Seth's Blog
The swag is here
To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and...
a year ago
To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and independent craftspeople. You can find them all at seths.store. I went to Brooklyn and worked with Dan at the Arm to create a set of five handmade letterpress posters. They’re 12...
Seth's Blog
She’s here!
Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone...
7 months ago
Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone notices she’s in the building, everyone can up their game. And some musicians wait eagerly for A&R person to be in the crowd. If they really kill it tonight, a record deal might...
Open Culture
Sex and Alcohol in Medieval Times: A Look into the Pleasures of the Middle Ages
Playing video games, road-tripping across America, binge-listening to podcasts, chatting with...
5 months ago
Playing video games, road-tripping across America, binge-listening to podcasts, chatting with artificial intelligence: these are a few of our modern pleasures not just unknown to, but unimaginable by, humanity in the Middle Ages. Yet medieval people were, after all, people, and...
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.
a year ago
How I made Castle Doctrine, a 1:1 scale fully 3D-Printed American
Revolutionary War era cannon.
Seth's Blog
The Zoom stretch
There are a lot of structural reasons why in-person meetings don’t involve a break every 12 minutes....
4 months ago
There are a lot of structural reasons why in-person meetings don’t involve a break every 12 minutes. It takes too long to stop and start. But those rules don’t apply to Zoom. Screens off! Stand up. We’ll be back in 60 seconds. If it’s not worth coming back, the meeting should...
Seth's Blog
Sharp tools
Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know...
3 months ago
Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know this. The rest of us, on the other hand, regularly use digital tools we don’t understand, don’t maintain and haven’t optimized. Sometimes, our lack of care in the choice and use of...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Ian Burke
Ian Burke is a Painter Printmaker based in the North Yorkshire Moors. He was born in Saltburn and...
11 months ago
Ian Burke is a Painter Printmaker based in the North Yorkshire Moors. He was born in Saltburn and grew up in Redcar before studying Fine Art at Newcastle University. Having completed a Master's at Goldsmith's College, London he established a career in teaching art.
Ian now...
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets 2024 - Preliminary Rounds
Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
a week ago
Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
Marian's Blog
Quadrocopter Lichtsystem
Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters...
over a year ago
Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters ansteuert. Das Ziel war, bei möglichst geringen Materialkosten möglichst viele Möglichkeiten bei der Beleuchtung des Quadrocopters zu haben.
Verwendete Teile:
1m RGB-LED Streifen, jeweils...
On the Arts
The Meaning of Melancholy
An Interview with Hans Maes
a year ago
An Interview with Hans Maes
Marian's Blog
How to build a Lego Portal Gun
Resources:
Parts: list, Rebrickable CSV, Bricklink XML
Model: LDR, 3DS
Build this MOC on...
over a year ago
Resources:
Parts: list, Rebrickable CSV, Bricklink XML
Model: LDR, 3DS
Build this MOC on Rebrickable
Instructions:
...
Open Culture
Do All Roads Lead to Philosophy on Wikipedia?: They Do About 97.3% of the Time
Pull up the Wikipedia page for Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love,” the 1984 single now known for...
3 months ago
Pull up the Wikipedia page for Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love,” the 1984 single now known for re-popularizing the genre of Japanese “city pop.” Then click the first of its links (not related to the language of the article itself), which leads to Takeuchi’s own page. If you keep...
Open Culture
How Olivetti Designed the First Personal Computer in History, the Programma 101 (1965)
If you were to come across an Olivetti Programma 101, you probably wouldn’t recognize it as a...
4 months ago
If you were to come across an Olivetti Programma 101, you probably wouldn’t recognize it as a computer. With its 36 keys and its paper-strip printer, it might strike you as some kind of oversized adding machine, albeit an unusually handsome one. But then, you’d expect that...
Seth's Blog
The shifting status of more data
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell....
a year ago
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell. Either the building falls down or it doesn’t. Either the car starts after you charge the battery or it’s still dead. We can ask easy questions about how long it took or how much it […]
Open Culture
Free: Download Over 33,000 Sounds from the BBC Sound Effects Archive
There may be a few young people in Britain today who recognize the name Ludwig Koch, but in the...
2 months ago
There may be a few young people in Britain today who recognize the name Ludwig Koch, but in the nineteen-forties, he constituted something of a cultural phenomenon unto himself. He “started recording sounds and voices in the 1880s when he was still a child” in his native Germany,...
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...
10 months 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...
Marian's Blog
Generating an infinite world with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm
This article describes how I generate an infinite city using the Wave Function Collapse algorithm in...
a year ago
This article describes how I generate an infinite city using the Wave Function Collapse algorithm in a way that is fast, deterministic, parallelizable and reliable.
It's a follow-up to my 2019 article on adapting the WFC algorithm to generate an infinite world.
The new approach...
Blog - Mac Pierce
The Opt-Out Cap, detailed assembly with photos.
How to assemble the Opt-Out Cap, a tool for facial recognition obfuscation.
over a year ago
How to assemble the Opt-Out Cap, a tool for facial recognition obfuscation.
Seth's Blog
The ghost in the machine
“The computer wants you to click this button.” “It thinks you asked for something else.” “He’s mad...
a year ago
“The computer wants you to click this button.” “It thinks you asked for something else.” “He’s mad at you.” Thousands of generations ago, we evolved our way into a magnificent hack. It turns out that we can more safely navigate the world by imagining that other people have a...
Seth's Blog
The Hegelochus lesson
More than 2,000 years ago, an actor in Greece botched a line in a play. In an inflection error, he...
a year ago
More than 2,000 years ago, an actor in Greece botched a line in a play. In an inflection error, he said “weasel” when he meant to say “calm sea.” As a result, he was mocked by Sannyrion and then Aristophanes and others. He never worked again. The lesson might be that one innocent...
