Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
Top Categories > creative
#all #programming #technology #startups #history #life #science #literature #architecture #creative #design #finance #travel #comics #AI #indiehacker #cartography Muted Categories [alt+←][alt+→]
Open Culture
How Henri Matisse Scandalized the Art Establishment with His Daring Use of Color Even those of us not particularly well-versed in art history have heard of a painting style called...
9 months ago
35
9 months ago
Even those of us not particularly well-versed in art history have heard of a painting style called fauvism — and probably have never considered what it has to do with fauve, the French word for a wild beast. In fact, the two have everything to do with one another, at least in the...
Open Culture
The Invisible Horror of The Shining: How Music Makes Stanley Kubrick’s Iconic Film Even More... Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy...
22 hours ago
2
22 hours ago
Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy the work of Stanley Kubrick. But even his most steadfast non-appreciators have to hand it to him for The Shining, his 1980 Stephen King adaptation widely considered one of the...
Seth's Blog
Powerlessness Not a lack of power, but feeling as though we have none. Some people have been indoctrinated to...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
Not a lack of power, but feeling as though we have none. Some people have been indoctrinated to prefer a life with no agency, as it also brings no responsibility. At the other extreme, some folks have decided that they have more power than they actually do. Video games offer...
Open Culture
The Writer Who Directed, The Director Who Wrote: Every Frame a Painting Explores the Genius of Billy... When the acclaimed cinema video-essay channel Every Frame a Painting made its comeback this past...
9 months ago
52
9 months ago
When the acclaimed cinema video-essay channel Every Frame a Painting made its comeback this past summer, its creators Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos took a close look at the “sustained two-shot,” which captures a stretch of dialogue between two characters without the interference of...
Seth's Blog
Goals and expectations [a note to a frustrated friend, just starting out on a long career] There are three reasons that our...
a year ago
22
a year ago
[a note to a frustrated friend, just starting out on a long career] There are three reasons that our goals might not be achieved. In order of palatability, they are: Perhaps the goals are too lofty, too based on chance, unlikely for anyone to achieve, surrounded by barriers that...
Stat Significant
The Fall and Rise of Nicolas Cage: A Statistical Analysis Nicolas Cage: A Data Story
10 months ago
Open Culture
How Magician David Copperfield Made the Statue of Liberty Disappear (1983) In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the...
7 months ago
70
7 months ago
In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, straight into thin air. If you’re north of 50, you perhaps remember the spectacle. How did he do it? 40 years later, the YouTube channel Mind Blown Magic...
escape the algorithm
ETA's Best links of 2024 Relinking some Links links
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
Scripts and casting In the theatre, the play is written before casting begins. This gives the playwright freedom and...
a month ago
11
a month ago
In the theatre, the play is written before casting begins. This gives the playwright freedom and responsibility, and it puts the text first. Writing for a sitcom is different. The 50th episode of Seinfeld was a lot easier to write because the cast and the tropes were already set....
Seth's Blog
“I don’t care” This is difficult. Care requires time and effort, and we can’t care about everything, all the way,...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
This is difficult. Care requires time and effort, and we can’t care about everything, all the way, all the time. If you’re prepared to care about every element of your work, then you also have to decide to not care about something else. Because caring equally about everything...
Seth's Blog
Trouble in the grey zone In many creative industries, there’s a similar pattern. When the stakes are very low, most creators...
a year ago
19
a year ago
In many creative industries, there’s a similar pattern. When the stakes are very low, most creators produce things that are fairly banal and ordinary. Part of that is the law of large numbers, but it’s mostly our personal cultural resistance to leaning too far into weird stuff....
Seth's Blog
The third impossibility The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their...
a year ago
91
a year ago
The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their waking hours consuming audio and video recordings of other people. The second was the internet. Five to ten hours a day interacting, in real time, with other people, many of them...
Seth's Blog
The grid of inquiry Expertise and firmly held beliefs don’t always go together. Here’s a simple XY grid to help us...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Expertise and firmly held beliefs don’t always go together. Here’s a simple XY grid to help us choose where to sit at whatever table we’re invited to: Plenty of well-trained professionals have earned the right to have strongly held beliefs. These convictions save them time and...
escape the algorithm
Folk search engines Strategies better than plain Google.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
The essence of industrialism Efficiency + Convenience. Not everything is industrialized. A backyard garden, a freelance editor,...
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
Efficiency + Convenience. Not everything is industrialized. A backyard garden, a freelance editor, even a chef with a hands-on restaurant. These folks are building a practice and producing value, but they haven’t embraced industrialization. That happens when management steps in,...
Open Culture
Face to Face with Carl Jung: ‘Man Cannot Stand a Meaningless Life’ (1959) Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was...
11 months ago
53
11 months ago
Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was born on July 26, 1875 in the village of Kesswil, in the Thurgau canton of Switzerland. Above, we present a fascinating 39-minute interview of Jung by John Freeman for the BBC program...
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Sunday 10th November 2024 It’s been a while since I wrote a weeknote, although I’ve kept up with the other kinds of writing...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
It’s been a while since I wrote a weeknote, although I’ve kept up with the other kinds of writing that I do. But: I work now. I’m working at a small B2B publisher helping them sort out a few things. This was originally going to be an in-and-out job which would take nine months,...
Infinite Scroll
Why Are So Many Online Trads Still Single? We asked single trads to tell us their secrets
6 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker - Rebecca Perdue Hello! I'm Rebecca Perdue. I am a printmaker and artist based in a small garden studio in Wiltshire....
a year ago
85
a year ago
Hello! I'm Rebecca Perdue. I am a printmaker and artist based in a small garden studio in Wiltshire. I work primarily in linocut and monoprint, but also paint and make occasional silver jewellery pieces and textiles. I'm very interested in linking work across several...
Seth's Blog
Are you doing what you said you wanted to do? If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work. If you want to do improv,...
a year ago
24
a year ago
If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work. If you want to do improv, start a troupe. Don’t wait to get picked. If you want to help animals, don’t wait for vet school. Volunteer at an animal shelter right now. If you want to write a screenplay, write […]
Seth's Blog
But it matters a lot to them… To get to the Kebab House Cafe, you’ll need to drive past a dozen fast food restaurants, restaurants...
a year ago
25
a year ago
To get to the Kebab House Cafe, you’ll need to drive past a dozen fast food restaurants, restaurants you can find off just about any interstate. It’s certainly less convenient to go a few blocks off the beaten path, but the food and service and vibe might be worth it. The thing...
Seth's Blog
The digital barback A barback supports the bartending staff. There are always clean glasses and fresh ingredients, ready...
a year ago
34
a year ago
A barback supports the bartending staff. There are always clean glasses and fresh ingredients, ready to go. Having someone else do your mise en place can dramatically improve your productivity. And now, with a bit of effort, you can train an AI and a few systems to do it for you....
Open Culture
David Lynch Releases on YouTube Interview Project: 121 Stories of Real America Recorded on a... Take a sufficiently long road trip across America, and you’re bound to encounter something or...
9 months ago
53
9 months ago
Take a sufficiently long road trip across America, and you’re bound to encounter something or someone Lynchian. Whether or not that idea lay behind Interview Project, the undertaking had the endorsement of David Lynch himself. Not coincidentally, it was conceived by his son...
Seth's Blog
The opposite of insubordination “Do as I say.” That’s industrial management in four words. If you don’t follow the instructions to...
a year ago
32
a year ago
“Do as I say.” That’s industrial management in four words. If you don’t follow the instructions to the letter, you’re insubordinate. Not subordinate. Complete subordination might have been the goal in an industrial setting. But now, it’s dangerous, expensive and inefficent....
Blog - Mac Pierce
Fort Emplacements and FDM: making Castle Doctrine How I made Castle Doctrine, a 1:1 scale fully 3D-Printed American Revolutionary War era cannon.
over a year ago
Open Culture
The 1924 Soviet Chess Match Where The Chess Pieces Were Real Soldiers and Horses Let’s time travel back to Leningrad (aka St. Petersburg) in 1924. That’s when an unconventional...
2 months ago
43
2 months ago
Let’s time travel back to Leningrad (aka St. Petersburg) in 1924. That’s when an unconventional chess match was played by Peter Romanovsky and Ilya Rabinovich, two chess masters of the day. Apparently, they called in their moves over the telephone. And then real-life chess...
Seth's Blog
“I didn’t see you there” Someone I’ve worked with over the years happened to be driving down my street. I called out and said...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
Someone I’ve worked with over the years happened to be driving down my street. I called out and said hello… They ignored me. So I repeated myself. “Oh,” they said, recognizing me. “It’s you.” We’re more likely to see, hear and care if the person over there is actually a person. A...
Open Culture
How Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon Became the First Sci-Fi Film & Changed Cinema Forever (1902) If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès...
7 months ago
56
7 months ago
If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès located inside it. Dedicated to la Magie du cinéma, it contains artifacts from throughout the history of film-as-spectacle, which includes such pictures as 2001: A Space Odyssey...
Seth's Blog
Revisiting stamps for email I started agitating for this in 1997 and wrote about it in 2006. The problem with the magical medium...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
I started agitating for this in 1997 and wrote about it in 2006. The problem with the magical medium of email is that it’s an open API. Anyone with a computer can plug into it, without anyone’s consent. This creates an asymmetric attention problem. The selfish,...
Open Culture
The Wisdom of Alan Watts in 4 Mind-Expanding Animations Perhaps no single person did more to popularize Zen Buddhism in the West than Alan Watts. In a...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
Perhaps no single person did more to popularize Zen Buddhism in the West than Alan Watts. In a sense, Watts prepared U.S. culture for more traditionally Zen teachers like Soto priest Suzuki Roshi, whose lineage continues today, but Watts did not consider himself a Zen Buddhist....
Haterade
I Hereby Disqualify Myself from the Olympic Pizza Luge Team A Very Special Mailbag
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Listening to organizational decline Great companies and teams often get stale and then fade away. Here’s what we hear as it happens:...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
Great companies and teams often get stale and then fade away. Here’s what we hear as it happens: “I’m way too important to listen to customers. Send them to the call center.” “It wasn’t a bad idea when we implemented it, so it’s not a bad idea now.” “My boss won’t let me.” “The...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Moïra Swann Bonjour everyone! Moïra Swann is an English and Proustian adaptation from my real name Anne-Marie:...
over a year ago
58
over a year ago
Bonjour everyone! Moïra Swann is an English and Proustian adaptation from my real name Anne-Marie: while Anne-Marie lives in France and works full-time in a wonderful museum dedicated to the French painter Anne-Louis Girodet, Moïra Swann does lino printing whenever she can, as an...
Seth's Blog
Retreat! We’ve managed to lionize, celebrate and elevate the mindset of “CHARGE!” Even when better judgment...
11 months ago
45
11 months ago
We’ve managed to lionize, celebrate and elevate the mindset of “CHARGE!” Even when better judgment and experience would indicate that we’re often more likely to succeed with a strategic re-evaluation of the situation. Making a new decision based on new information isn’t weakness....
Not Boring by Packy...
Base Power Company: Chapter 2 Violently Executing to Build America's Next Generation Power Company
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Clarke’s Law (part 2) All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread. Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an...
a month ago
18
a month ago
All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread. Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an advantage over his adversaries. And Henry Ford had machines that allowed him to produce items far cheaper than the competition. Now, almost all technology magic is widely...
