Nathanael Yellis's Blog: technology consulting, digital strategy, marketing, simplicity, and more.

Reading: Highways, Silos, & Alcohol

Written by Nathanael Yellis | June, 25 2021

We’re about to push off for Plymouth. Like the Pilgrims of yore, we’ll have a minivan full of beach games, towels, and our beach wedding best on some hangers. It’s an early summer wedding, of my older brother.

I grew up following him around: from gymnastics to surfing (both short-lived for me) to summer camp to skiing (life-long pursuits), his were fun footsteps to follow.

About 15 years ago our paths diverged slightly: he began a career and I moved to the DC area for college. During those years we gathered for great adventures like skiing in the Rockies and great sorrows like watching our mother slowly die.

Recently, his and my paths moved a bit closer. We moved to within 25 miles of each other in Massachusetts, we manage a ski weekends or summer afternoons, and we’ve seen more than our fair share of New England sports events. (It’s not bad to live in title-town, USA.)

This weekend our paths converge again, this time as he gets married. It seems like I’m ahead of him in the family way: my oldest two children will be ring bearing and flower girling. It has been fun to see my older brother turn into a boyfriend and fiance as he approaches age 40. Nothing like a marriage for a midlife crisis!

I hope to make it through some of the sentiments above in the form of a toast. We’ll see how that goes.

After some thematic reading in previous weeks, we’re back to the usual mix of links for this go-round: I’ve found a link each under the news, tech, and simplicity headings. Enjoy the reading.

Newsworthy

Can Removing Highways Fix America’s Cities?

Highways radically reshaped cities, destroying dense downtown neighborhoods. Now, some cities are starting to take them down.
 

Technopoly

Cancel Envy

Here’s a weird thing that happened this weekend. I was looking at Amazon’s app on my phone to see if The Underground Railroad, the new Amazon series directed by Barry Jenkins, was out yet. Oddly, there were no results for it when I searched.
thebulwark.com
 

Simplicity

Drinking Too Much Is an American Problem

A little alcohol can boost creativity and strengthen social ties. But there’s nothing moderate, or convivial, about the way many Americans drink today.
www.theatlantic.com