Seth's Blog
The sixty-day staircase
In the moment, it’s really difficult. L’espirit descalier means, “the spirit of the staircase.” That...
a year ago
In the moment, it’s really difficult. L’espirit descalier means, “the spirit of the staircase.” That thing you wished you had a said just a moment ago, the bon mot or the clever riposte. It only comes to us as we’re walking away. But this sort of quick comment is good for the...
Open Culture
Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zappa on His Cable TV Show, and Later Recalls, “I Hated Him More Than Ever”...
Had Andy Warhol lived to see the internet–especially social networking–he would have loved it,...
5 months ago
Had Andy Warhol lived to see the internet–especially social networking–he would have loved it, though it may not have loved him. Though Warhol did see the very beginnings of the PC revolution, and made computer art near the end of his life on a Commodore Amiga 1000, he was mostly...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Enclosing a Prusa MK3, or how to completely overbuild an Octopi setup.
Overbuilding a Prusa enclosure
over a year ago
Overbuilding a Prusa enclosure
Open Culture
You Can Buy Historic Italian Houses for €1 — But What’s the Catch?
From Abruzzo to Vergemoli, small Italian towns and villages have recently been making their historic...
5 months ago
From Abruzzo to Vergemoli, small Italian towns and villages have recently been making their historic homes available for purchase for as low as €1. Given the picturesque nature of many of these places, such offers have proven practically irresistible to foreign buyers who’ve made...
escape the algorithm
Not your usual subscription confirmation
Or why you shouldn't ignore the back catalog
a year ago
Or why you shouldn't ignore the back catalog
Seth's Blog
Everyone wants to be connected
But we hesitate to be the connector. Everyone wants to be trusted, but we hesitate to trust. And...
11 months ago
But we hesitate to be the connector. Everyone wants to be trusted, but we hesitate to trust. And everyone wants to be respected, but we often fail to offer our respect. What an opportunity.
Seth's Blog
Projects and the red zone
Many projects are never finished. There are countless broken and not-quite-fixed cars in garages....
a year ago
Many projects are never finished. There are countless broken and not-quite-fixed cars in garages. There are crafts projects, massive redevelopments and everything in between. They sit unfinished because of bad planning, lack of resources, and most of all, a lack of resolve and...
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...
10 months 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...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Elon's Endgame
Plus! Livestreamers in jail, confused Catholics, and the Immigrant Song
a month ago
Plus! Livestreamers in jail, confused Catholics, and the Immigrant Song
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...
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...
Seth's Blog
Problems and the clover
Systemic and existential problems dance their way through three circles: If it’s not solvable, we’ll...
10 months ago
Systemic and existential problems dance their way through three circles: If it’s not solvable, we’ll pretend it’s not a problem. If the cultural cost of solving the problem is too high, we’ll pretend there’s no solution. People don’t spend a lot of time planning for death because...
Seth's Blog
Understanding free software
A cup of coffee costs far more than a glass of water. That’s true even though we can’t live without...
10 months ago
A cup of coffee costs far more than a glass of water. That’s true even though we can’t live without water. (Most) people can live without coffee. It’s true even though creating the infrastructure to purify and deliver clean water costs billions of dollars. The critical reason for...
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...
5 months 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
Customer traction is the hard part
A new business is complicated. It involves weaving together suppliers, partners, customers,...
a year ago
A new business is complicated. It involves weaving together suppliers, partners, customers, processes, technology, leases, employees, logos, capital and more. Along the way, it’s easy to get distracted, but focusing on the hard parts is a useful way to move forward. You could...
Handprinted - Blog
Inking Methods for Etching
Once you've made an etching plate, you may be ready to print an edition - or you might want to proof...
a month ago
Once you've made an etching plate, you may be ready to print an edition - or you might want to proof it to decide on further edits. Taking a print is the only way you’ll be able to see how your plate is progressing.
This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques to...
Seth's Blog
PW 2: Productivity in community
We need you. But only if you need us. Purple.space is six months old, and there are about a thousand...
11 months ago
We need you. But only if you need us. Purple.space is six months old, and there are about a thousand of us now. It was an experiment, now it’s a useful tool. The initiative hat is often ill-fitting. We rush to take it off and get back to doing chores. And that’s why a community...
Seth's Blog
The Big-O conundrum
In computer science, Big-O notation is a way of talking about what happens to a solution method when...
a year ago
In computer science, Big-O notation is a way of talking about what happens to a solution method when the inputs start to increase. For example, sorting numbers is an easy problem when there are only five or six, but when you have to sort 5,000, a totally different algorithm is...
Seth's Blog
Patterns and chaos
Finding a pattern that explains events that seem like chaos is a breakthrough. It offers us...
5 months ago
Finding a pattern that explains events that seem like chaos is a breakthrough. It offers us understanding and a lever we can use to make an impact. Sometimes, though, the breakthrough lies in understanding that there is no pattern, simply unpredictable noise. We need effort to...
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...
a month 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,...
Open Culture
Watch Patti Smith Read from Virginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Surviving Recording of Woolf’s Voice
In the video above, poet, artist, National Book Award winner, and “godmother of punk” Patti Smith...
6 months ago
In the video above, poet, artist, National Book Award winner, and “godmother of punk” Patti Smith reads a selection from Virginia Woolf’s 1931 experimental novel The Waves, accompanied on piano and guitar by her daughter Jesse and son Jackson. The “reading” marked the opening of...
Seth's Blog
Abundance and ideas
A colleague got an angry note. It concluded with, “you should know better.” The transgression? The...
a year ago
A colleague got an angry note. It concluded with, “you should know better.” The transgression? The sender was offended that my friend had written a post about a concept she’s been developing for nearly a decade. Of course, no idea is unique, and the posted idea sort of rhymed...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rach Lloyd
Hello, my name is Rach and I'm a printmaker from Shropshire. I go by the name Rach Lloyd Press, and...