Seth's Blog
Living in hyperbole In the pre-media world, we bumped into fables, or news from across the village, but mostly, our role...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
In the pre-media world, we bumped into fables, or news from across the village, but mostly, our role models and experiences were based on reality. Now, when it’s not unusual to spend eight hours a day surrounded by media fueled by greatest hits (worst offender, breaking news,...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Bro Economy Everywhere Plus! Oral Traditions, Woke Chili, and Montoya
4 months ago
Open Culture
How Choose Your Own Adventure Books Became Beloved Among Generations of Readers We’ve all read plenty of literature written in the first person, and plenty of literature written in...
11 months ago
63
11 months ago
We’ve all read plenty of literature written in the first person, and plenty of literature written in the third person. The second person, with its main subject of neither “I” nor “he” or “she” but “you,” is considerably harder to come by, and the writers who take it up tend to be...
Seth's Blog
Better than Google I haven’t done a Google search in months. Perplexity is more powerful, more pleasant and more...
a year ago
44
a year ago
I haven’t done a Google search in months. Perplexity is more powerful, more pleasant and more effective. Instead of being corrupted by invasive ads, surveillance and sneaky dark patterns, it presents you with a simple, footnoted explanation of exactly what you’re looking for....
Seth's Blog
Redundancy has a half-life At first, this stop sign sign makes a lot of sense: Lives are at stake. Break the rhythm, turn...
a year ago
33
a year ago
At first, this stop sign sign makes a lot of sense: Lives are at stake. Break the rhythm, turn something ignored into something noticed. The challenge with “highlighting” is that it fades. When everything is in all caps, nothing is. Exclamation points are like salt. When people...
Seth's Blog
Find the others New years bring resolutions, but those resolutions rarely stick. Creating change is difficult, and...
6 months ago
63
6 months ago
New years bring resolutions, but those resolutions rarely stick. Creating change is difficult, and it’s hard to do it alone. New years remind us that we might need a better strategy. A philosophy of becoming, a clear vision on where we’re going (and why). Here’s an invitation to...
Open Culture
The Hobo Ethical Code of 1889: 15 Rules for Living a Self-Reliant, Honest & Compassionate Life Who wants to be a billionaire? A few years ago, Forbes published author Roberta Chinsky Matuson’s...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
Who wants to be a billionaire? A few years ago, Forbes published author Roberta Chinsky Matuson’s sensible advice to businesspeople seeking to shoot up that golden ladder. These lawful tips espoused such familiar virtues as hard work and community involvement, and as such, were...
Seth's Blog
The Beatles and Taylor Swift When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too....
a year ago
22
a year ago
When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too. That’s part of the magic of a cultural swirl–it’s our friends, our work, our world. Most of these moments are actually tiny pockets. An episode of the much-talked-about TV show...
Seth's Blog
Taxonomy as a service When the truck makes a delivery at the nearby True Value hardware store, Danny needs to figure out...
6 months ago
55
6 months ago
When the truck makes a delivery at the nearby True Value hardware store, Danny needs to figure out which shelf to put it on. Should the extension cords go next to the hoses? After all, they both do the same thing, one with electricity and one with water… The purpose of putting...
Seth's Blog
Grandiosity as a form of hiding A business that says its mission is to, “reinvent local commerce to better serve our customers and...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
A business that says its mission is to, “reinvent local commerce to better serve our customers and neighborhoods,” can spend a lot of time doing not much of anything before they realize that they’re not actually creating value. A non-profit that seeks to create “fairness and...
Open Culture
Neuroscience Shows That Viewing Art in Museums Engages the Brain More Than Reproductions We may appreciate living in an era that doesn’t require us to travel across the world to know what a...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
We may appreciate living in an era that doesn’t require us to travel across the world to know what a particular work of art looks like. At the same time, we may instinctively understand that regarding a work of art in its original form feels different than regarding even the most...
Open Culture
Paradise Lost Explained: How John Milton Wrote His Epic Religious Poem from Satan’s Perspective “Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up...
2 days ago
3
2 days ago
“Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again,” Samuel Johnson wrote in the late eighteenth century. “None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction,...
Stat Significant
Which Songs Are Frequently Featured in Film and Television? A Statistical Analysis Which songs have become staples of film and television?
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Leverage It’s almost impossible to remove a screw with your bare hands, but easy with a screwdriver. The...
a year ago
33
a year ago
It’s almost impossible to remove a screw with your bare hands, but easy with a screwdriver. The handle might only add a little torque, but it’s more than enough. If someone is succeeding at something you find difficult, it might be because they realized they needed a screwdriver....
Seth's Blog
Squeaky wheels One strategy is to spend time finding the one wheel and address it. The better approach is to...
a month ago
12
a month ago
One strategy is to spend time finding the one wheel and address it. The better approach is to realize that if there’s one wheel that’s squeaking, it’s likely that all the wheels need lubrication.
Seth's Blog
Delivering good taste There are lots of books on creating cooking, photography, writing and music. But they can’t possibly...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
There are lots of books on creating cooking, photography, writing and music. But they can’t possibly help you do better until you see and taste and appreciate what you’re trying to create. If you think what you’re serving is good, but others don’t, more recipes aren’t going to...
Rectangle
The first rectangle And the first of many
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The four cohorts of the status quo The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around...
a year ago
27
a year ago
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around it. The second group cares about stability. They have limited bandwidth, and they’re not particularly interested in reconsidering everything, all the time. The third group doesn’t...
Seth's Blog
Every tactic… Has a strategy behind it. Often unsaid, undiscussed and hidden. It’s easier to simply play with the...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
Has a strategy behind it. Often unsaid, undiscussed and hidden. It’s easier to simply play with the tactic of the moment. Tell me what your tactic is trying to accomplish and I’ll be halfway to understanding what your strategy is. But it makes a lot more sense to announce your...
Marian's Blog
Faster Than Life – Global Game Jam 2019 Project Like in the previous year, I took part in the Global Game Jam. I joined a team of six programmers,...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Like in the previous year, I took part in the Global Game Jam. I joined a team of six programmers, unfortunately there was a shortage of artists this year. During the 48 hour jam, we made a space game that is inspired by Faster Than Light. You travel through...
Stat Significant
Does 'Avatar' Have No Cultural Footprint? A Statistical Analysis Investigating claims of Avatar's cultural irrelevance.
9 months ago
Seth's Blog
The close proximity gap One of the unmentioned causes of division in much of our culture happens because of the shift in...
a year ago
27
a year ago
One of the unmentioned causes of division in much of our culture happens because of the shift in expectations and rules when we begin to live in close proximity to one another. In a non-crowded setting, the default is independence. The expectation is that you can drive as fast as...
Stat Significant
Which Music Was Underappreciated in Its Time? A Statistical Analysis What music slipped through the cracks but eventually found its audience?
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
Ecosystems come and go Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers,...
4 weeks ago
12
4 weeks ago
Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers, competitors, marketplaces, systems and tech that make it all work. I used to make almanacs. Long, detailed, fact-checked reference books that might save a trip to the library....
Seth's Blog
Birthing tech No one knows the name of the maternity nurse who helped with the delivery of Marie Curie or...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
No one knows the name of the maternity nurse who helped with the delivery of Marie Curie or Esperanza Spaulding. You might grow up to be a genius, but the team that helped your mom give birth don’t have to be geniuses–they simply have to be pretty good at their craft. The same is...
Seth's Blog
The question book In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that...
a year ago
30
a year ago
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that an employee could anonymously submit a suggestion to make things better is a first step in engagement. Some companies took this much further and paid employees for suggestions that...
Open Culture
A Free Yale Course on Medieval History: 700 Years in 22 Lectures In 22 lectures, Yale historian Paul Freedman takes you on a 700-year tour of medieval history....
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks ago
In 22 lectures, Yale historian Paul Freedman takes you on a 700-year tour of medieval history. Moving from 284‑1000 AD, this free online course covers “the conversion of Europe to Christianity, the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam and the Arabs, the ‘Dark Ages,’...
Seth's Blog
When in doubt, look for the fear When someone acts in a surprising way, we can begin to understand by wondering what they might be...
a year ago
19
a year ago
When someone acts in a surprising way, we can begin to understand by wondering what they might be afraid of.
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: X-ocracy Now The government is now run by Elon Musk's X
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
“Thank you” is a complete sentence It’s a way to offer connection or acknowledgment. It’s a recognition of feedback and the time it...
7 months ago
42
7 months ago
It’s a way to offer connection or acknowledgment. It’s a recognition of feedback and the time it took someone to consider us. We can use it after we share something important, or someone shares with us. More than the end of an exchange, it can be the beginning of a relationship....
Open Culture
When 20,000 Americans Held a Pro-Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939 Above, two-time Academy Award nominee Marshall Curry presents A Night at The Garden, a film that...
8 months ago
40
8 months ago
Above, two-time Academy Award nominee Marshall Curry presents A Night at The Garden, a film that revisits a night in February 1939 when “20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism — an event largely forgotten from U.S. history.”...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
A strange kind of physical reality A long-form generative art project coming to fxhash in partnership with FAB DAO on 11th Jan 2024....
a year ago
27
a year ago
A long-form generative art project coming to fxhash in partnership with FAB DAO on 11th Jan 2024. This series is inspired, in the abstract, by the images I visualise when reading about quantum theory. Particularly thoughts of particles spreading out as waves and then collapsing...
Open Culture
They Study Authoritarianism. And They’re Leaving the U.S.: Why Three Yale Professors Have Moved to... Three Yale professors—Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley and Marci Shore–have spent their careers...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Three Yale professors—Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley and Marci Shore–have spent their careers studying fascism and authoritarianism. They know the signs of emerging authoritarianism when they see it. Now, they’re seeing those signs here in the United States, and they’re not...
Seth's Blog
The good news What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing...
a year ago
21
a year ago
What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing but nice things, positive feedback and encouragement coming your way? Amazingly, you could build something like that in just a few minutes and have it forever. If the bad news...
Seth's Blog
Brighten up a room (just by leaving it) Moving into your kid’s college dorm isn’t going to make the experience better...
10 months ago
55
10 months ago
(just by leaving it) Moving into your kid’s college dorm isn’t going to make the experience better for anyone. A smart founder leaves her company in a moment when it actually does better without her. The expectation that secession is failure causes a lot of damage. If you really...
Seth's Blog
Embracing the Rotten Tomato gap The site gives movies two scores on a scale from 1 to 100: One is from critics, and the other is...
a month ago
19
a month ago
The site gives movies two scores on a scale from 1 to 100: One is from critics, and the other is from typical viewers who are taking the time to chime in. Many movies have virtually the same score in each category. But some films have a 40 or 50 point gap. How could the […]
Open Culture
George Orwell’s Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea: A Short Animation Several years back, Colin Marshall highlighted George Orwell’s essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” which...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Several years back, Colin Marshall highlighted George Orwell’s essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” which first ran in the Evening Standard on January 12, 1946. In that article, Orwell weighed in on a subject the English take seriously–how to make the perfect cup of tea. (According to...
Open Culture
John Nash’s Super Short PhD Thesis: 26 Pages & Two Citations When John Nash wrote “Non-Cooperative Games,” his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton in 1950, the text...
a month ago
36
a month ago
When John Nash wrote “Non-Cooperative Games,” his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton in 1950, the text of his thesis (read it online) was brief. It ran only 26 pages. And more particularly, it was light on citations. Nash’s diss cited two texts: John von Neumann and Oskar...
