 No, it’s not a metaphor for the ultimate uselessness of effort, it’s just this: a slinky toy “walking” down a treadmill, endlessly, endlessly…So, this guy on YouTube, Daniel Burke, sees a short video where someone set up a treadmill on an incline, and let a slinky “walk” down it. Inspired, he made his own video, which lasts over 3 minutes with only one bobble on the slinky’s part, which it recovers from and keeps walking. The only thing almost as cool as this is the related video of a slinky on an escalator, but that seems rather, um, “pedestrian.”
At any rate, here is “Slinky on a Treadmill”. Enjoy!