2 months ago
Hello, my name is Rach and I'm a printmaker from Shropshire. I go by the name Rach Lloyd Press, and pride myself on making all of my print-runs and editions in very small numbers, so people can own a unique piece of artwork at an affordable price.
I am a multidisciplinary artist,...
Seth's Blog
“No photos”
That’s what it said at the florist shop. I’m guessing because ‘taking’ a photo sometimes feels like...
a year ago
That’s what it said at the florist shop. I’m guessing because ‘taking’ a photo sometimes feels like a taking. The creativity, skill and effort that goes into making a distinctive arrangement might feel uncompensated when someone simply takes the work and posts it. This misses the...
Open Culture
Mary Tyler Moore Accidentally Nails a Perfect Pool Shot on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1962)
Let’s rewind the videotape and revisit a classic moment in The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the 1962...
2 weeks ago
Let’s rewind the videotape and revisit a classic moment in The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the 1962 episode called “Hustling the Hustler,” Mary Tyler Moore (as Laura Petrie) plays pool and sinks three balls in a single shot. The original plan was to splice in footage of a professional...
Open Culture
Destino: The Salvador Dalí — Disney Collaboration 57 Years in the Making
In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a...
a month ago
In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a project that began 57 years earlier. The story of Destino goes way back to 1946 when two very different cultural icons, Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, decided to work together on a...
Seth's Blog
The hubris of creativity
Where’s your permit? Who said you could try to solve this problem? I don’t get it… That’s too...
6 months ago
Where’s your permit? Who said you could try to solve this problem? I don’t get it… That’s too original. It’s not original enough. You missed a comma. That’s not funny. That’s been done before. That’s never been done before. It’s not your best work. None of us are authorized to...
The Last...
Who Bullies The Bullies?
but they're welcome to buy an iphone
Pacific Standard. Get it? It's like The Atlantic,...
over a year ago
but they're welcome to buy an iphone
Pacific Standard. Get it? It's like The Atlantic, but it's Pacific. Totally different. So unlike The Atlantic, it will "attack the conventional wisdom from a west coast perspective." That's a quote. "But didn't the editors come from...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding technology
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric...
11 months ago
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric typewriter. There are two reasons to avoid learning a proven new technology: You know what it can do and how it will change your life and you don’t want it. You don’t know what it can...
Seth's Blog
2 + 2
Arguments about taste are more common than ever before. The long tail makes it easy to find what you...
7 months ago
Arguments about taste are more common than ever before. The long tail makes it easy to find what you like, and to talk about what you don’t. There’s no accounting for taste, and that’s a good thing. Because taste is useful. Flopping the toilet paper under or over the roll,...
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...
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,...
Seth's Blog
Our homunculus is showing
The little person at the control panel, the one who sees what the retina produces, the one who...
a year ago
The little person at the control panel, the one who sees what the retina produces, the one who decides, the one who speaks up… (This is the dualist solution to the free will problem–yes, I have a physical body, they say, but I also have a little human inside of me that gets to...
Seth's Blog
The question book
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that...
9 months 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...
Seth's Blog
The first nine minutes
Mixing up a batch of homemade vegan marshmallow Fluff® is an exercise in patience. For the first...
a year ago
Mixing up a batch of homemade vegan marshmallow Fluff® is an exercise in patience. For the first nine minutes of the ten minutes it takes in the mixer, not much happens. And then, it transforms into something fluffy and delightful. Without the recipe, it’s unlikely that most...
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
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...
Seth's Blog
The stories we tell ourselves
If it happened to us, our memory of it is a story, our record of it with us at the center. Even if...
2 days ago
If it happened to us, our memory of it is a story, our record of it with us at the center. Even if it’s on video, even if other people were there, our narrative and the context and the play by play belong to us. The useful question might be: “Is my story helpful?” And […]
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Unplugged: Two Great Recordings of Hendrix Playing Acoustic Guitar
As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed...
5 months ago
As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed I’d attain even a fraction of his skill. But what attracted me to him was his near-total lack of formality—he didn’t read music, wasn’t trained in any classical sense, played an...
Seth's Blog
Quietly change it
When we think about altering a policy, a setting or even the outfit we usually wear, it’s easy to...
a year ago
When we think about altering a policy, a setting or even the outfit we usually wear, it’s easy to imagine that everyone is going to notice. In fact, almost no one will. That’s because no one cares about the noise in our head (or the actions we take) nearly as much as we do. You...
The Last...
The Maintenance Of Certification Exam As Fetish
no need to wait for the receipt
(I had reworked an old post for a psychiatry trade journal, which I...
over a year ago
no need to wait for the receipt
(I had reworked an old post for a psychiatry trade journal, which I would happily have linked you to, except that page 2 is behind a login wall. So here is the version I submitted before the editors edited it, slightly longer with more typos. I am...
Seth's Blog
Inconvenient!
That’s great news. The thing you need, the road ahead, the element that will transform your...
a year ago
That’s great news. The thing you need, the road ahead, the element that will transform your project–it appears to be inconvenient. That’s terrific, because it means that most other people can’t be bothered. It’s valuable because the very inconvenience of it makes it scarce. The...
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....
9 months 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...
Handprinted - Blog
Preparing your paper and press for etching
When you’ve created an aluminium or zinc plate etching, you’ll want to have a go at pulling your...
7 months ago
When you’ve created an aluminium or zinc plate etching, you’ll want to have a go at pulling your first print. To do this, you’ll need to learn how to prepare your paper and how to set the correct pressure on your press.
This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques...
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...
3 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 seduction of grad school
For a certain cohort of high-performing students at famous colleges, graduate school feels...
a year ago
For a certain cohort of high-performing students at famous colleges, graduate school feels irresistible. If you’re good at school, the challenge and offer of law school, med school or a famous business school means you get to do more of what you’re good at. You’re offered a...