Seth's Blog
Good businesses solve real problems But not all real problems lead to good businesses. There are problems all around us. People need...
a year ago
19
a year ago
But not all real problems lead to good businesses. There are problems all around us. People need housing, health care and food. They want delight, belonging and status. When a company shows up in the marketplace with a product or service that people eagerly choose to buy, it’s...
Open Culture
How Art Conservators Restore Old Paintings & Revive Their Original Colors We tend to imagine old paintings as having a muted, yellow-brown cast, and not without reason. Many...
2 weeks ago
8
2 weeks ago
We tend to imagine old paintings as having a muted, yellow-brown cast, and not without reason. Many of the examples we’ve seen in life really do look that way, though usually not because the artist intended it. As Julian Baumgartner of Chicago’s Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Generating The Alphabet My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser...
a year ago
26
a year ago
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser based art work, using a “web safe” font could produce inconsistent results, while including a font file would mean a large file size. Additionally, I don’t want a visual element of...
Anarchy Unfolds
May all roads lead to solarpunk Letters to an anarchist - Part 8
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Obvious vs perhaps “Obvious” closes the door to inquiry. “Perhaps” opens it.
3 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Pigment & Binder - Mixing colours for printing fabric Using Pigment Colours and Binder, you can mix your own bespoke colours for screen printing and block...
a year ago
63
a year ago
Using Pigment Colours and Binder, you can mix your own bespoke colours for screen printing and block printing. Experimenting with different ratio amounts of binder to pigment can create some lovely subtle pale shades and some strong bold colours too.   Keeping a note of your...
Seth's Blog
Simple and painless productivity On the factory floor, productivity increases are relentlessly implemented, often without regard for...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
On the factory floor, productivity increases are relentlessly implemented, often without regard for worker satisfaction. For people working with a laptop, though, they are often seen as optional lifestyle choices instead of ways to significantly boost how much we can get done–and...
Seth's Blog
This is number 10,000 Give or take. It’s hard to get the exact count through the sands of time. But it’s at least 10,000...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Give or take. It’s hard to get the exact count through the sands of time. But it’s at least 10,000 blog posts as of today. That’s 25 years, once or twice a day. Back of the envelope, that’s about 2 billion blog post views. I’ve written and edited every post myself, hence the...
Open Culture
Mythology Expert Reviews Depictions of Greek & Roman Myths in Popular Movies and TV Shows It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most of us no longer believe in their literal existence, but some of us have faith in their box-office potential. This two-part video series from Vanity Fair examines a variety of movies...
Seth's Blog
Situational spending Money is a story. But money is also an exchangeable commodity, valued by different people in...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
Money is a story. But money is also an exchangeable commodity, valued by different people in different ways. And time is the wildcard. Situational spending is a trap that seduces us into forgetting that time passes and debt (or assets) remain. A couple about to wed might not...
Open Culture
Death: A Free Online Philosophy Course from Yale Helps You Grapple with the Inescapable It pays to think intelligently about the inevitable. And this course taught by Yale professor Shelly...
10 months ago
58
10 months ago
It pays to think intelligently about the inevitable. And this course taught by Yale professor Shelly Kagan does just that, taking a rich, philosophical look at death. Here’s how the course description reads: There is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to...
Seth's Blog
The nuanced challenge of “The Regular Kind” In a breakthrough study by Alex Berke at MIT, she and her team showed that labeling a menu item as...
a year ago
25
a year ago
In a breakthrough study by Alex Berke at MIT, she and her team showed that labeling a menu item as vegan significantly decreased how many people would order it. In similar conditions, it turns out that more people choose exactly the same item if it doesn’t carry that label. One...
The Last...
Real Men Want To Drink Guinness, But Don't Expect Them To Pay For It the reason the bubbles go down is because of the drag created by the bubbles rising up the center. ...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
the reason the bubbles go down is because of the drag created by the bubbles rising up the center.  yeah, like a metaphor. "The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character." Yeah, we're sheep.  Message received.  That wasn't the message?  Are you...
Haterade
The Haterade Test Kitchen Makes Depression Tots™ Combating nihilism with crispier crowns.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Rewrite for humans My building had an elevator problem. The management company sent everyone this note: Please be...
a year ago
28
a year ago
My building had an elevator problem. The management company sent everyone this note: Please be advised we have been experiencing intermittent issues with the elevator. Our priority is your safety, and we are taking immediate action to address the situation. After a thorough...
On the Arts
Link List: 20 Articles + Websites About the Arts A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and...
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Customer math for a new business How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much do you make from every interaction with that...
a year ago
46
a year ago
How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much do you make from every interaction with that customer? How long does the customer stick around? How many new customers will existing customers bring you over time?
Seth's Blog
What sort of bicycle? While it’s likely that you own a bike, you probably don’t have a front-wheel recumbent bicycle in...
over a year ago
62
over a year ago
While it’s likely that you own a bike, you probably don’t have a front-wheel recumbent bicycle in your garage. Even though it’s more efficient, more comfortable and often faster. How did that happen? In 1933, a twenty-year old speed record was broken by a racer on a recumbent...
Seth's Blog
The defensive arrogance of TL;DR Every since there has been high school, there has been the instinct to read the Cliffs Notes. The...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Every since there has been high school, there has been the instinct to read the Cliffs Notes. The internet took this idea, added a gratuitous semicolon and perfected Too Long; Didn’t Read. This is the mistakenly proud assertion that we are far too busy and too important to read...
Seth's Blog
Misunderstanding bigness IBM spent a fortune fighting calls for them to be broken up. So did AT&T and Microsoft. In all three...
11 months ago
51
11 months ago
IBM spent a fortune fighting calls for them to be broken up. So did AT&T and Microsoft. In all three cases, there’s plenty of evidence that they would have been better off if they had simply broken themselves up. Microsoft is still recovering and IBM never will. One computer...
Open Culture
Why Bob Dylan’s Unreleased “Blind Willie McTell” Is Now Considered a Masterpiece Most Dylanologists disagree about which is the single greatest song in Bob Dylan’s catalog, but few...
2 weeks ago
6
2 weeks ago
Most Dylanologists disagree about which is the single greatest song in Bob Dylan’s catalog, but few would deny “Blind Willie McTell” a place high in the running. It may come as a surprise — or, to those with a certain idea of Dylan and his fan base, the exact opposite of a...
Seth's Blog
New ways to codify purpose And then what happens? Many small businesses start with generosity and good intent at their core....
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
And then what happens? Many small businesses start with generosity and good intent at their core. But it’s a rough ride, and especially when outside funding is involved, it’s easy to get seduced by the bright lights of Milton Friedman and an obsession with short-term profits....
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Kate Maxwell Hello! I’m Kate Maxwell from Design and Draw. I’m a printmaker and freelance Illustrator. I make...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
Hello! I’m Kate Maxwell from Design and Draw. I’m a printmaker and freelance Illustrator. I make colourful screen prints, risographs and other handprinted goods. You can also find my freelance illustrations on wooden toys and in children’s publishing. Describe your printmaking...
Handprinted - Blog
Printing with Heat Stamps If you haven’t tried printing with Heat Stamps yet, this is your new project. It’s really quick to...
a year ago
55
a year ago
If you haven’t tried printing with Heat Stamps yet, this is your new project. It’s really quick to create a unique block that can be reused again and again to create different textures and patterns. All you need is a heat gun and a variety of objects and surfaces to create your...
Open Culture
Artificial Intelligence & Drones Uncover 303 New Nazca Lines in Peru If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu...
9 months ago
60
9 months ago
If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu Picchu. If you visit another, it’ll probably be the Nazca Desert, home to many large-scale geoglyphs made by pre-Inca peoples between 500 BC and 500 AD. Many of these “Nazca lines”...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Louis Andrews I’m Louis Andrews, multidisciplinary artist with a primary focus on tattooing and printmaking. After...
a month ago
21
a month ago
I’m Louis Andrews, multidisciplinary artist with a primary focus on tattooing and printmaking. After a brief stint studying painting at Camberwell I quickly found institutionalised “learning” wasn’t doing me any favours so I dropped out and committed myself fully to becoming a...
Open Culture
When the CIA Studied Psychic Techniques to Alter Human Consciousness & Unlock Time Travel: Discover... By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of...
a year ago
109
a year ago
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of experiments involving LSD and other psychoactive drugs called MKUltra from the nineteen-fifties to the seventies. As one might suspect, that wasn’t the only research project into the...
Seth's Blog
Bottom of the funnel It’s easy to get focused on the public-facing mouth of the funnel. More followers. More impressions....
a year ago
103
a year ago
It’s easy to get focused on the public-facing mouth of the funnel. More followers. More impressions. More buzz, hype, promotion. Get the word out. Just about all the time people who call themselves “marketers” spend is on this. Don’t worry about what happens later, just pour more...
Seth's Blog
Sincerity is expected Well, not always. That’s why it’s so important. We don’t expect an actor to tell the truth. That’s...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
Well, not always. That’s why it’s so important. We don’t expect an actor to tell the truth. That’s their job. Musicians and other performers are playing a role. And social niceties encourage us to put on a smile and share appreciation, even in situations where it might not be...
Handprinted - Blog
Drypoint with Aluminium Plates Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plate with a...
over a year ago
60
over a year ago
Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plate with a pointed tool. These lines create a burr that holds ink, meaning that the print reveals the drawing. Drypoint is an easy technique to get to grips with and is a great method if you...
Seth's Blog
Where are you? When you’re reading a good historical novel, you might be there and then. When you’re checking your...
a year ago
32
a year ago
When you’re reading a good historical novel, you might be there and then. When you’re checking your email, you are in a conversation between and among, over there, not here. When you’re imagining what went wrong in that conversation yesterday, you are living in yesterday. And...
Seth's Blog
All of it, all at once The smartphone is the most expensive device most people own, and the one they use the most. Here’s...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
The smartphone is the most expensive device most people own, and the one they use the most. Here’s everything you can’t have, can’t afford and won’t get, right here. Here’s everyone you want to have an argument with, one click away. Here is every piece of bad news we can imagine,...
Seth's Blog
A new cooperative workshop My colleague Ava Morris is running her Song of Significance Workshop on Friday, October 6. It’s...
a year ago
23
a year ago
My colleague Ava Morris is running her Song of Significance Workshop on Friday, October 6. It’s powerful, effective and personal. It runs worldwide, in Zoom, and it’s completely interactive–every participant participates. This will be the third session… the first two got rave...
Seth's Blog
Don’t steal the revelation Learning is a journey of incompetence. First, we realize that there’s something we don’t know. Then...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
Learning is a journey of incompetence. First, we realize that there’s something we don’t know. Then we see that we’re going to be better at it, and we’re not good at it yet. Then we figure it out and we’ve succeeded. Repeat. When we pre-process the information and simply test...
Seth's Blog
No lunging I’ve been working hard on my juggling (actual juggling, not metaphorical juggling). The secret, as I...
a year ago
30
a year ago
I’ve been working hard on my juggling (actual juggling, not metaphorical juggling). The secret, as I wrote about in The Practice is the throwing, not the catching. If you get the throws right, the catches are easy. The way to focus on the throws is simple but culturally...
Seth's Blog
Unaware If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak...
a year ago
43
a year ago
If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organize, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’. It’s tempting to imagine we have less power...
Not Boring by Packy...
