{D} 145: Did the electricity hurt?
pics + links + party tricks // photos are gateways
There’s a game they play in Mexico called Toques Toques.
Fella walks up to you and your friends at a bar. He’s carrying a box. Attached to the box are two wires. At the end of the wires are metal rods.
Toques Toques, señor?
He hands you one of the metal rods and gestures: you, you hold hands with a friend.
That friend then holds hands with another friend, and so on, until the last person in your party is handed the other metal rod.
Listo, says the man with the box. He turns a knob and there begins a very mild tingling in your wrists.
Más? he asks, and the tingling increases.
You are being slowly electrocuted. First one to drop their friend’s hand buys a round of drinks.
This feels like an analogy for something but I couldn’t tell you what.
-s.
Do you have friends or family in New Delhi?
I'll be traveling there August 10th through 19th to research "the future of living spaces". I'm scheduling meetings and interviews now to talk about how Delhi citizens experience their homes. If you've got connects on the sub-continent, please email introductions to steve@thisisdelightful.com
Nobody Has a Personality Anymore // “Now you are always late to things, not because you are lovably forgetful, not because you are scattered and interesting, but because of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)” [The Free Press]
Younger workers who don’t say hello when they answer a call need to know it’s a problem [FT]
I’m not ignoring your message – I’m overwhelmed by the tyranny of being reachable [The Guardian]
Who Is Watching All These Podcasts? // for years I listened to The Ringer’s pods without knowing what anybody looked like and being forced to discover that was a form of violence [NYTimes]
This AI Warps Live Video in Real Time // Not a good idea! Probably! [Wired]
If Bob Ross made AI Art it would look exactly like this [nunnigram]
“It’s connecting two hitherto separate ideas in a way that generates new meaning. Connecting different ideas isn’t difficult … you can get any computer to make a billion random connections for you, but these new connections or juxtapositions are significant only if they generate new meaning.” John Cleese’s 1991 speech about creativity. [John Cleese]
Lettervoxd is a dictionary of obscure words used in movies, like sacrarium (Locker 13, 2014), vaunteth (The Mission, 1986), and banjaxed (The Playboys, 1992)
Eddington direction Ari Aster on AI: “I feel the awe disappearing.”
TuneMyMusic lets you transfer playlists from one music service to another
The Alamo has acquired Pee Wee’s bike [News4 San Antonio]
“The people I respect most seem to be splitting into two camps. I'll call them Automators and Artisans.” [Adam Delahanty]
Terrible night’s sleep? Here’s how to make it through the day – and maybe even enjoy it – one step at a time // yes to exercise snacks [The Guardian]
Texture hunting is like a color walk, but you go around making impressions with clay [Moises Scheibe]
Brief Lessons in Rule Breaking [Frances Ambler]
These architects hate wokeness [Harris Alterman]
I draw things
Mostly finished cola truck. I don’t want to talk about the wheel. Stop looking at the wheel. Been trying to do a more painterly style but this is mostly done with Procreate’s technical pen. But I got lazy. So like, the front is semi-realistic, and the back is smudgy. Also I dislike drawing bottles.
Delightful is a 100% organic, free-range, desktop-to-inbox newsletter with links and things, usually. Your host is Steve Bryant, friendly neighborhood insights and content strategist. Let’s work together or go on a hike or something. steve@thisisdelightful.com
{ 🔒 archive }
Creativity, illustration, language, stuff like that
What did you learn about yourself today?
Notes on picking up drawing 30 years later26 things I've learned while learning a language
Notes from someone who’s working at itHow to write
On moving and watching and paying attentionCuriosity and Research 101
On finding out about thingsA map of what you meant to say
On the 3D space of languageThe A.I. isn't a moron. She's your wife.
On making ads with AI
Brand strategy, content strategy, etc
Observational and Culture Study Cheat Sheet
A template and tools for researching people and communitiesMy content strategy toolkit
14 tools for organizing, measuring, and creating contentMy concept diagram template
A Figjam for diagramming the complex relationships between conceptsProduct Content Strategy 101
For anybody who’s creating a product that requires editorial contentThe Bento Box Method for developing topical content
A cute and useful way to structure your content topics
Thanks for reading. Be seeing you.
“I can remember, really quite distinctly, looking a sheet of paper square in the eyes when I was seven or eight years old and thinking, ‘This is where I belong. This is it.’”
―E.B. White, from Letters of E.B. White