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....
6 months 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
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...
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...
Open Culture
“The Virtues of Coffee” Explained in 1690 Ad: The Cure for Lethargy, Scurvy, Dropsy, Gout & More
According to many historians, the English Enlightenment may never have happened were it not for...
7 months ago
According to many historians, the English Enlightenment may never have happened were it not for coffeehouses, the public sphere where poets, critics, philosophers, legal minds, and other intellectual gadflies regularly met to chatter about the pressing concerns of the day. And...
Stat Significant
The Business of the Olympics: Rising Revenues, Diminishing Cultural Reach. A Statistical Analysis
How does the Olympics remain relevant (and make money) in a world full of digital distractions?
5 months ago
How does the Olympics remain relevant (and make money) in a world full of digital distractions?
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...
3 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...
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Sunday 15th December
a week ago
Seth's Blog
Toward stickiness
Getting the word out is easy to measure and exciting as well. Focusing on this misses the point. You...
a year ago
Getting the word out is easy to measure and exciting as well. Focusing on this misses the point. You might be able to get a song played on the radio, but will the song motivate listeners to show up at the concert? The math is simple: You can’t build a freelance career or a...
Open Culture
When Leonard Cohen Guest Starred on Miami Vice (1986)
Leonard Cohen was Canada’s answer to Bob Dylan. While best known perhaps as a singer-songwriter who...
2 months ago
Leonard Cohen was Canada’s answer to Bob Dylan. While best known perhaps as a singer-songwriter who penned the tune “Hallelujah” — which was covered by Jeff Buckley, John Cale and just about everyone else under the sun — he was also at varying points in his colorful life a poet,...
Seth's Blog
The 77% threshold
When the gas car was first introduced, it couldn’t compete with horses. After all, we’d had...
a year ago
When the gas car was first introduced, it couldn’t compete with horses. After all, we’d had thousands of years to optimize our systems around horseback, and this new technology was still nascent. Roads were rare, gas stations were scarce and the cars themselves were unreliable....
Open Culture
Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television...
3 months ago
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective? Sadly, no, but he had the makings of a great one, at least as cut together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. Some 35 years after...
Open Culture
Harvard Removes the Human Skin Binding from a Book in Its Collection Since 1934
In June of 2014, Harvard University’s Houghton Library put up a blog post titled “Caveat Lecter,”...
6 months ago
In June of 2014, Harvard University’s Houghton Library put up a blog post titled “Caveat Lecter,” announcing “good news for fans of anthropodermic bibliopegy, bibliomaniacs, and cannibals alike.” The occasion was the scientific determination that a book in the Houghton’s...
Seth's Blog
Is it a skill?
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care...
a year ago
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care of it. Coding is a skill. But it’s not clear that the person who knows how to code should be doing your design. Teaching is a skill. But simply because someone is good at […]
Open Culture
Is Reality Real?: 8 Scientists Explain Whether We Can Ever Know What Objectively Exists
Ask aloud whether reality is real, and you’re liable to be regarded as never truly having left the...
6 months ago
Ask aloud whether reality is real, and you’re liable to be regarded as never truly having left the freshman dorm. But that question has received, and continues to receive, consideration from actual scientists. The Big Think video above assembles seven of them to explain how they...
Seth's Blog
The clamp and the mallet
While building a project, I found that a key part was stuck. I tapped it with a mallet, then harder,...
a year ago
While building a project, I found that a key part was stuck. I tapped it with a mallet, then harder, and eventually whacked at it. No luck. Then I got smart and put three clamps around the part, gently turning each one, increasing the pressure, until it simply popped out....
Seth's Blog
Reimagining cities in a few simple questions
What would happen if public transportation were free? What if it were paid for by congestion...
a year ago
What would happen if public transportation were free? What if it were paid for by congestion pricing, digitally implemented? What if public toilets were safe, beautiful, well-appointed and consistently maintained? What if there were a tax on empty storefronts, payable after three...
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...
7 months 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...
Anarchy Unfolds
Harris/Waltz, tenant unions, Bangladesh, UBI
Red Round-up #1
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Play fair & work hard
Two of the building blocks of a resilient society. And the opposite of the lazy shortcut. The...
7 months ago
Two of the building blocks of a resilient society. And the opposite of the lazy shortcut. The meanings of both clauses change over time… Play fair: Work hard: Social media and politics have done a great job of celebrating people who seek selfish shortcuts, simply because it’s...
Open Culture
Johnny Cash & The Clash’s Joe Strummer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” (2002)
In 1958, Merle Haggard saw Johnny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing honest country songs...
2 months ago
In 1958, Merle Haggard saw Johnny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing honest country songs for country outlaws. In 1982, future Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello saw Joe Strummer play with The Clash in Chicago and went on to play angry righteous rock for...
escape the algorithm
I did retail theft at an Apple Store
I hope Jane Appleseed is okay
6 months ago
I hope Jane Appleseed is okay
Marian's Blog
What I learned from building autonomous model race cars for a year
I was part of a university project group that develops autonomous model race cars.
We are a group of...
over a year ago
I was part of a university project group that develops autonomous model race cars.
We are a group of twelve students working on the project in part time for year.
We were provided with a car that meets the requirements for the F1/10th competition.
Even though competing in F1/10th...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Playing dice: Randomness, determinism and the quantum world
What’s the difference between unexpected, random and chaotic? Does the
universe contain any truly...
over a year ago
What’s the difference between unexpected, random and chaotic? Does the
universe contain any truly random events, or is it operating like
clockwork, ticking from one event to the next?
Seth's Blog
What do we owe the future?