Chaos is a Ladder Vertical Integrators: Part V
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
“How do I get the most of out my people?” Alas, this is the wrong question for a leader or manager to ask. It’s more productive to wonder,...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Alas, this is the wrong question for a leader or manager to ask. It’s more productive to wonder, “how do we create the conditions for our people to get to where they’re heading?”
Open Culture
Solving a 2,500-Year-Old Puzzle: How a Cambridge Student Cracked an Ancient Sanskrit Code If you find yourself grappling with an intellectual problem that’s gone unsolved for millennia, try...
10 months ago
79
10 months ago
If you find yourself grappling with an intellectual problem that’s gone unsolved for millennia, try taking a few months off and spending them on activities like swimming and meditating. That very strategy worked for a Cambridge PhD student named Rishi Rajpopat, who, after a...
Open Culture
Behold Gustave Doré’s Dramatic Illustrations of the Bible (1866) One occasionally hears it said that, thanks to the internet, all the books truly worth reading are...
a year ago
65
a year ago
One occasionally hears it said that, thanks to the internet, all the books truly worth reading are free: Shakespeare, Don Quixote, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the Divine Comedy, the Bible. Can it be a coincidence that all of these works inspired illustrations by Gustave Doré?...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #141 Building Civilizations, Nuclear Moon, Physical Intelligence, Argentina, Creatine
2 months ago
Open Culture
A New Analysis of Beethoven’s DNA Reveals That Lead Poisoning Could Have Caused His Deafness Despite the intense scrutiny paid to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven for a couple of...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Despite the intense scrutiny paid to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven for a couple of centuries now, the revered composer still has certain mysteries about him. Some of them he surely never intended to clarify, like the identity of “Immortal Beloved”; others he...
Open Culture
The Soviet Union Creates a List of 38 Dangerous Rock Bands: Kiss, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Village... Image by Mario Casciano via Wikimedia Commons Music is dangerous and powerful, and can be, without...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
Image by Mario Casciano via Wikimedia Commons Music is dangerous and powerful, and can be, without intending to, a political weapon. All authoritarian regimes have understood this, including repressive elements in the U.S. throughout the Cold War. I remember having books handed...
Open Culture
Stanley Kubrick’s Annotated Copy of Stephen King’s The Shining The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. The book is filled with highlighted passages and largely illegible notes in the margin—tantalizing clues to Kubrick’s intentions for the movie. The site...
The Great Discontent...
Britt Reilly Britt Reilly's work lives at the intersection of immersive visual arts, historic architecture and...
7 months ago
12
7 months ago
Britt Reilly's work lives at the intersection of immersive visual arts, historic architecture and preservation, and modernist design. Britt is the executive director and collections curator at the Irving & Aaronel deRoy Gruber Foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and when we...
Seth's Blog
Digital prepwork It’s so tempting to simply begin painting a wall. After all, it’s pretty easy to lay down paint. But...
over a year ago
101
over a year ago
It’s so tempting to simply begin painting a wall. After all, it’s pretty easy to lay down paint. But it turns out that masking and dropcloths, painstakingly put into place, save many hours compared to cleaning up a mess afterward. The same is true for what happens when we have a...
Seth's Blog
Toward better In our work to make things better, it’s easy to overlook two things: The best way to make things...
7 months ago
34
7 months ago
In our work to make things better, it’s easy to overlook two things: The best way to make things better is to begin. Create the conditions for others to join you. Persist.
Seth's Blog
Jump in the lake The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a...
a year ago
86
a year ago
The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a swim. But it’s also a hassle. You need to change your clothes, find someone to guard, bring a towel and most of all, gasp at the transition when the cold water hits. And yet… no one...
Seth's Blog
Doing it step by step I was surprised to discover that for many AI questions, if you add, “please figure this out step by...
11 months ago
68
11 months ago
I was surprised to discover that for many AI questions, if you add, “please figure this out step by step,” the AI will provide a dramatically more accurate and useful answer. This works on simple questions like, “how many times does the letter ‘r’ appear in the word ‘strawberry'”...
Blog - Mac Pierce
The making of A Scanner Darkly How and why I made A Scanner Darkly, an art piece that reads off text using spotlights in the...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
How and why I made A Scanner Darkly, an art piece that reads off text using spotlights in the shape of security cameras.
Stat Significant
Do People Actually Hate Coldplay? A Statistical Analysis Examining Coldplay's confusing cultural reputation.
4 months ago
Open Culture
Isaac Newton Creates a List of His 57 Sins (Circa 1662) Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the most important and influential scientist in history, discovered the...
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the most important and influential scientist in history, discovered the laws of motion and the universal force of gravity. For the first time ever, the rules of the universe could be described with the supremely rational language of mathematics....
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Lucy Gell Hi, I'm Lucy. I studied graphic design and illustration at Staffordshire University and later began...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
Hi, I'm Lucy. I studied graphic design and illustration at Staffordshire University and later began a career in animation. During this fun and exciting time I was responsible for fabricating the Martians in the Tim Burton film ‘Mars Attacks’. I made many foam latex and silicone...
Seth's Blog
On to the next thing Vitally important, rarely taught, easily messed up. In order to go onto the next thing, which we all...
over a year ago
130
over a year ago
Vitally important, rarely taught, easily messed up. In order to go onto the next thing, which we all do (unless you’re still wearing pajamas with feet and taking ballet lessons), we need to walk away from the last thing. Wrap it up, learn from it, leave it in good hands. And we...
Seth's Blog
Pet quirks Peeves make lousy pets. They undermine us and put us on edge. But quirks? Little eccentricities we...
a year ago
93
a year ago
Peeves make lousy pets. They undermine us and put us on edge. But quirks? Little eccentricities we see in the world that offer a cost-free smile. Habits or interactions that always make us a little lighter on our feet and open the door to better… They’re easy to find, not hard to...
Seth's Blog
High fidelity It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original...
a year ago
56
a year ago
It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original recording. It might be the high fidelity of loyalty. No shopping around for a momentarily better deal. It might be the high fidelity of genre. This is just what you hoped it would...
Seth's Blog
Choose your fuel wisely If worrying about paying the mortgage gets you motivated to lean hard into the next project, don’t...
8 months ago
49
8 months ago
If worrying about paying the mortgage gets you motivated to lean hard into the next project, don’t be surprised if that sort of fear arises every time you have hard work to do. If your goal is to teach the naysayers a lesson, remember that you’ll need to find people who you want...
Anarchy Unfolds
The rich don't have authority On the myth of power and money
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
Sufficient resolution Robert Johnson is known as the king of the Delta blues. One reason is that his small output was...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
Robert Johnson is known as the king of the Delta blues. One reason is that his small output was brilliant. The other, bigger reason is that the recordings that remain of his short life are among the earliest that sound good… most audio recordings from before 1936 sound antique...
Seth's Blog
Choosing your pacemaker Roger Bannister ran a four-minute mile by having a relay race of pace runners next to him. If he...
over a year ago
71
over a year ago
Roger Bannister ran a four-minute mile by having a relay race of pace runners next to him. If he could keep up with his pacer, he’d finish the run in record time. If you work in an office where people are regularly shipping breakthrough work, it’s likely your work will ship as...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #128 Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline,...
5 months ago
13
5 months ago
Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline, Contrary Tech Trends, Sacca on Ferriss
Open Culture
How Our Depiction of Jesus Changed Over 2,000 Years and What He May Have Actually Looked Like Whether or not you believe Jesus Christ is the son of God, you probably envision him (or, if you...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Whether or not you believe Jesus Christ is the son of God, you probably envision him (or, if you prefer, Him) in much the same way as most everyone else does. The long hair and beard, the robe, the sandals, the beatific gaze: these traits have all manifested across two millennia...
Seth's Blog
Inverting the vex Life can be irritating. And sometimes, we can make a choice. The thing that’s vexing you: is it a...
a year ago
48
a year ago
Life can be irritating. And sometimes, we can make a choice. The thing that’s vexing you: is it a situation or a problem? Problems have solutions. If we care enough, we can find a way to solve a problem, but it might cost more money, require more effort or involve more risk than...
Seth's Blog
Pavlonian coincidence There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the...
a year ago
21
a year ago
There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the make-believe magic of two things occurring that we didn’t expect to occur. When you and your long-lost college roommate end up randomly sharing adjacent bowling lanes when you’re...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Pia Bramley I’m an artist, illustrator and printmaker. Having left London after a decade of city life I now live...
a year ago
61
a year ago
I’m an artist, illustrator and printmaker. Having left London after a decade of city life I now live and work in The New Forest, squeezing in drawing and printing around caring for a three year old. How and where did you learn to print? I did my foundation at KIAD (formerly...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Ariana Martin Hi, I’m Ariana - a pattern designer and printmaker from leafy Sheffield. I create joyful patterns...
a year ago
84
a year ago
Hi, I’m Ariana - a pattern designer and printmaker from leafy Sheffield. I create joyful patterns and illustrations, which are particularly inspired by 20th century design, and I produce my own range of stationery and homewares.     Describe your printmaking process. Screen...
Marian's Blog
BTduino BTduino is an Android app that lets you add a custom bluetooth interface to your Arduino project...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
BTduino is an Android app that lets you add a custom bluetooth interface to your Arduino project without any programming on the Android side. Everything is better with bluetooth! Here are some examples: Download Android APK file Android 4.0 or higher is...
Seth's Blog
Make or buy? If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to...
a year ago
28
a year ago
If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to set up a little machine shop to make your own pens. That’s pretty obvious. Should the smoothie shop make its own almond milk? It’s pretty clear that Starbucks should have a team of...
Haterade
RECIPE: Barbecue Boost, Quickly (BBQ) Running Gel This one's for the meatheads.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Create value If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for...
a year ago
31
a year ago
If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for the feeling of security. But real security lies in creating value. Creating value isn’t easy, but it’s resilient and generous and often profitable. “How do I create more value?” is...
On the Arts
Modern Culture is Too Escapist, Part 1: Isolated vs. Integrated Arts Too much creative energy is focused on escaping the world, not on enhancing it.
a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Should I use Caligo Extender or Opaque White? When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or Extender. Both of these give us different results so which should we choose? We have performed a few experiments to show the difference between mixing with Opaque White and...
Seth's Blog
Market pressure Every competitor faces pressure, and it varies by industry, consumer/investor segment and geography....
a year ago
37
a year ago
Every competitor faces pressure, and it varies by industry, consumer/investor segment and geography. This applies to services, products, ideas, organizations, jobs… whenever there’s a choice and a market. The pressure might push you to be: But it’s also possible to choose a...
Seth's Blog
What do you need more of? If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: …we know where to get it. If not, then...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: …we know where to get it. If not, then why are we spending our magical attention there?
Open Culture
How Jackson Pollock Redefined Modern Art: An Introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sQ_cfZ8q9kVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled:...
3 weeks ago
28
3 weeks ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sQ_cfZ8q9kVideo can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Jackson Pollock: the Myth of the Modern Artist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sQ_cfZ8q9k) In his lifetime, Jackson Pollock had only one successful art show. It took place at the...
Stat Significant
How Have Song Lyrics Changed Since the 1960s? A Statistical Analysis How have song lyrics evolved over time?
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
The empathy of magic Magicians know where the trapdoors are, what’s up their sleeves and how to hide the ball. And yet,...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Magicians know where the trapdoors are, what’s up their sleeves and how to hide the ball. And yet, mechanical skill is just the first step in being actually good at magic. The real skill is in finding the empathy to imagine that someone else might believe. To do the trick for...
