this is not that we can easily find people discussing the character arc readily available on the Internet, but the fact that when you read this description of the ongoing saga between the Justice League and Doomsday it makes it all the more perplexing that DC has never been able to replicate the work that Marvel has done over the last decade and a half.

But maybe remaking a Batman origin film for the 50th time will work this time. What do I know?

Happy Halloween! Today we’re going to learn about one thing leading to another …

The Daily Rabbit Hole: A timelapse of every earthquake and tsunami in the last 120 years.

“as time progressed, more and more seismographs were deployed and smaller and smaller earthquakes could be recorded”

Okay thank goodness for the video details because for a second there I thought it was increasing with such frequency that we were in serious trouble.

A couple of weeks ago we discussed The Great Fear and how it may have been related to moldy rye. Of course, that isn’t the only event in history that science may have later been able to pin on something the people of the time would have known nothing about.

The English Sweating Sickness produced five separate epidemics throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, spooking mostly … wealthy men. The odd target of the oft-reported disease led researchers to dig a bit deeper.

This disease actually resulted in the death of Prince Arthur, who was due to inherit the throne, which caused the world to inherit King Henry the VIII. If you’re unfamiliar with his reign, all you need to really know is that this accidental King believed strongly in the “divine rights” of Kings. Responsible for separating the Church of England from Papal authority, he was constantly at war and spending the state’s war chest only to refill it with the church’s money. Was he really big on reformation? Or was he merely conveniently reacting to his money circumstances?

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At any rate, I digress …

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: On November 3rd, 2002 there was a car wreck that included 216 vehicles.

“There were no fatalities”

I have a ton of questions about the density of this fog that set off this pileup of vehicles. Also - 41 injuries but most of them were bikers? Again … how dense was this fog?

Anthrax …

The English Sweating Sickness was a real life, “wait, what?” moment for historians. As we’ve learned more about how diseases work, it was odd that this one seemed to devastate affluent males significantly more than others. One potential culprit? Anthrax.

In the bioterrorist attacks of 2001, one could easily align the symptoms of the 22 people who contracted the infectious disease, a sudden onset of copious sweating and exhaustion, with those of the Sweating Sickness of the 1400s and 1500s. So much so that some researchers postulate that the disease might have gotten into the wool supply for the elites’ clothing since it is normal to find it in animals, but not so much passing from human to human.

All and all, there is no firm conclusion as to what the disease actually was. It is different enough from the flu for us to look elsewhere for answers. However, it is also entirely possible that we only have it recorded as impacting high-ranking men of society because those cases would have been much more likely to be recorded.

Sometimes our “wait, what?” moments lead to an interesting bit of research or informational gathering, but don’t necessarily net us an answer. One thing leads to the next, but may eventually lead to nothing.

C’est la vie.

Today we’re going to learn about some times things that are a bit over-the-top …

The Daily Rabbit Hole: The Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z, explained.

For those of you who, like me, couldn’t wait to get home from school to watch a 30 minute episode of a show that only covers 2 minutes of plot development.

Hyperbole has led to many fake-truths about our understanding of history:

1. Marie Antoinette never said, “Let them eat cake.”

2. Napoleon wasn’t actually all that short.

3. The Great Wall of China isn’t visible from the Moon.

4. 300 spartans did not hold Thermopolyae.

5. General Grant did not refuse General Lee’s sword during the latter’s surrender to end the US Civil War.

This list could go on and on but I want to call out that on the 5th one, this is what Ulysses had to say about the notion he honored Robert on that day by refusing to take his sword …

Emphasis mine, of course, but what an evisceration.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: The Nina, The Pinta, and The Santa Maria … weren’t the actual names of Christopher Columbus & Crew’s ships.

“Their original names were la Santa Clara, la Pinta, and la Santa Gallega.”

Wait. WHAT?!

The power of hyperbole …

If you’ve grown up in the US, you’re likely at least vaguely familiar with Paul Bunyan, and perhaps even with his pal Babe the blue ox. What’s amazing about Paul Bunyan isn’t just his epitomization of the “Tall Tale” (some stories go so far as to say his head cleared the canopies in forests), it’s that campfire stories amongst northern loggers generated a character coated in Americana.

For as many as thirty years, nothing was ever written about Paul Bunyan, but oral tradition eventually became canon when in 1904 a series of tales was printed in the Duluth News Tribune.