You are someone’s ancestor. Most immediately, you are the ancestor of the you of tomorrow. That’s...
a month ago
You are someone’s ancestor. Most immediately, you are the ancestor of the you of tomorrow. That’s why we don’t spend every penny in our bank account, why we put leftovers in the fridge, why we earn a degree–it’s a gift to the you of tomorrow. Each of us have a way of thinking...
Open Culture
Carl Jung Psychoanalyzes Hitler: “He’s the Unconscious of 78 Million Germans.” “Without the German...
Were you to google “Carl Jung and Nazism”—and I’m not suggesting that you do—you would find yourself...
a month ago
Were you to google “Carl Jung and Nazism”—and I’m not suggesting that you do—you would find yourself hip-deep in the charges that Jung was an anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer. Many sites condemn or exonerate him; many others celebrate him as a blood and soil Aryan hero. It can...
Seth's Blog
The first draft of your first non-fiction book
Writing a book is good for you. It clarifies your thinking and it’s generous as well. You might not...
4 days ago
Writing a book is good for you. It clarifies your thinking and it’s generous as well. You might not publish it professionally, but sharing it with people you want to teach and lead is a useful practice. The first draft can be challenging. We’re facing a blank page, trying to find...
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...
7 months 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
Rethinking the Sports-Industrial Complex
School sports can have some valuable outputs: And yet, many schools act as if all they have is a...
a year ago
School sports can have some valuable outputs: And yet, many schools act as if all they have is a trophy shortage. They bench kids who might not (yet) have the physical attributes necessary to win, or they build huge stadiums, go on long road trips, berate students that make an...
Seth's Blog
Late-stage technocrats
Water flows downhill, and tech solves the easy problems first. After the launch of Amazon and...
a year ago
Water flows downhill, and tech solves the easy problems first. After the launch of Amazon and Google, when smartphones reached critical mass, an easy problem to solve involved bridging information with stuff. So you could use your phone to summon a car, a case of beer, a dog...
Seth's Blog
Working with problems
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a...
a year ago
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a problem or a situation? Problems, by definition, have solutions. You might not like the cost of the solution, the trade-offs it leads to, or the time and effort it takes, but...
Seth's Blog
Bullies
Bullies use intimidation and power to force others to act against their best interests. Bullies...
5 months ago
Bullies use intimidation and power to force others to act against their best interests. Bullies blame the victim, assuring everyone that they wouldn’t have to use force if people would simply go along with what they want. Effective bullies organize a small mob to enforce their...
Seth's Blog
Invention or discovery?
We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit...
7 months ago
We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit for naming it and describing it. And Columbus definitely didn’t discover North America. There had been people living here for tens of thousands of years before he arrived. After...
Seth's Blog
Decoding ‘story’
Marketers like to talk about the story we tell. And non-marketers imagine that we’re referring to...
11 months ago
Marketers like to talk about the story we tell. And non-marketers imagine that we’re referring to Goldilocks and other ‘once upon a time’ moments. Because stories are the basic building block of culture, it’s difficult to see the nuance in this simple word. But one or two...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Caroline Whitehead
I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with...
a year ago
I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with alternative forms of lithography (mokulito (wood litho), kitchen litho, prontoplate litho, waterless litho, gum transfer). I also make prints on clay. As well as making my own prints, I also...
Handprinted - Blog
Making an Aluminium Plate Etching
We recently covered in our blog how to make marks on etching plates using tools and resists. Now...
3 months ago
We recently covered in our blog how to make marks on etching plates using tools and resists. Now we’re going to put together what we’ve learnt to create a print!
This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques to get you started with aluminium or zinc plate etching....
Stat Significant
Why Do People Like True Crime? A Statistical Analysis
Exploring the appeal of true crime podcasts and docuseries.
4 months ago
Exploring the appeal of true crime podcasts and docuseries.
Seth's Blog
Cats and dogs
Does your brand have a personality? When people expect you to act a certain way, you have a brand....
7 months ago
Does your brand have a personality? When people expect you to act a certain way, you have a brand. And that expectation is worth understanding. Can you help us understand whether you’re a cat or a dog in the way you react, respond, delight or sneak around? And if you’re a dog,...
Seth's Blog
Generational shifts in punditry
In 1970, when Walter Cronkite was narrating current events for the United States, he was 54 years...
8 months ago
In 1970, when Walter Cronkite was narrating current events for the United States, he was 54 years old. Hitchcock made his last film when he was 77. When there’s a limited number of slots for narrators to fill, they can stick around for a long time. One of the overlooked cultural...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Keith A. Pettit
I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex....
a month ago
I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex. I left school and started work with a signwriter. I thought I was learning a trade for life - alas I was unaware of the digital revolution that was sweeping all before it.
I've...
Seth's Blog
Assume lack of context
The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see. It’s...
6 months ago
The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see. It’s tempting to begin where we are. But it’s more useful to begin where they are.
Seth's Blog
The empathy device
It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human...
a year ago
It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human beings spend a lot of time considering our own appearance and our own feelings and most of all, our own needs. The market produces a shift. When it’s a fair and open exchange, the...
The Last...
The Dove Sketches Beauty Scam
the only way to win is not to play
"Dude, are you doing the Dove ad now? That was so April...
over a year ago
the only way to win is not to play
"Dude, are you doing the Dove ad now? That was so April 15th...?" Yes, I realize I missed the meme train, but it's better to be right than part of the debate, especially when there is no debate, this is all a short con inside a 50+ year long...
Open Culture
How 2001: A Space Odyssey Became “the Hardest Film Kubrick Ever Made”
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been praised in all manner of terms since it came out...
3 months ago
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been praised in all manner of terms since it came out more than half a century ago. An early advertising campaign, tapping into the enthusiasm of the contemporary counterculture, called it “the ultimate trip”; in the equivalently trendy...