Stat Significant
What Makes a Movie Hateable? A Statistical Analysis What makes a movie bad, and what makes a review of a bad movie?
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Three choices Everything flows from the strategic decisions we make early in the process: Choose your landlord....
4 days ago
6
4 days ago
Everything flows from the strategic decisions we make early in the process: Choose your landlord. The rent is due every month. The place we set up (whether it’s a retail storefront, a social media platform or a warehouse) determines our cost structure, our deal flow and the space...
Open Culture
Watch Tom Waits For No One, the Pioneering Animated Music Video from 1979 Tom Waits For No One, above, is surely the only film in history to have won an Oscar for Scientific...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Tom Waits For No One, above, is surely the only film in history to have won an Oscar for Scientific and Technical Achievement for its creator and a first place award at the Hollywood Erotic Film and Video Festival. Director John Lamb and his partner, Bruce Lyon also deserve...
Seth's Blog
Wrestling, fighting or dancing? We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we...
a year ago
29
a year ago
We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we can dance with someone else as we seek a mutual way forward. Fighting tends to be more brutal, final and hurtful than is often productive. You don’t want to spend your days...
Open Culture
Watch James Earl Jones Read Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter Urging High-School Students to Create Art & Make... As cultural figures, the late James Earl Jones and Kurt Vonnegut would seem to have had little in...
9 months ago
42
9 months ago
As cultural figures, the late James Earl Jones and Kurt Vonnegut would seem to have had little in common, but each could easily be recognized by his voice. Jones’ will come to mind as soon as you think of Darth Vader, Simba’s father, or “This is CNN.” Vonnegut’s distinction was...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of lottery thinking Tim Brownson points us to this recent poll of people in Great Britain. About one out of four people...
10 months ago
84
10 months ago
Tim Brownson points us to this recent poll of people in Great Britain. About one out of four people surveyed (of all ages) believe that they could qualify for the Olympics if they trained for the next four years. This is absurd. It’s the very absurdity of it that makes it common....
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Dave Buonaguidi Dave Buonaguidi, AKA Real Hackney Dave is a Hackney-based artist who combines the visual and verbal...
5 months ago
39
5 months ago
Dave Buonaguidi, AKA Real Hackney Dave is a Hackney-based artist who combines the visual and verbal language of advertising and propaganda with unique imagery and materials of found objects and ephemera. In a previous life, Dave worked in advertising for over 35 years, founding...
Open Culture
How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur... Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in 1863. Today, we might assume that the controversy surrounding the painting had to do with its containing a nude woman. But, in fact, it does not contain a nude woman — at least...
Seth's Blog
Early next week… It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so...
8 months ago
58
8 months ago
It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so you can plan ahead… there are five more for the end of the week, but here we go: Linda Rottenberg is joining me on LinkedIn on Monday. She’s built an extraordinary organization...
Open Culture
Jerry Seinfeld Delivers Commencement Address at Duke University: You Will Need Humor to Get Through... This weekend, Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech at Duke University and offered the...
a year ago
102
a year ago
This weekend, Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech at Duke University and offered the graduates his three keys to life: 1. bust your ass, 2. pay attention, and 3. fall in love. Then, 10 minutes later, he added essentially a fourth key to life: “Do not lose your sense of...
Open Culture
How 16th-Century Artist Joris Hoefnagel Made Insects Beautiful—and Changed Science Forever In English, most of the words we’d use to refer to insects sound off-putting at best and fearsome at...
a week ago
9
a week ago
In English, most of the words we’d use to refer to insects sound off-putting at best and fearsome at worst, at least to those without an entomological bent. Dutch, close a linguistic relation though it may be, offers a more endearing alternative in beestjes, which refers to all...
Open Culture
16th-Century Japanese Historians Describe the Oddness of Meeting the First Europeans They Ever Saw Go to Japan today, and the country will present you with plenty of opportunities to buy pan, tabako,...
a year ago
52
a year ago
Go to Japan today, and the country will present you with plenty of opportunities to buy pan, tabako, and tempura. These products themselves — bread, cigarettes, and deep-fried seafood or vegetables — will be familiar enough. Even the words that refer to them may have a...
Seth's Blog
It’s not easy to see time Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about...
8 months ago
73
8 months ago
Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about any frame of this graph. But when we pause for just a few seconds for it to load and render, we can see 150 years unfold and then the truth becomes apparent. The snapshot is a...
Seth's Blog
Purchase decisions All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later… But it’s helpful to realize...
a year ago
43
a year ago
All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later… But it’s helpful to realize that all decisions involve a purchase. When we decide to spend time or take a risk or make a commitment, our brains act in a way very similar to how we choose to make a purchase....
Seth's Blog
Understanding pricing The money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
The money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was to produce or how much the producer likes it. That’s hard to hear, because when we make something, we spend most of our time thinking about those very things. Price is based on...
Seth's Blog
Kinds of courage Courage is a generous act that involves risk. It’s not courageous to hang out with friends and make...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Courage is a generous act that involves risk. It’s not courageous to hang out with friends and make a crank phone call. The risk involved might be actual risk (it took courage to go to the moon) or it might feel risky (raising your hand at a meeting to ask a useful question...
Open Culture
When Slavoj Žižek and Jordan Peterson Debated Capitalism Versus Marxism Karl Marx was a German philosopher-historian (with a few other pursuits besides) who wrote in...
11 months ago
93
11 months ago
Karl Marx was a German philosopher-historian (with a few other pursuits besides) who wrote in pursuit of an understanding of industrial society as he knew it in the nineteenth century and what its future evolution held in store. There are good reasons to read his work still...
Open Culture
Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa Now Appears on Japanese Banknotes If you’ve lived or traveled in Japan, you know full well how much of daily life in that...
a year ago
54
a year ago
If you’ve lived or traveled in Japan, you know full well how much of daily life in that cash-intensive society involves the use of thousand-yen bills. Once considered the equivalent of the American ten-spot, the yen’s lately having fallen to its lowest value in decades means that...
Open Culture
The Cramps Play a Mental Health Hospital in Napa, California in 1978: The Punkest of Punk Concerts “We’re The Cramps, and we’re from New York City, and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you...
11 months ago
62
11 months ago
“We’re The Cramps, and we’re from New York City, and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you people.” So begins one of the oddest but also the punkest of punk rock concerts in history, as The Cramps play for a crowd at a state mental hospital in Napa, California. The date was June...
Seth's Blog
The rear view mirror It’s almost impossible to safely drive a car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Only seeing...
over a year ago
135
over a year ago
It’s almost impossible to safely drive a car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Only seeing where you’ve been is a terrible way to figure out where to go. But it’s really unsafe to go forward with no idea of what came before. AI plods along into the future, using machine...
Open Culture
Medieval Cats Behaving Badly: Kitties That Left Paw Prints … and Peed … on 15th Century Manuscripts “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When...
a year ago
56
a year ago
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When Emir O. Filipovic, a medievalist at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited the State Archives of Dubrovnik, he stumbled upon something that will hardly surprise...
Seth's Blog
The magic of placebos One of two things is true: A placebo is a force beyond understanding, one that is capable of...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
One of two things is true: A placebo is a force beyond understanding, one that is capable of disappearing when we do the appropriate double-blind tests and has mechanisms that defy our knowledge of the laws of physics. Or… A placebo is a prompt for our subconscious to do the hard...
Seth's Blog
Defending the apostrophe Does it need defending? The sign on some bushes near a park in my town says, Beware: Bee’s. A local...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Does it need defending? The sign on some bushes near a park in my town says, Beware: Bee’s. A local merchant adds a note to some receipts that says, Your awesome. It’s tempting to speak up and point out that the sky comma is showing up where it shouldn’t. And missing when it...
Seth's Blog
Busy-ness and leverage When I made breakfast this morning, I didn’t begin by making the blender. Someone else, a team with...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
When I made breakfast this morning, I didn’t begin by making the blender. Someone else, a team with more skills, resources and scale, built the blender. I simply bought it. That seems obvious–no one expects a from-scratch baker to make their own baking powder. And yet, our...
Seth's Blog
“And” fatigue Digital abundance creates a new problem. Most of our lives are filled with “or” decisions. You can...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
Digital abundance creates a new problem. Most of our lives are filled with “or” decisions. You can have this or that. You can save money for the big party or you can go out for lunch. You can have exactly one thing for dessert–cake or fruit. But the war for our attention has...
Haterade
Crème de Mouthwash What price, enlightenmint?
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
“That will never work” Every successful SNL sketch, every bestselling book, every landslide-winning candidate… every single...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
Every successful SNL sketch, every bestselling book, every landslide-winning candidate… every single one… had skeptics. Someone in the writer’s room, or on the editorial board or even an investor looked at what was on offer and said, “no.” Not just, “I’m sorry, this doesn’t match...
Seth's Blog
More is More More hope. More health. More security. More innovation. More breakthroughs. More connection. More...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
More hope. More health. More security. More innovation. More breakthroughs. More connection. More creation. More joy. The climate movement doesn’t have to be about asking individuals to bear the burden of systemic problems. It’s not about living with less.  It’s about demanding...
Open Culture
Oscar-Winning Director Frank Capra Made an Educational Science Film Warning of Climate Change in... In 2015, we highlighted for you The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays, a largely-forgotten 1957...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
In 2015, we highlighted for you The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays, a largely-forgotten 1957 educational science film. The production is notable partly because it was shot by Frank Capra, the influential director who had won not one, not two, but three Oscars for best director....
Seth's Blog
Exceed or maintain? In just about every group, people decide in advance how they’ll show up when it comes to learning,...
a year ago
89
a year ago
In just about every group, people decide in advance how they’ll show up when it comes to learning, to winning and to responding to opportunities. They’re wearing a hat with a label, and over time, it’s not hard to recognize. This can change based on pedagogy, social conditions...
Open Culture
Beautiful 19th Century Maps of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise & More Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do so, we may or may not be thinking of where the concept originated: Dante’s Divina Commedia, or Divine Comedy. We each imagine the circles in our own way — usually filling them with...
Seth's Blog
The audacity of the crowd anthem There’s little doubt that We Are the Champions is one of the great crowd anthems of our time. Just...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
There’s little doubt that We Are the Champions is one of the great crowd anthems of our time. Just about any group can be stirred into a frenzy just by playing a few bars: The same goes Rapper’s Delight. And yet… Can you imagine how frightening it must have been to play it live...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of brittle Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the...
9 months ago
60
9 months ago
Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the short-run, optimization works as long as the world stays the same. We can optimize a device to work at capacity. However, something working at capacity blows up if you step on the gas when...
Seth's Blog
Later or now? When we feel like doing something selfish, indulgent, hurtful or short-term, we can simply decide to...
a year ago
40
a year ago
When we feel like doing something selfish, indulgent, hurtful or short-term, we can simply decide to do it later. And when it occurs to us that we might be able to make a useful contribution or do something important, perhaps we could do it now.
Seth's Blog
ChatGPT for you AI is a mystery. To many, it’s a threat. It turns out that understanding a mystery not only makes it...
a year ago
32
a year ago
AI is a mystery. To many, it’s a threat. It turns out that understanding a mystery not only makes it feel less like a threat, it gives us the confidence to make it into something better. I use ChatGPT4 just about every day, and I’m often surprised at how frequently it surprises...
Open Culture
Public.Work: A Smoothly Searchable Archive of 100,000+ “Copyright-Free” Images We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our...