As the 20th century progressed, the character inspired many an author to utilize hyperbole in their stories about him:

Why yes, I did create the theme of this newsletter just so I could express how gobsmacked I was by how visceral - and hyperbolic - this description is.

Today we’re going to learn about how sometimes it pays to simply try …

The Daily Rabbit Hole: You can buy the cheese grater at Olive Garden.

"I looked at him and said, 'Do you sell those? Can I buy that from you?'" Gjerness recalled. "And he said, 'Actually, we do.'"

Ahh the power of just … asking.

Most people are excellent at accepting things at face value, but that isn’t always in their best interest. For example, I bet you don’t realize that you can haggle at the store. I’m not talking about bartering at a global city’s open air market where trying to cut a deal is a part of the experience, I mean at major retailers across the US.

Now, to be clear, you’re probably going to get told to leave Target trying to negotiate down a tube of toothpaste from $3.98 to $3.75. I’m not trying to turn us into agents of chaos at big box retailers. However, it may be worth giving it a shot on future large purchases - at the very least it’s not uncommon to get some semblance of a perk or two (free shipping, longer warranty, an extra refill cartridge, etc.).

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: Nike’s famous tagline, “Just Do It,” was inspired by a death row inmate in Utah State Prison.

“In Doug Pray’s 2009 documentary about advertising, Art & Copy, he confesses that the idea for the line was sparked by the last words of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, who said “Let’s do it!” to the firing squad before his execution.”

Trying is in our DNA …

In 1951, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the Double Helix shape of DNA. For the prior decade, many scientists had started and stopped their own explorations into how our genetic information was passed along from parent to child, but ultimately it was Watson and Crick who are credited with the findings. Why?

I’ve documented several interesting inventions and discoveries here over the last few months and they nearly all have on thing in common. The discovering party nearly always loses sight of everything else and focuses on a single thing. In the case of Watson and Crick, they dedicated 18 months specifically to understanding the shape of this “building block” of life because they saw a gap.

Sometimes trying means learning more in 18 months than most people learn in a lifetime, other times it means you wind up with a new cheese grater.

The point is, maybe we have seen the phrase “Just Do It” so much that we’ve forgotten what it’s telling us. So I’ll go another route. Got something you’ve been wanting to give a go?

Just … try it.

Today we’re going to learn about how sometimes the circumstances might have outsized impact on history …

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Global pandemics lead to a decline in … beards.

“There is real menace to the milk if the dairyman is bearded.” - Dr. William H. Park, Board of New York Health

Before we continue, it’s imperative that you understand a seemingly minor historical period: The Great Fear.

The Great Fear was the kindling before the French Revolution became a flame. Remember that.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: Edgar Allen Poe is said to have invented the modern detective story, and the bizarre circumstances surrounding his death lead many to believe - his last days were spent living one out.

“Maybe it’s fitting that since he invented the detective story," says Chris Semtner, curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond, "he left us with a real-life mystery.”

Why, Rye! …

While there is plenty of blame to go around for why the French Revolution occurred, I couldn’t help but get caught up in one particularly fascinating discovery.

There is a poisonous fungus called Ergot that grows on rye, which was a major ingredient used by local bakeries in France during 1789 (and frankly, any time). Ergot has connections to other historical events of mass hysteria that seem to have little explanation, namely the Salem Witch Trials. The fungus causes what you might have guessed at this point … hallucinations.

Ergot, a fungus used in the development of LSD, happened to have prime conditions to grow on rye in that time period … a period in which people were notably imagining and inventing dangers from the French elite as panic spread across the country.

Circumstantial? Sure. Interesting? Absolutely.

Today we’re going to learn about credit cards, computer architecture, and steel as a landmark of time.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Automatic doors were invented in the first century AD.

“When a priest lit the fire, the air inside the brass pot would expand, forcing the water into the containers. These containers descended as they were filled, dragging down the pulley ropes and opening the doors.”

I’m now just imagining a Greek guard pretending to use the force to open doors.

If you ever want to get a taste of what it’s like to be thrust into a new era, watch this video.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: All steel produced after Oppenheimer’s trinity test has traces of radioactivity - and all steel prior doesn’t.

“It’s hard for a geiger counter to accurately measure radiation if the metal it’s made from is, itself, radioactive.”

May be more accurate to label this the “slightly concerning” vortex.

Fax Facts …

The fax machine is a symbol of a bygone era. An era where work was done on desks vs desktop machines and when folders weren’t an icon on a screen. Yet, at one point it was cutting edge technology.