Seth's Blog
The expanding frontier of ignorance
Some fields of endeavor continue to narrow down the unknown, in search of the recipe, the efficient...
a year ago
Some fields of endeavor continue to narrow down the unknown, in search of the recipe, the efficient method of industry. And others live on Feynman’s expanding frontier of ignorance, where each closed door leads to several newly opened ones. That’s a fundamental choice in our...
Open Culture
Watch the Performance of a Mozart Composition That Had Been Lost for Centuries
For most musicians, a long-lost song written in their teenage years would be of interest only to...
2 months ago
For most musicians, a long-lost song written in their teenage years would be of interest only to serious fans — and even then, probably more for biographical reasons than as a standalone piece of work. But that’s hardly the case for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was composing...
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
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...
Open Culture
Scientists Discover that Ancient Egyptians Drank Hallucinogenic Cocktails from 2,300 Year-Old Mug
Bes mug by USF Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) on Sketchfab If ZZ Top have a favorite...
2 weeks ago
Bes mug by USF Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) on Sketchfab If ZZ Top have a favorite ancient Egyptian deity, that deity is surely Bes, whom the New York Times’ Alexander Nazaryan quotes curator and scholar Branko van Oppen de Ruiter as calling “a beer drinker and a...
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
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...
Seth's Blog
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return...
a year ago
Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return on investment. And among all Hollywood movies in the top 1,500 at the box office, Paranormal Activity is far and away the highest return, outperforming almost any investment the...
Seth's Blog
Which team?
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a...
a year ago
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a whole bunch of time gets saved, and fear is reduced as well. The labeling goes beyond which team, cadre, tribe or village someone is part of. It extends to the ways we demonstrate...
Seth's Blog
Easy/lazy tech journalism
Choose either one: When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance...
10 months ago
Choose either one: When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance or caution how it will instantly change the world. Go into the details of this first instantiation of it and assume it will never change, it’s done, here we go. When a new...
Seth's Blog
Did you see it in the theater?
We’re in the middle of a huge and unusual shift. The magazine publisher acted like the best sales...
6 months ago
We’re in the middle of a huge and unusual shift. The magazine publisher acted like the best sales were newsstand sales, even though the profit came from subscriptions and most people simply visited the website. Book publishers and editors seem to focus on selling copies on paper,...
Seth's Blog
Consequences
Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi....
11 months ago
Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi. One hundred years later, it’s more relevant and more urgent than ever. Wealth without work.Pleasure without conscience.Knowledge without character.Commerce without morality.Science...
Open Culture
Stephen King Names His Five Favorite Works by Stephen King
Stephen King has no doubt forgotten writing more books than most of us will ever publish. But even...
6 months ago
Stephen King has no doubt forgotten writing more books than most of us will ever publish. But even now, in his prolific “late career,” if you ask him to name his own most favored works, he can do it without hesitation. Stephen Colbert tried that out a few years ago on The Late...
Seth's Blog
But what if we’re wrong?
Of course, we think we’re right. That’s why we’re sharing our opinion. But when there’s a...
a year ago
Of course, we think we’re right. That’s why we’re sharing our opinion. But when there’s a disagreement, or we’re predicting the future, it’s likely that someone will turn out to be incorrect. Sometimes, being wrong is a minor embarrassment, with very little real cost. And...
Seth's Blog
(Without the bad parts)
That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and...
a year ago
That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and mob manipulation.)” “I’d like to run a marathon (without getting tired).” “I’m in favor of strict copyright law (except for the endless © trolls and with just the right amount of...
Open Culture
The Original Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Manuscript, Handwritten & Illustrated By Lewis Carroll...
On a summer day in 1862, a tall, stammering Oxford University mathematician named Charles Lutwidge...
5 months ago
On a summer day in 1862, a tall, stammering Oxford University mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took a boat trip up the River Thames, accompanied by a colleague and the three young daughters of university chancellor Henry Liddell. To stave off tedium during the...
Open Culture
James Joyce Picked Drunken Fights, Then Hid Behind Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway seemed to feud with most of the prominent male artists of his time, from Wallace...
6 months ago
Ernest Hemingway seemed to feud with most of the prominent male artists of his time, from Wallace Stevens and T.S. Eliot to F. Scott Fitzgerald. He had a “very strange relationship” with Orson Welles—the two came to blows at least once—and he reportedly slapped Max Eastman in the...
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...
3 weeks 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...
Open Culture
The Final Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured in Rare Footage from 1910
114 years ago today (November 20, 1910), Leo Tolstoy—the author who gave us two major Russian...
a month ago
114 years ago today (November 20, 1910), Leo Tolstoy—the author who gave us two major Russian classics Anna Karenina and War & Peace—died at Astapovo, a small, remote train station in the heart of Russia. Pneumonia was the official cause. His death came just weeks after Tolstoy,...
Seth's Blog
Two sides of “a big deal”
Many businesses thrive by helping people deal with projects that feel like they have high stakes. A...
a year ago
Many businesses thrive by helping people deal with projects that feel like they have high stakes. A kid’s first haircut, the offsite storage of data backup, an upcoming family reunion, a medical procedure or the inscription on a sentimental piece of jewelry or watch. But, if the...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Understanding the work - Thoughts on one day with three art events.
A few thoughts on a few art events that happened around Boston Feb. 22nd.
over a year ago
A few thoughts on a few art events that happened around Boston Feb. 22nd.
Open Culture
The Longest Drivable Distance in the World: Discover the Ultimate Road Trip
No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road...
3 months ago
No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road trip, considering a variety of the infinitely many possible routes. The most obvious would be driving between Los Angeles and New York, a distance of 2,800 miles that would take a bit...
Open Culture
20 Mesmerizing Videos of Japanese Artisans Creating Traditional Handicrafts
In Japanese “tewaza” means “hand technique” or “handcraft” and, in this YouTube playlist of 20 short...