11 months ago
57
11 months ago
We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our imagination. These days, this notion tends to refer to artificial intelligence-powered systems that generate visual material from text prompts, like DALL‑E and the many others that...
Seth's Blog
Getting clear about brand value Consulting firms rank brands on value. Marketers promise to increase it. But brand value has little...
5 months ago
145
5 months ago
Consulting firms rank brands on value. Marketers promise to increase it. But brand value has little to do with whether a company is famous or even profitable. The accurate measure of brand value is the premium that consumers will spend over the generic. What time, money or risk...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Duncan Tattersall I’m an artist and maker from southern Scotland, designing and hand printing bespoke textiles for...
a year ago
67
a year ago
I’m an artist and maker from southern Scotland, designing and hand printing bespoke textiles for interiors. My work focuses on the relationship between pattern & place; all of my designs are inspired by a particular location and aim to interpret the story of their surroundings....
Seth's Blog
Long-term selfish Everyone is selfish. We do things that increase our chances of survival, help us achieve our goals...
10 months ago
91
10 months ago
Everyone is selfish. We do things that increase our chances of survival, help us achieve our goals and give us a story we can tell ourselves about our role in the community. But short-term selfish is something we try to grow out of. Short-term selfish runs a red light because...
Seth's Blog
What are the defaults? Perhaps they were chosen a very long time ago. Or with very little thought. It could be that the...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Perhaps they were chosen a very long time ago. Or with very little thought. It could be that the constraints that led to the default are long gone. They might be perpetuating bad choices, injustice or sub-optimal outputs. The best way to fix something is to look at what we assume...
Seth's Blog
Cat and mouse games I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the...
a year ago
39
a year ago
I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the street is a significant safety problem. The speed limit is there for good reason, and if you selfishly and recklessly blow through the crosswalk, you ought to get a summons....
The Last...
Hunger Games Catching Fire: Badass Body Count sorry old man, I have a dress fitting to go to Number of people killed: 15 Number of...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
sorry old man, I have a dress fitting to go to Number of people killed: 15 Number of people Katniss kills: 1 Number of times she is saved by someone else: 6 Number of times she saves someone else: 0 But boy oh boy, wasn't she spectacular at practice, 9 targets in 30...
Open Culture
9‑Year-Old Edward Hopper Draws a Picture on the Back of His 3rd Grade Report Card In a 2017 press release, the Edward Hopper House announced that it would receive over 1,000...
a year ago
92
a year ago
In a 2017 press release, the Edward Hopper House announced that it would receive over 1,000 artifacts and memorabilia documenting Edward Hopper’s family life and early years. The collection “consists of juvenilia and other materials from the formative years of Hopper’s life and...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Vance Memes Plus: Media Literacy (gone) and Production (still here)
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Feeding the algorithm The marketing consultant told the client that they have to post three times a day on LinkedIn. “It...
10 months ago
36
10 months ago
The marketing consultant told the client that they have to post three times a day on LinkedIn. “It doesn’t matter if it’s good.” The SEO consultant explained that the website had to be loaded with keywords, and that a big budget needed to be set aside to develop inbound links....
Open Culture
Hear Newly Rediscovered Music by Erik Satie on the 100th Anniversary of His Death https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0Video can’t be loaded...
a week ago
9
a week ago
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Satie: Discoveries (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0) If asked to name our favorite French composer...
Seth's Blog
Which shelf is yours? A friend sorts his records in an interesting way: not by name or genre, but by which musicians are...
a week ago
8
a week ago
A friend sorts his records in an interesting way: not by name or genre, but by which musicians are friends with each other. That means some shelves are very crowded, and I’m imagining a few notorious artists have plenty of room all to themselves. It’s possible that we sort the...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Grace Gillespie Hello! I’m Grace Gillespie, a printmaker specialising in reduction linocuts and based in Bristol....
a year ago
110
a year ago
Hello! I’m Grace Gillespie, a printmaker specialising in reduction linocuts and based in Bristol. Most days you will find me in my teeny home studio, adding layers of colour to my prints, thinking about future designs or working on the never-ending administration side of running...
Seth's Blog
Digital stocking stuffers (and the other kind) Ever since O. Henry wrote about the Magi, it’s been pretty clear that gifts aren’t about the stuff...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Ever since O. Henry wrote about the Magi, it’s been pretty clear that gifts aren’t about the stuff as much as they are the intent. Holidays where gifts are expected undermine this, because it’s hard to tell where obligation begins and intent fades away. One lightweight and quick...
Seth's Blog
Which sort of sinecure? Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That sort of foundation can give us peace of mind and open the door to possibility. But, it’s possible that we can turn it into a trap as well. A situation so perfectly created that...
Handprinted - Blog
Kathryn Desforges: Meet The Maker I'm Kathryn Desforges, a Devon-born, Yorkshire-based artist with a passion for printmaking, process,...
5 months ago
57
5 months ago
I'm Kathryn Desforges, a Devon-born, Yorkshire-based artist with a passion for printmaking, process, and material experimentation. I specialise in etching, lithography and woodcut, and alongside my studio practice, my career as a printmaking technician and tutor intertwines with...
Seth's Blog
The value of artifacts An artifact is an object that holds or signifies an idea. A book on paper is an artifact: it’s the...
6 months ago
47
6 months ago
An artifact is an object that holds or signifies an idea. A book on paper is an artifact: it’s the object plus the words. Now that you can get the words in many other ways, the value of the book is changed. A wedding ring is an artifact. If lost, it has sentimental value far […]
Prolost
Linear Light, Gamma, and ACES Imagine a digital 50% gray card. In 0–255 RGB values, it’s 127, 127, 127. On the RGB parade scope,...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
Imagine a digital 50% gray card. In 0–255 RGB values, it’s 127, 127, 127. On the RGB parade scope, the card is a perfect plateau at 50%. Now imagine increasing the exposure of this scene by one stop. “Stops” of light are an exponential scale, meaning that subtracting one stop is...
Prolost
Red Giant VFX Suite Today Red Giant has released a brand-new collection of plug-ins for visual effects compositing. It’s...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Today Red Giant has released a brand-new collection of plug-ins for visual effects compositing. It’s called VFX Suite, and some of these tools are things I’ve been dreaming about since computers were beige. There are nine plug-ins in the suite. You can learn about all of them at...
Seth's Blog
Publicity or public relations? Publicity is the hard work of getting media outlets and social media influencers to talk about you....
22 hours ago
2
22 hours ago
Publicity is the hard work of getting media outlets and social media influencers to talk about you. Hustle for attention and mentions. Public relations is the much harder work of engaging with internal teams to make something worth talking about. It’s not spin, it’s story telling...
Open Culture
A 5‑Hour Journey Through North Korean Entertainment: Propaganda Films, Kids’ Cartoons, Sketch Comedy... Over the second half of the twentieth century, South Korea became rich, and in the first decades of...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Over the second half of the twentieth century, South Korea became rich, and in the first decades of the twenty-first, it’s become a global cultural superpower. The same can’t be said for North Korea: after a relatively strong start in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, its economy...
Seth's Blog
Appropriate tension Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even...
a year ago
23
a year ago
Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even the fear of failure. Of course, risk also feels risky (or at least it should). Differentiating between the two is difficult, which is why finding institutions, methods or coaches...
Open Culture
A Young Jim Henson Teaches You How to Make Puppets with Socks, Tennis Balls & Other Household Goods... By the time he filmed this video archived on Iowa Public Television’s YouTube channel, Jim Henson...
a month ago
12
a month ago
By the time he filmed this video archived on Iowa Public Television’s YouTube channel, Jim Henson was just about to strike gold with a new children’s show called Sesame Street. The year was 1969, and he already had 15 years of puppetry experience under his belt, from children’s...
Open Culture
The World’s First Medieval Electronic Instrument: The EP-1320 Lets You Play the Sounds of... At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Gotland puts on Medeltidsveckan, or “Medieval Week,”...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Gotland puts on Medeltidsveckan, or “Medieval Week,” the country’s largest historical festival. According to its official About page, it offers its visitors the chance to “watch knights on horseback, drink something cold, take a...
Seth's Blog
Non-professional writers Nobody asks you to design a bridge, write a sonnet or do open heart surgery. We leave these...
10 months ago
59
10 months ago
Nobody asks you to design a bridge, write a sonnet or do open heart surgery. We leave these essential tasks to trained professionals. But many job descriptions carry the unstated addendum, “and write.” Write memos, proposals, and even instruction manuals. The local supermarket is...
Infinite Scroll
A User's Guide to Building a Subculture How communities form online
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
Lost on purpose …of course, if you’re lost on purpose, you’re not lost. Lost is only possible if you are fixed on...
a year ago
24
a year ago
…of course, if you’re lost on purpose, you’re not lost. Lost is only possible if you are fixed on getting somewhere specific.
Prolost
Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad Event was Shot on iPhone — With Panavision Lenses Still from Apple’s “Let Loose” video. Apple unveiled their new line of iPads yesterday in a...
a year ago
117
a year ago
Still from Apple’s “Let Loose” video. Apple unveiled their new line of iPads yesterday in a pre-recorded video titled “Let Loose.” As with the previous “Scary Fast” MacBook Pro launch video, “Let Loose” ends with a tag proclaiming “Shot on iPhone” — this time adding “Edited on...
Seth's Blog
It just barely works This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers...
9 months ago
67
9 months ago
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers have ever created. The first Wright Bros. plane just barely flew. The first version of VisiCalc was just barely useful. The earliest bridges were shaky, unreliable and made of vines....
Handprinted - Blog
On The Course: Creating Life Drawing Mono Screen Prints I (Bridget) was lucky enough to take part on last years Life-Drawing Monoscreen Printing workshop...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
I (Bridget) was lucky enough to take part on last years Life-Drawing Monoscreen Printing workshop with Tricia Johnson. During the course, we worked with a life model to create painterly screen prints using the mono screen method. We used acrylic based screen printing inks and...
Seth's Blog
Important change is systems change Willpower is overrated. If you want to eat healthier, don’t work hard to avoid stopping at the...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
Willpower is overrated. If you want to eat healthier, don’t work hard to avoid stopping at the cookie jar when you walk into the kitchen. Get rid of the cookie jar. Systems are long-lasting, widespread and resilient. We can push back on them with effort, but over time, the system...
Stat Significant
6 Reasons to Be (Cautiously) Optimistic About Movies in 2025: A Statistical Analysis Six reasons to be optimistic about the film industry.
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
Designed, Designy or Well-designed? If we create something with purpose, we’ve designed it. It’s not an accident. An axe handle is...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
If we create something with purpose, we’ve designed it. It’s not an accident. An axe handle is designed, and so is a symphony. Some things, though are designy. The designer’s fingerprints are all over it. The typefaces, knurled edges, needless heat sinks and homage to Dieter Rams...
Seth's Blog
What sort of progress? Nothing stays still. Relative to the rest of the world, even something that’s not moving is...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
Nothing stays still. Relative to the rest of the world, even something that’s not moving is changing. It’s tempting to talk about not making fast enough progress. But it’s far more useful to ask which direction we’re progressing. Often, people will point to the velocity of the...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: All Hail New Media Censorship, platforms, and exactly who are we empowering?
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
The paradox of points Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your scorekeeping wisely. Too much focus on the score can bend us or break us, pushing us to engage with too much focus and without regard for balance. And our attachment to obvious points...