Believe it or not, the fax machine was invented in 1843 by Alexander Bain, 18 years before the civil war broke out and 33 years before Alexander Graham Bell won the patent for his newfangled telephone. It wasn’t until nearly 120 years later that it became a staple of transmitting information in the 1960s. It was so ahead of its time, people needed a whole century for it to become a mainstay. 60 years later and it now represents industries that haven’t caught up with the times.

It’s hard to believe that modern technology will face a day when it is no longer relevant, but it’s happening now.

Gen-Z is already entering the workforce oblivious to how computers store information. Yes, you read that correctly. They’ve spent their whole lives on phones, tablets and chromebooks that abstract the basic architecture of a computer away from them. Those folders and subfolders you use to organize your files are slowly but surely on their way out.

That, or Millennials will find themselves in perpetual IT support. Between their parents setting up the wifi and new colleagues struggling to find a meeting invitation, they will remain a bridge between eras.

But … when has a generation not served this purpose?

Today we’re going to learn about continental shields, weather phenomena, and somehow tie in family crests.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: The Canadian Shield extends for 3 million square miles.

If you ever wanted to know why Canada has a weird population map, after you dig a bit on this one - you’ll understand why.

On January 5th, 1997 the New York Times released an obituary. This is quite normal for major publications - putting in print a pre-prepared obituary of notable people, making last second changes to accommodate for the details of what befell them in the end. This one is particularly interesting in that its subject is rather sterile. I have a hard time believing anyone would dedicate 528 words to the man who invented Crest toothpaste in 2023.

I mean this opening is sensational:

“Joseph Charles Muhler, a latter-day alchemist who helped turn stannous fluoride into tubed gold -- a dentifrice named Crest -- died on Dec. 24 at St. Joseph Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Ind. He was 73 and lived in nearby Sturgis, Mich.”

A latter-day alchemist, stannous flouride into tubed gold, a dentifrice named Crest … any child in the 90s - with a mother whose common refrain when asked “what does this word mean?” was “get the dictionary” - would have taken an hour to read all 528 words of this.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: There are hills in Kansas that have convinced the local population that they part the weather.

“The Tonganoxie Split is a vaporous local legend that ‘purports the mystical power of the hills’ to divert severe weather away from the Kansas City metropolitan area”

Just to be clear here, this thing runs deep with books, subreddit conversations, t-shirts, and more …

Family crests …

Like many things from Medieval Times, the origins of family crests, coat-of-arms, and the like are a bit murky. Whether bestowed by a king for winning a jousting tournament, made up to mark the family lineage, or just simply glorious displays of vanity - it’s probably all true.

It did get me thinking though - what if we brought them back?

No?

I guess you’re right, emojis would look pretty silly on a shield.

Today we’re going to learn about math not mathing, a bit on our olfactory sensibilities, Thomas Edison, and somehow come away with a life lesson.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: We can smell rain better than sharks can smell blood in the water.

“… humans are 200,000 times more sensitive to smelling geosmin than sharks are at smelling blood.”

It’s always fascinating that we as humans are utterly delighted when we discover an animal is good at something. Think of the child-like wonder you had when you learned about bats using sonar to “see” the night, or the thrill of seeing an octopus change color to hide. We’re always impressed by the idea that another creature is extremely capable of something we thought to be impossible.

Yet when we pull back, the mere fact that we possess the ability to be awestruck is in and of itself a miracle. We are always caught up in what everyone and everything else is capable of accomplishing, forgetting that our own curiosity about these things is a superpower.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: The sum of 1+2+3+4 … all the way to infinity is -1/12.

“So what do you reckon the answer to this one is, Brady?”

“Well I would say it would go tend towards infinity.”

Me too, Brady. Me too.

We are all superheroes …

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not all wearing capes and tights meandering about a cinematic universe, but we are all more capable than we realize.

We will pin great achievements on one individual, failing to recognize the amount of effort it requires to keep someone alive up until their point of achievement. No one cares about the farmer who made it possible for Albert Einstein to eat, but they nonetheless contributed to the Theory of Special Relativity. If Einstein’s actual life were a movie, that farmer would get Craft Services credit as the acknowledgements rolled by at the end. We all play a role.

—

Thomas Edison’s legacy is all over the place.