3 months ago
In Japanese “tewaza” means “hand technique” or “handcraft” and, in this YouTube playlist of 20 short films, various artisanal techniques are explored and demonstrated by Japanese masters in the field. For those who are both obsessed with Japanese art and watching things get made,...
Seth's Blog
Actionable feedback
“Do you want to know what I think?” The best answer might be, “no.” Because this person is not very...
a year ago
“Do you want to know what I think?” The best answer might be, “no.” Because this person is not very good at offering useful feedback. Because you didn’t create this product or service or performance to please this person. They’re not the customer. Because you’re not going to...
Handprinted - Blog
Testing your Copper Sulphate Solution
When you’ve mixed a fresh batch of copper sulphate mordant, or if you have an old batch that you...
a year ago
When you’ve mixed a fresh batch of copper sulphate mordant, or if you have an old batch that you haven’t used for a few months, it’s good practice to test the strength of your solution.
By creating some test strips for both line and tones, you’ll create yourself a reference point...
Open Culture
How an Ancient Roman Shipwreck Could Explain the Universe
In a 1956 New Statesman piece, the British scientist-novelist C. P. Snow first sounded the alarm...
4 months ago
In a 1956 New Statesman piece, the British scientist-novelist C. P. Snow first sounded the alarm about the increasingly chasm-like divide between what he called the “scientific” and “traditional” cultures. We would today refer to them as the sciences and the humanities, while...
Open Culture
Hunter S. Thompson’s Harrowing, Chemical-Filled Daily Routine
E. Jean Carroll’s 1993 memoir of Hunter S. Thompson opens like this: I have heard the biographers of...
6 months ago
E. Jean Carroll’s 1993 memoir of Hunter S. Thompson opens like this: I have heard the biographers of Harry S. Truman, Catherine the Great, etc., etc., say they would give anything if their subjects were alive so they could ask them some questions. I, on the other hand, would give...
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...
9 months 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...
Seth's Blog
The braid out of balance
There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the...
a year ago
There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the appearance of status) Safety (survival and peace of mind) Meaning (hope and the path forward) The changes in our media structure, public health and economy have pushed some people to...
Open Culture
eanuts Creator Charles Schulz Shares with a 10-Year-Old Kid the True Meaning of Good Citizenship
In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Linton asked Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, “What do you...
2 months ago
In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Linton asked Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, “What do you think makes a good citizen?” Schulz sent the youngster a short but pithy reply: Dear Joel: I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever...
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...
8 months 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...
Seth's Blog
PW 4: Productivity and tools
Adam Smith and Karl Marx both wrote about the pin-making machine. Not too long ago, pins (for hats,...
11 months ago
Adam Smith and Karl Marx both wrote about the pin-making machine. Not too long ago, pins (for hats, to hold shirts in place, etc.) were incredibly expensive. They were a luxury item, and a handmade pin might cost more than buying lunch. The pin-making machine changed this. It...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Kathryn Green
I am a textile artist and tutor, specialising in dye and print processes to create organic, layered...
10 months ago
I am a textile artist and tutor, specialising in dye and print processes to create organic, layered and textural art textile pieces for exhibition, in addition to capsule collections of wearable art and interior accessories.
Having obtained a First-class degree in textiles, I...
Seth's Blog
Doing presentations virtually
A few years ago, I posted about the hardware setup you can use to look better and feel better when...
a year ago
A few years ago, I posted about the hardware setup you can use to look better and feel better when working in a distributed organization. Since then, I’ve tried many hacks for how to integrate Keynote presentations into this environment. I used some fancy software that was...
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
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
On whining
It’s not just for little kids, and it might not be a bug in our culture. Whining might be a feature,...
a month ago
It’s not just for little kids, and it might not be a bug in our culture. Whining might be a feature, something that all humans have a desire to do, regardless of our age or position. Let’s define whining as a complaint about a situation that’s not easily addressed, often a...
Seth's Blog
Holding on for dear life
That’s a cliche from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip...
9 months ago
That’s a cliche from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip can save the hero. In our modern world, we often end up holding on to ideas, to grievances or to our view of the world. Ironically, the harder we hold on to the things we’re hiding...
Seth's Blog
The fame/trust inversion
A generation ago, the Generals ruled. General Motors, General Foods, General Mills, General...
4 days ago
A generation ago, the Generals ruled. General Motors, General Foods, General Mills, General Dynamics… they were big, and they had a lot to lose. As a result, people trusted them to show up and keep their promises–it just wasn’t worth letting a few people down at the risk of their...
Seth's Blog
Solving invented problems
Some problems, when well solved, lead to making things better. Some problems give us a chance to get...
a year ago
Some problems, when well solved, lead to making things better. Some problems give us a chance to get back on course. And some problems are opportunities to be generous. But many of the problems that we seek to solve are actually invented, and maybe we could benefit by simply...
Seth's Blog
We probably can’t buy our way out of it
That’s what we usually try to do. When technology, comfort, convenience, efficiency and price line...
a year ago
That’s what we usually try to do. When technology, comfort, convenience, efficiency and price line up, the market takes care of itself. On the other hand, seatbelts would never have happened if they weren’t required. But pizza grew to dominate our diets with no centralized...
Seth's Blog
It could have easily gone the other way
It could have been way better. It could have been far worse. It’s easy to imagine that outcomes are...
a year ago
It could have been way better. It could have been far worse. It’s easy to imagine that outcomes are inevitable, but they’re not. Was it your fault, or was it luck (good or bad)? If our story of the past is filled with second guesses, shame or blame, it can carry forward. Or...
Prolost
Magic Bullet Suite 14 and Trapcode Suite 16
It’s a big day at Maxon/Red Giant! We’re releasing huge updates to Magic Bullet and Trapcode...
over a year ago
It’s a big day at Maxon/Red Giant! We’re releasing huge updates to Magic Bullet and Trapcode Suites.