Handprinted - Blog
Using Pearl Ex Metallic Pigments to Enhance Screen Prints Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are metallic pigments that can be mixed into printing inks, acrylics,...
a year ago
105
a year ago
Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are metallic pigments that can be mixed into printing inks, acrylics, oils, encaustics and loads more. As printmakers we were keen to see how they could be used in various printmaking applications. We've tested them for relief printing and had some...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Something Wicked This Way Comes Theater Kids, BlueSky momentum, and Kai Cenat's big month
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Activation is not a secret …but it’s often overlooked. A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it’s far more efficient...
a month ago
18
a month ago
…but it’s often overlooked. A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it’s far more efficient to double the yield on the land he already has. Marketers often hustle to get the word out. To reach more people. And yet, activating the fans you already have–the ones who trust...
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing with Speedball Night Glo onto Fabric As Halloween fast approaches, it’s time to get those costumes ready. We think it’s a perfect...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
As Halloween fast approaches, it’s time to get those costumes ready. We think it’s a perfect opportunity to try out Speedball Night Glo Fabric Screen Printing Ink! Print glow in the dark Halloween messages, pictures, or even your kids’ spooky drawings onto their own...
Open Culture
How a 16th-Century Explorer’s Sailing Ship Worked: An Animated Video Takes You on a Comprehensive... These days, it feels as if you can’t go very long at all before scrolling past another announcement...
9 months ago
69
9 months ago
These days, it feels as if you can’t go very long at all before scrolling past another announcement about some new technological development (realized or scheduled) related to space exploration. Some react to this by wondering what could possibly be out there in the universe to...
Handprinted - Blog
In the Studio 2022 We have had the pleasure of hosting lots of new and exciting Fab Friday workshops and wonderful...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
We have had the pleasure of hosting lots of new and exciting Fab Friday workshops and wonderful Guest Tutors in 2022, exploring a variety of printmaking techniques. Take a look at this selection of work produced by students throughout the year:   Life Drawing - Mono Screen...
Seth's Blog
The hierarchy of insight It looks like this: Which do we measure the most, spend the most obtaining and argue about most...
9 months ago
42
9 months ago
It looks like this: Which do we measure the most, spend the most obtaining and argue about most often? We might have it backwards. HT Russ Ackoff.
Seth's Blog
Widespread resistance Steve Pressfield defines Resistance as the inertia, stories and excuses we manage to create to avoid...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Steve Pressfield defines Resistance as the inertia, stories and excuses we manage to create to avoid powerful or creative work. Writer’s block, procrastination, overconfidence, or a belief in un-delivered talent are all symptoms of resistance. Knowing that it has a name helps us...
Infinite Scroll
Old Art is Strangling New Art Why is older content dominating every artistic field?
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
The 500 ways There are thousands of ways to express encouragement and enthusiasm and support. Few of them require...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
There are thousands of ways to express encouragement and enthusiasm and support. Few of them require a blood oath or even much inconvenience. “I’m thrilled that you’re contributing.” “Can’t wait to see how this turns out.” “I know someone who really needs to hear about this.” “Go...
Anarchy Unfolds
Pride, noise, and fear Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
10 months ago
Seth's Blog
Closed/open I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a...
a year ago
19
a year ago
I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a good swing. It’s getting them to stop using a bad one. Our position feels so fragile, we hold on very tightly. Competence, status and connection are fleeting yet hard-won. We can...
Open Culture
William Faulkner Resigns From His Post Office Job With a Spectacular Letter (1924) Working a dull civil service job ill-suited to your talents does not make you a writer, but plenty...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Working a dull civil service job ill-suited to your talents does not make you a writer, but plenty of famous writers have worked such jobs. Nathaniel Hawthorne worked at a Boston customhouse for a year. His friend Herman Melville put in considerably more time—19 years—as a...
Open Culture
Watch the Very First YouTube Video, “Me at the Zoo,” Now 20 Years Old Given the dominance YouTube has achieved over large swathes of world culture, we’d all expect to...
a week ago
8
a week ago
Given the dominance YouTube has achieved over large swathes of world culture, we’d all expect to remember the first video we watched there. Yet many or most of us don’t: rather, we simply realized, one day in the mid-to-late two-thousands, that we’d developed a daily YouTube...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of lessons The people most likely to sign up for coaching or additional learning are the folks who are already...
a year ago
70
a year ago
The people most likely to sign up for coaching or additional learning are the folks who are already good at their craft. “I’m terrible at this,” can lead to, “and I don’t want to be reminded of it.” Or perhaps, “I don’t want to waste their time,” or, “I’m never going to get...
Seth's Blog
Did we give up before AI arrived? Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI....
a year ago
56
a year ago
Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI. It can often draw, write and compose as well as a mediocre freelancer, sometimes better. But why were there mediocre freelancers? The system that pushed us to turn our writing into...
Handprinted - Blog
Transferring a Linocut to Inkjet Film using Adigraf Water Soluble Ink We've recently discovered that you can expose a screen with artwork made by transferring a linocut...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
We've recently discovered that you can expose a screen with artwork made by transferring a linocut to inkjet film using a water based ink. Often when we want to convert our relief prints to screen prints, we need to use some kind of digital programming to make this possible. With...
Open Culture
Igor Stravinsky’s “Illegal” Arrangement of “The Star Spangled Banner” (1944) In 1939, Igor Stravinsky emigrated to the United States, first arriving in New York City, before...
6 days ago
7
6 days ago
In 1939, Igor Stravinsky emigrated to the United States, first arriving in New York City, before settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard during the 1939–40 academic year. While living in Boston, the composer conducted...
Seth's Blog
The network scam Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a transaction. In the traditional fraud, the scammer tells a lie and the buyer, either with or without diligence, believes it and loses everything. You buy the magic beans, but they don’t...
Seth's Blog
“Not your best ever” In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top...
a year ago
85
a year ago
In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top everything that came before it. Progress is rarely smooth.
Open Culture
Nick Cave Narrates an Animated Film about the Cat Piano, the Twisted 18th Century Musical Instrument... What do you imagine when you hear the phrase “cat piano”? Some kind of whimsical furry beast with...
11 months ago
66
11 months ago
What do you imagine when you hear the phrase “cat piano”? Some kind of whimsical furry beast with black and white keys for teeth, maybe? A relative of My Neighbor Totoro’s cat bus? Or maybe you picture a piano that contains several caged cats who shriek along an entire scale when...
Open Culture
What’s Under London? Discover London’s Forbidden Underworld When the words London and underground come together, the first thing that comes to most of our...
a year ago
91
a year ago
When the words London and underground come together, the first thing that comes to most of our minds, naturally, is the London Underground. But though it may enjoy the honorable distinction of the world’s first railway to run below the streets, the stalwart Tube is hardly the...
cabel.com
The Forged Apple Employee Badge Here’s a quick and cautionary tale. This eBay auction, spotted by Eric Vitiello, immediately caught...
a year ago
47
a year ago
Here’s a quick and cautionary tale. This eBay auction, spotted by Eric Vitiello, immediately caught my eye: Wow. Someone was selling Apple Employee #10’s employee badge?! What an incredible piece of Apple history! Sure, it’s not Steve Jobs’ badge (despite the auction title), but...
Open Culture
Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline... More than 50 years and 10 presidential administrations have passed since Orson Welles narrated...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
More than 50 years and 10 presidential administrations have passed since Orson Welles narrated Freedom River. And while it shows signs of age, the animated film, a parable about the role of immigration, race, and wealth in America, still resonates today. Actually, given the...
Open Culture
Roger Federer’s Dartmouth Commencement Address: “Effortless Is a Myth” & Other Life Lessons from... In 2006, David Foster Wallace published a piece in the New York Times Magazine headlined “Roger...
a year ago
63
a year ago
In 2006, David Foster Wallace published a piece in the New York Times Magazine headlined “Roger Federer as Religious Experience.” Even then, he could declare Federer, “at 25, the best tennis player currently alive. Maybe the best ever.” Much had already been written about “his...
Prolost
Introducing Prolost Beta Prolost Beta is a new subscription offering on the Prolost Store. It's an occasional email from me...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
Prolost Beta is a new subscription offering on the Prolost Store. It's an occasional email from me containing a download or a link to something cool I'm working on, that's not quite ready to become a product yet. Or maybe ever. This will most often be Lightroom presets or...
Marian's Blog
Agent V – Global Game Jam 2018 Project This year I participated in my first game jam, the Global Game Jam 2018. With a team of artists,...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
This year I participated in my first game jam, the Global Game Jam 2018. With a team of artists, programmers and a sound designer, we made a video game within 48 hours. You play the game as a virus that infiltrates a company’s headquarters. The virus can not move on its own, it...
Open Culture
The Roads of Ancient Rome Visualized in the Style of Modern Subway Maps Sasha Trubetskoy, formerly an undergrad at U. Chicago, has created a “subway-style diagram of the...
a year ago
60
a year ago
Sasha Trubetskoy, formerly an undergrad at U. Chicago, has created a “subway-style diagram of the major Roman roads, based on the Empire of ca. 125 AD.” Drawing on Stanford’s ORBIS model, The Pelagios Project, and the Antonine Itinerary, Trubetskoy’s map combines well-known...
Seth's Blog
Unforced errors In hospitality and customer service, perfect is elusive. Someone is going to miss a shift, have a...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
In hospitality and customer service, perfect is elusive. Someone is going to miss a shift, have a bad day, or fail to understand a situation. But there’s a second kind of error, the one that’s far more common. When management makes bad choices, or underinvests in systems,...
Seth's Blog
Can you draw it on a graph? Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport...
a year ago
50
a year ago
Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport to explain something, but all they do is relabel it. If you truly understand something, you can use different modalities to help someone else understand it. The magic of a good...
Seth's Blog
Leverage is brittle Debt is a financial miracle. If you buy a property for 20% down, with the bank financing the rest,...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
Debt is a financial miracle. If you buy a property for 20% down, with the bank financing the rest, and it goes up in value by just 10%, your profit is 50%. (I’ll wait while you do the math.) If you have a factory and can buy a machine that increases productivity, the money you...
Open Culture
William S. Burroughs’ Scathing “Thanksgiving Prayer,” Shot by Gus Van Sant “Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986” first appeared in print in Tornado Alley, a chapbook published by...
7 months ago
44
7 months ago
“Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986” first appeared in print in Tornado Alley, a chapbook published by William S. Burroughs in 1989. Two years later, Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho, Milk) shot a montage that brought the poem to film, making it at least the...
Seth's Blog
Specific It’s one thing to say that 7,000,000 people will die next year from smoking cigarettes. It’s a...
4 months ago
33
4 months ago
It’s one thing to say that 7,000,000 people will die next year from smoking cigarettes. It’s a totally different thing to list those folks by name. When we confront risk, two things make it seem less real: We’re not sure who, and we’re not sure when. If you want to clarify our...
Marian's Blog
Game prototypes I’d like to share two game prototypes I made a few years ago. The first one is based on Tetris: ...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
I’d like to share two game prototypes I made a few years ago. The first one is based on Tetris: It was written in C++ with bare-bones OpenGL. Once you press shift, the game enters a “fast mode”, where the down button takes a piece all the way down and if you...
Open Culture
John Waters’ RISD Graduation Speech: Real Wealth Is Life Without A*Holes John Waters’ rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some...
9 months ago
34
9 months ago
John Waters’ rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some good one-liners and a few pearls of wisdom, though phrased, quite naturally, in an irreverent way. Ready for some sage advice on what really counts as wealth? And what career choices...