He is either a prolific inventor, notorious thief, or both depending on how we choose to read the story of his life. Regardless of one’s point of view, we must recognize that he is the complete embodiment of one man receiving an inordinate amount of credit for what was truly a group effort. The invention of the light bulb is actually a near century long story, starting with primitive designs in the early 1800s and continuing until Edison produced a bulb that could burn for 1200 hours in 1880 - making him *technically* the inventor of the practical light bulb we know today.

Edison utilized the known rules of incandescent light (even purchasing some of them in the form of patents) in order to perfect it over the course of 1400 experiments, 300 different types of filaments, and twenty hour work days. This is a great example by itself, but Edison did not stop there. He went on to develop the entire system of rules by which these electric bulbs could be used by the masses, relying on pre-existing systems and others to make it happen. So many people helped, or even laid all of the foundation save the patent filing, and yet the fixation of history books is on him.

When we absorb the story more thoroughly though, the Wizard of Menlo Park, was actually just a wizard of threading others’ achievements together.

Many choose to view and dismiss Edison as a copycat or an identity thief after reading through a laundry list of accusations against him. I am not here to argue the historical lens by which he should be viewed, but I don’t want our personal views of Edison obfuscating something important for us to understand. If we played out the credits of those who helped in his life, they might never end.

So what exactly about this makes us all superheroes?

By seeking to achieve anything, we allow a multitude of others to claim their contribution. Our existence giving others reason to exist.

The next time you are presented with a difficult opportunity, embrace it. The more we press onward, the more inclusive we become. That is a superpower beyond comprehension.

Just like 1+2+3+4 … ∞ somehow being equal to … -1/12.

I took a break last week. I touched some grass, was reminded that truth is inevitable, silence is golden, and ultimately want you to know …

This newsletter is going up a level in the coming weeks.

Here’s what you can expect from The Internet Is Vast.

Tuesdays & Thursdays you’ll receive your regular, free, but slightly more thorough newsletters.

There will be video, audio, and more coming to your inbox in conjunction with an overhaul to the overall visual aesthetic. Less grunge dystopia, more …

And yes, this does mean that this will be the only newsletter of this week as I work on bringing you this S-tier content. But I won’t let you go another week without a rabbit hole to go down …

What even is “S-tier”?

My ask of you: if you have found yourself on at least one occasion using an anecdote you learned from this newsletter in a conversation with friends, family or colleagues … you have unwittingly agreed to share this newsletter with a friend. That’s the deal! Sorry, I don’t make the rules … the Internet does.

I’ll be back next Tuesday, October 3rd.

You won’t want to miss it.

Subscribe now

- Ted

One thing leads to another, which leads to another … which leads to us jumping in.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Where did the Russian Nesting Doll come from?

In 1900, the doll charmed judges at the World Exhibition in Paris and earned a bronze medal.

I appreciate that there was no distinction as to what category it won a bronze medal for in at the link.

Have you ever wondered why Russian novelists seemingly wrote encyclopedias for novels? Their length probably has less to do with their writing style, and more to do with the fact that they were paid by the word.

So when you find an artist who “isn’t about the money” yet idolizes the greats in their particular field, just know that the people they claim to have had pure intent were definitely milking their talents for what they could get.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: Many famous authors hate William Shakespeare.

“Shakespeare’s jokes struck (Leo Tolstoy) as “mirthless.” His puns, “unamusing.” The only character that actually owned their pompous dialogue was the drunken Falstaff.”

Btw - you can count J.R.R. Tolkien as a hater.

A bug inside a bug inside a bug …

I’m going to try and summarize this without droning on and on about caterpillars, ants, and wasps.

There is a butterfly that starts its life as most of its species. It’s primary distinction though, during its time as a caterpillar, is that it emits a sound that causes ants to believe it is a young queen larvae. It gets carried back to the colony to be protected, only for the caterpillar to spend a while eating all the actual ant larvae it has been placed near. Destroying the ant colony before they even recognize what is happening. Then it goes through metamorphosis and becomes a butterfly. That is only if it hasn’t had another creature intervene.

There is also a wasp that will find these caterpillars in the ant nest, lay its eggs in the caterpillar for safe-keeping, and when they hatch before the caterpillar has fully undergone metamorphosis they kill the caterpillar on their way out into the world.

Even parasites have parasites.

Good morning! I really hope at least one of you has woken up on a Tuesday and thought, “I wonder what random thing is going to appear in my inbox today from Ted.” I think I’m delivering on the “random” part of that today. Let’s jump in.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: The first infomercial aired in 1949.

How you know this is a rabbit hole: I started with a search on a Vitamix the other day and ended up discovering they were first to market with 30 minute promotional programming. Please watch to hear “Without health, you’re a miserable failure” in a pseudo trans-atlantic accent.

The Vitamix was the first to use the infomercial format, so naturally another blender company, Blendtec, hopped onto a newfangled website called YouTube in 2006 and began a series called, “Will It Blend.” The show began with the host blending 50 marbles into glass dust. This leads to an obvious question: why is blender content ripe for the disruption of technological advances to sell the product?

If the metaverse does ever take off, I’d be willing to bet a blender company will have a booth. Perhaps they’ll even have a station where you can experience the inside of a blender personally from the comfort of your couch. For whatever reason, people love selling blenders using a new medium.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: We had the Interstate system before smoothies became a real thing.

President Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act in June of 1956 to solidify the American highway system, but you couldn’t start finding a smoothie at a roadside stand or restaurant until the latter part of the 1960s. It technically was a Brazilian invention going back to the 1930s, but it still seems like mixing fruit into a convenient treat should have been a thing long before then.

“He put him in a blender”

The phrase is commonly used when an offensive player in any sport forces his or her defender into getting twisted around. As a quick aside, this is one of the greatest quick clips on the Internet using the phrase as the title.

As is usually the case, I’m less interested in listing out all of the times a highlight has used this as bait to get people to watch, and more interested in something else. In a world where the only sure thing for live TV viewership is sports, we have to ask - is it really?

32% of Gen Zers said they watch live sports through authorized streaming services, compared with 28% who watch via broadcast or cable TV1. Yet 58% of them love sports2. This means that there is a sufficient enough gap (almost 30%) between people who watch live and people who enjoy sports. This has led to a phenomenon where many people watch highlights and short clips only (often with videos titled with today’s newsletter headline) and therefore have a wildly different perspective on who is actually good at a sport.

I don’t want to verge too hard into “get off my lawn” territory, but I continue seeing people believing individual players with loads of athleticism are better than they actually are. A few quick highlights strung together can make anyone look like Michael Jordan or Serena Williams, when in reality what set them apart was their consistency in mesmerizing play.

There is no perfect conclusion here, just another endlessly fascinating result of the Internet: We have more access to everything, but we still choose to put our blinders on in search of a quick and entertaining clip.

Good morning! … or afternoon or evening depending on when you open this. Let’s jump in.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Who invented podcasts?

You can start with that link and then read this Guardian article from 2004 (the first ever mention of podcasts) and quickly go down a rabbit hole. The article’s language immediately takes you back to the mid 2000s. For example: “Cheap applications are available to record RealPlayer streams, and Windows Media for that matter, and convert them to MP3, ready for a waiting iPod.”

The Beatles last public performance was on the roof of Apple headquarters on January 30, 1969. It was an impromptu show that stopped traffic and caused a rush of onlookers. The last time they had performed a concert was 2.5 years earlier in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park - so it certainly would have caught everyone off guard to suddenly be playing on a rooftop for free. If you’re thinking “why the San Francisco area for both of these?” - it’s not the same Apple of which I’m sure you’re thinking. Apple Records was The Beatles company created in an attempt to become more tax efficient. The 42 minute show took place in London, and they recorded it to be the finale of their documentary “Let It Be.”

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: Isaac Newton has two birthdays.

Or rather, most people born in his era from England do. “Isaac Newton was born on the 4th of January 1643 in line with the Gregorian calendar, which we use today. However, back in the 17th century, when Newton was born, they told the time using a different method. This was called the Julian calendar, and, according to that, Newton was born in the early hours of Christmas day, 1642!”

Forbidden fruit

We don’t actually know what specific fruit the Bible references in the story of Adam and Eve. In fact, while most people can picture a naked Adam and Eve holding an apple, Rabbis in 500 AD discussed this topic at length. Since the original Hebrew text used the generic word for fruit, a debate ensued and in the Talmud, they never even mention apples.

Many Jewish scholars come back to it being a fig, but most Christian scholars point back to Jerome’s translation of the Bible into Latin in 382 for Pope Damasus I. There, he translated the Hebrew word for generic fruit into a slightly more specific, but still generic term for fruit that translates into English as “apple” even though it is meant to be a word that references any fruit with seeds in its core surrounded by the flesh of the fruit. After writing that sentence, I recognize you might have to read it twice to follow, but I don’t know a better way to put it succinctly.