Open Culture
Behold The Drawings of Franz Kafka (1907–1917) Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece about Franz Kafka’s drawings. Kafka, of course, wrote a body of work, mostly never published during his lifetime, that captured the absurdity and the loneliness of the newly emerging...
Seth's Blog
Worthless noise isn’t information Data becomes information when at least one of two related things are true: If you’re not getting one...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Data becomes information when at least one of two related things are true: If you’re not getting one of these things, then the data is simply noise. A distraction that wastes our time and confuses us. Breaking news is up to the recipient.
Seth's Blog
Stumbling in the dark Learning is complicated. While we’re doing it, it’s easy to imagine that those around us are...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Learning is complicated. While we’re doing it, it’s easy to imagine that those around us are completely sure of themselves, moving forward in a well-lit space. In fact, if you visit a growing company, a useful school or anywhere that growth is happening, you’ll quickly see that...
Neocha – Culture &...
The Photography of Shin Noguchi
over a year ago
Infinite Scroll
Trapped in the Platforms Platform lock in and the Open Web
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Manipulation, indoctrination and addiction They’re often related. It’s not unusual for someone to have more experience or knowledge than we do....
a year ago
32
a year ago
They’re often related. It’s not unusual for someone to have more experience or knowledge than we do. If they use that knowledge to their benefit, not ours, they might be manipulating us. If we knew what they knew, we wouldn’t have gone along. This is the difference between a...
Handprinted - Blog
Using Schmincke Water-Based Inks to Create a Jigsaw Linocut We love the range of colours that are available in Schmincke water-based inks. We’re creating a...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
We love the range of colours that are available in Schmincke water-based inks. We’re creating a jigsaw linocut to allow us to use multiple colours of Schmincke ink in just one block! We are using Easy Carve Blue as it’s soft to cut up with a scalpel, making it ideal for a jigsaw...
Seth's Blog
The system has fingerprints We all make mistakes. We all do things that we then realize weren’t in our interest, or useful to...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
We all make mistakes. We all do things that we then realize weren’t in our interest, or useful to the community. If we do it a second time, it’s worth taking a hard look at the system that set us up for failure. How did the system get here? Who benefits? When we can see […]
Seth's Blog
Transforming two-sided markets AI agents are going to overhaul the way we think about buying and selling. Uber already did this in...
a year ago
29
a year ago
AI agents are going to overhaul the way we think about buying and selling. Uber already did this in a small way. They organized the drivers, and now they organize the riders. Hailing a cab was already sort of anonymous, but with competition and structure, AI will continue to get...
Seth's Blog
The Western Union trap When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get...
a year ago
56
a year ago
When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get even better at sending telegrams.
escape the algorithm
Close reading the trees How competitive Google Street Viewing makes the world feel seen
a year ago
Seth's Blog
What if they’re right? We spend a lot of time in our own heads, certain that our path and our method make sense. We often...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
We spend a lot of time in our own heads, certain that our path and our method make sense. We often become more certain in the face of criticism or even suggestions. This confidence is essential, as it allows us to lean into our project. Once in a while, though, it might help to...
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets 2024 - Preliminary Rounds Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Energy and systems complexity Wild animals forage. They spend calories and take risks to acquire food. If the required work and...
a month ago
19
a month ago
Wild animals forage. They spend calories and take risks to acquire food. If the required work and risk expended are more than the food they acquire, they go extinct. The goal is to get as many calories as possible for as little effort as possible. If there’s a surplus, their...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rosanna Reade I am a printmaker and illustrator from Northern Ireland, living and working in Edinburgh. I studied...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
I am a printmaker and illustrator from Northern Ireland, living and working in Edinburgh. I studied History of Art at University but have reverted back to creating art rather than talking or writing about it! As a self-taught printmaker, there is quite a lot of trial and error...
Seth's Blog
What comes after trust? Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil society as we know it is dependent on identity and responsibility. A person does something and owns the consequences. This requirement of identity leads to the dynamic of the free...
Anarchy Unfolds
To change everything, start anywhere Letters to an anarchist - Part 2
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
The reality of chasing pop It’s tempting for a creator. To make a pop hit, a song or a book or a meme that becomes a popular...
over a year ago
60
over a year ago
It’s tempting for a creator. To make a pop hit, a song or a book or a meme that becomes a popular idea and part of the culture. In our lifetimes, it’s become possible to imagine that you could even make a living creating pop. But pop is a harsh mistress, because pop means...
Open Culture
Marie Curie Invented Mobile X‑Ray Units to Help Save Wounded Soldiers in World War I A hundred years ago, Mobile X‑Ray Units were a brand new innovation, and a godsend for soldiers...
4 weeks ago
9
4 weeks ago
A hundred years ago, Mobile X‑Ray Units were a brand new innovation, and a godsend for soldiers wounded on the front in WW1. Prior to the advent of this technology, field surgeons racing to save lives operated blindly, often causing even more injury as they groped for bullets and...
Anarchy Unfolds
Paths to peace Letters to an anarchist - Part 4
7 months ago
Anarchy Unfolds
Is human society natural? On the human/nature divide and how to overcome it
4 months ago
The Great Discontent...
Schessa Garbutt Schessa Garbutt is the founder of the Inglewood–based design studio, Firebrand. An educator,...
12 months ago
10
12 months ago
Schessa Garbutt is the founder of the Inglewood–based design studio, Firebrand. An educator, lecturer, and published essayist (see The Black Experience in Design anthology, a must-read). Garbutt works at the intersection of co-design practices and making huge, mind-bending ideas...
Seth's Blog
The unwritten rules get written …when someone decides to selfishly push. There’s an assumption of civility and fairness in all of...
over a year ago
65
over a year ago
…when someone decides to selfishly push. There’s an assumption of civility and fairness in all of our interactions. When a harsh competitor unilaterally breaks unwritten rules (because it’s “not technically against the rules”) the community then writes down a new rule. The best...
Seth's Blog
The obligations of the Town Hall A few hundred years ago, small towns in New England embraced the idea of the town hall. Citizens (at...
a year ago
43
a year ago
A few hundred years ago, small towns in New England embraced the idea of the town hall. Citizens (at the time, just the white men) came together and worked through the town’s agenda. Each person could speak, each person could vote, it was direct and sometimes effective. Part of...
Seth's Blog
Two ways to defend the status quo Neither is true, helpful or generous. Both happen all the time. Call it out when you see it.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
A good business Just because it’s useful, needed or worthwhile doesn’t mean it’s a good business. E-bikes are...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
Just because it’s useful, needed or worthwhile doesn’t mean it’s a good business. E-bikes are transforming cities and offering mobility to those who previously couldn’t afford it. But they’re a commodity, and it’s difficult to make a significant profit producing them. A good...
Open Culture
How Scientists Recreated Ancient Egypt’s Long-Lost Pigment, “Egyptian Blue” Photo courtesy of Washington State University. It’s become fashionable, in recent years, to observe...
2 weeks ago
8
2 weeks ago
Photo courtesy of Washington State University. It’s become fashionable, in recent years, to observe that we live in an increasingly beige-and-gray world from which all color is being drained. Whether or not that’s really the case, all of us still enjoy easy access to a range of...
Open Culture
Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Living Virtuously (1930) Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life concerned with big topics in logic, mathematics, politics, and society, but that didn’t keep him from thinking seriously about how to handle his own day-to-day relationships. That hardly...
Open Culture
Download 1,000+ Digitized Tapes of Sounds from Classic Hollywood Films & TV, Courtesy of the... Watch enough classic movies — especially classic movies from slightly downmarket studios — and...
10 months ago
66
10 months ago
Watch enough classic movies — especially classic movies from slightly downmarket studios — and you’ll swear you’ve been hearing the very same sound effects over and over again. That’s because you have been hearing the very same sound effects over and over again: once recorded or...
Open Culture
Watch a Japanese Artisan Hand-Craft a Cello in 6 Months Cellists unwilling to settle for any but the finest instrument must, sooner or later, make a...
a year ago
82
a year ago
Cellists unwilling to settle for any but the finest instrument must, sooner or later, make a pilgrimage to Cremona — or rather, to the Cremonas. One is, of course, the city in Lombardy that was home to numerous pioneering master luthiers, up to and including Antonio Stradivari....
Seth's Blog
There’s always a placebo switch The trick is knowing where it is and using it well. Wanting control doesn’t always mean needing to...
a year ago
26
a year ago
The trick is knowing where it is and using it well. Wanting control doesn’t always mean needing to have control. Sometimes it is simply a desire to be acknowledged. HT to Brian.
Seth's Blog
Graceful Long after people forget the details, they’ll remember your kindness. There are many forms of...
a year ago
39
a year ago
Long after people forget the details, they’ll remember your kindness. There are many forms of hospitality, but resilience, goodwill and gratitude are often the ones that matter. PS here’s a short ebook I published almost a decade ago.
Seth's Blog
Getting to next There’s a difference between ‘rich’ and ‘richer’. And ‘fit’ and ‘fitter’. The problem with a pre-amp...
a month ago
19
a month ago
There’s a difference between ‘rich’ and ‘richer’. And ‘fit’ and ‘fitter’. The problem with a pre-amp that goes all the way to 11 isn’t that it’s louder. The problem is that very soon, the person who bought one of these will want one that goes to 12. Living in the liminal space is...
Open Culture
How the 13th-Century Sufi Poet Rumi Became One of the World’s Most Popular Writers The Middle East is hardly the world’s most harmonious region, and it only gets more fractious if you...
a year ago
67
a year ago
The Middle East is hardly the world’s most harmonious region, and it only gets more fractious if you add in South Asia and the Mediterranean. But there’s one thing on which many residents of that wide geographical span can agree: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī. One might at first...
On the Arts
Winter as Reading Season David Foster Wallace on the necessity of quiet time in order to read.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Bye now The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a...
9 months ago
54
9 months ago
The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a commitment, we break the trust we’ve earned. For a while, you might not notice the broken trust, because we’re encouraged to keep pushing, treating every individual as a walking...
Seth's Blog
What’s the right size? There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the...
a year ago
33
a year ago
There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the driver’s effort if we put in a few more seats, but add too many and the bus is too big to make a turn–and soon we’d have to add conductors and cleaners and then the bus […]
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Meaningless My ArtBlocks debut, releasing on 30th May 2023. Find out how the algorithm works and explore some...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
My ArtBlocks debut, releasing on 30th May 2023. Find out how the algorithm works and explore some conceptual thoughts.
Seth's Blog
And then that happened The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what happened and then decide to do something with that insight. Thirty years ago, AOL was my company’s biggest client. They charged users $3 an hour to use their precursor to the internet,...
Handprinted - Blog
Blind Embossing with Lino Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds...
a year ago
139
a year ago
Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds subtle texture and interest. Emboss prints ‘blind’ (without ink) or combine with inked lino for a complex final print. Prepare the design. These white pencils are brilliant for...
Seth's Blog
The power of expectations When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to...
a year ago
22
a year ago
When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to possibility. We offer them dignity and a chance to grow. We are offering them trust. But if we become attached to those expectations, if the expectation unmet leads us to distress or...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Nervous MAGAs Plus! Creepy AI and College Admission Discourse
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
Freelancer as centaur Freelancers looking to build a career have two good options: The lousy options are to insist that...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
Freelancers looking to build a career have two good options: The lousy options are to insist that you don’t use AI, but to be slower, more expensive and not as good as the AI option. Or to do tasks that an AI assigns you. Hiring an AI to work for you and getting very good […]