But there is another catch - Jerome likely used the Latin word “malum” (the one we translate to English as apple even though it is technically more generic in Latin) because it also means “evil.”

Which means yes, the reason we view it as an apple today is because a man in the latter half of the 4th century made a great pun.

Sometimes money just falls in your lap. Rarely, but sometimes. Let’s jump in.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Where did the term cash cow even come from?

“And the cow requires only basic shelter and food, not heavy maintenance.”

Charlie Ayers - a name I can almost guarantee you haven’t heard before - is minorly famous for taking a $45,000 salary as the head chef at a small startup company in Silicon Valley and turning it into a $26 million fortune. The man made some cash by serving up some cows, and by taking the risk that the “other benefits” offered at … Google (the startup) would pay off in the long run.

I want to be like Charlie.

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: The Beverly Hillbillies were worth HOW MUCH?

Stumbling into cash was the entire premise of the show, but I bet you didn’t realize ….

“In 1962, the Clampett fortune was $25 million, and when adjusted for inflation, it's actually closer to $215 million by today's standards. By the end of the show, that number had reached $100 million, which would be approximately $850 million in our current economic age.”

Anguilla

I’m sure you’ve come across an .AI web address more than once in the last few months. The world, or rather venture capital, is all in on artificial intelligence and just having a domainname.ai instantly ups your company’s valuation by a couple of million dollars.

Unless you’re fairly deep into how domain names work, you probably just assumed that .ai addresses were created for artificial intelligence companies. Just like you probably thought .tv was used for video companies. NOPE. These are cash cows for the tropical islands Antiguilla and Tuvalu, respectively.

From this article:

The government officials did not respond to request for comment because … *checks notes* they were to busy buying another Island to annex with their $30 million.

Hello, and happy Thursday!

This newsletter looks different than normal, because instead of delivering something to you, I am making an ask.

As many of you are aware, I’m in the middle of writing a novel and getting closer to completing it. As I stated from the outset of this newsletter - getting feedback is critical to any creative process.

I’m looking for 5 people who will commit to reading the first half of my book over the next month and provide me with feedback (I’ll be sharing a google form for you to complete that should only take about 15 minutes after you’ve read it).

I’ll buy you coffee, which means just like the winners of the monthly scavenger hunts, I am paying you $6.23 in exchange for your troubles. If this sounds like something you are interested in, then please respond to this email and I’ll get back to you with the first half and the google form to complete after you’ve finished reading.

Oh, and one more thing:

The Daily Rabbit Hole: There’s more money in the world than there is … money.

“The money multiplier is a heuristic used to demonstrate the maximum amount of broad money that could be created by commercial banks for a given fixed amount of base money and reserve ratio.’”

Reviews that aren’t reviews. Where did catfishing come from? The Internet has a weight? Fast start to the Holiday week. Let’s jump in.

The Daily Rabbit Hole: Where “catfishing” on the Internet got its name.

“They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They’d keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh.”

The more accurately we try to measure coastlines, the longer they get. If you think that sentence is written incorrectly, I don’t blame you. Read it again:

The reason this statement is true, is because of something called fractal dimensions. “The main idea of "fractured" dimensions has a long history in mathematics, but the term itself was brought to the fore by Benoit Mandelbrot based on his 1967 paper on self-similarity in which he discussed fractional dimensions.”1 I could continue down the path of trying to explain this to you but it would require some theorems and proofs and let’s be honest, no one wants to revisit high school math on a Tuesday.

So I’ll show you instead:

*From Sketchplanations

The ‘Wait, What?’ Vortex: The Internet weighs about as much as a tennis ball.

“… the Internet runs on electrons. That's how the information is stored. And electrons are very, small. But they do have mass.”

BRB changing the URL to theinternetisvastbutnearlyweightless.com

How to Avoid Huge Ships

In 1993, John W. Trimmer published the second edition of his book “How to Avoid Huge Ships.” This was well before the Internet was anywhere close to mainstream, and I’m not sure even Trimmer himself could have predicted what would become of his book 30 years later.

Here are some excerpts from the reviews:

There are plenty more reviews worth reading, some of which could easily be turned into animated shorts worthy of Oscar consideration. The Internet truly does allow for something as innocuous as a book with a funny title to take on a life of its own and it serves as a reminder that no matter how deep we might dig, the Internet will always be more … vast.