Trapcode Particular continues to embody our ethos of power and ease-of-use, with a completely modernized simulation engine that allows particles to behave more naturally, with...
Open Culture
Free: 356 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy...
a month ago
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it–including an early version of his masterpiece Fahrenheit 451–as did Robert A....
Seth's Blog
Bob Dobalina
I considered myself someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a narrow range of mid-1960s TV and...
a year ago
I considered myself someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a narrow range of mid-1960s TV and certain strains of pop music as well. I was stunned, then, to hear the song Zilch for the first time recently. Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina. It’s unforgettable. And it’s from the...
Seth's Blog
Broken (and not worth fixing)
In one corner of the parking garage near my office, car satellite radio doesn’t work. This is...
a month ago
In one corner of the parking garage near my office, car satellite radio doesn’t work. This is clearly broken, but it’s also not a problem. Certainly not a problem worth anyone’s attention when there are so many other problems to be addressed. Problems, by definition, can be...
Seth's Blog
What do we do with our chance?
Everyone needs more chances, more benefit of the doubt, more opportunity. But what turns a chance...
6 days ago
Everyone needs more chances, more benefit of the doubt, more opportunity. But what turns a chance into a big break is what we do with it once the chance arrives.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Caroline Fearn
Hello, I’m Caroline. I live in London. Two years ago I picked up a carving tool and a block of lino....
a year ago
Hello, I’m Caroline. I live in London. Two years ago I picked up a carving tool and a block of lino. I quite liked it.
Describe your printmaking process
My process is an intuitive one, so I typically just start, and I will see what develops through doing. Experimenting with...
Open Culture
Read 20 Short Stories From Nobel Prize-Winning Writer Alice Munro (RIP) Free Online
Note: Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, we published a post...
7 months ago
Note: Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, we published a post featuring 20 short stories written by Munro. Today, with the sad news that Alice Munro has passed away, at the age of 92, we’re bringing the original post (from October 10, 2013) back to...
Seth's Blog
Checking the date
After 2022, it’s hard to tell for sure. And going forward, public life is going to be even more...
a year ago
After 2022, it’s hard to tell for sure. And going forward, public life is going to be even more rumor-driven than it is now. Any video, any voiceover, any photograph–we can’t be sure. If YouTube or the Wayback Machine shows us that it happened after 2022, bring some doubt. AI and...
Seth's Blog
How many sparks?
That’s the tempting question. How much hustle, hoopla and initiative do we need to get this idea...
a week ago
That’s the tempting question. How much hustle, hoopla and initiative do we need to get this idea ignited in the marketplace… But the much better question is: How much kindling do we have? Kindling doesn’t happen all at once. It’s the result of investments over time. We can earn...
Seth's Blog
Who pays?
Supply and demand are always in a dance, with one outpacing the other from time to time. In the last...
11 months ago
Supply and demand are always in a dance, with one outpacing the other from time to time. In the last three years, the green tech revolution has accelerated dramatically. Countless companies are being created to change how food is grown, people are transported and energy is...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Decreasing the F.Q. - A talk on Facial Recognition and the Opt Out Cap
Links to a talk I gave on the Opt-Out cap and the state of surveillance via
facial recognition.
over a year ago
Links to a talk I gave on the Opt-Out cap and the state of surveillance via
facial recognition.
Seth's Blog
The paradox of self skepticism
If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we...
5 months ago
If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we have something to offer. That we are, in some way, right. But the enterprise of rational thought is based on theories, tests and improvements. We can never be certain, all we have is...
Seth's Blog
Confusion about performance
The thing that your product or service delivers could be called performance, and it’s made of two...
a year ago
The thing that your product or service delivers could be called performance, and it’s made of two components: –The story and expectations and cultural impact of what you do (the story). –The deliverables that are objectively measured (the spec). It helps to have both. Many...
Blog - Mac Pierce
XL Flex Arms, posable mounting for cameras and lighting.
Making a few custom mounts for cameras and camera accessories.
over a year ago
Making a few custom mounts for cameras and camera accessories.
Seth's Blog
A really good reason
Do you see the defaults? The question, “What are things like around here?” has two possible answers....
2 months ago
Do you see the defaults? The question, “What are things like around here?” has two possible answers. When a new idea or opportunity arrives, your organization says yes, unless there’s a really good reason to say no. Or your organization says no, unless someone makes a powerful...
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...
2 weeks 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
Avoid unnecessary amplifiers
This is extremely unique vs This is unique I’m very upset vs I’m upset and I love you a ton vs I...
a year ago
This is extremely unique vs This is unique I’m very upset vs I’m upset and I love you a ton vs I love you Sometimes, more words aren’t better.
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...
7 months 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
Typist/Hypist
Not that long ago, you could make a living as a typist. Technology keeps changing the world. Now,...
a year ago
Not that long ago, you could make a living as a typist. Technology keeps changing the world. Now, you’re more likely to find a job doing something that seems a lot less mechanized. But that too will be programmatic soon enough. PS here’s an important new book about perfectionism.
Open Culture
An Introduction to The Babylonian Map of the World–the Oldest Known Map of the World
Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it...
4 months ago
Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it is. But then again, few of us are anything like the British Museum Middle East department curator Irving Finkel, whose vast knowledge (and ability to share it compellingly) have...
Seth's Blog
Plasticity
It’s pretty easy for some kids to switch gears. They can go from sad to ebullient in seconds, and...
5 months ago
It’s pretty easy for some kids to switch gears. They can go from sad to ebullient in seconds, and switch contexts without much fuss. Others have more trouble. As we get older, our natural ability to thrive in a new situation can decrease. But, like a muscle or a skill, it...
Seth's Blog
Commonplace technology
Not all tech is new tech. The ballpoint pen was a revelation, and a bit controversial. Now, it’s...
a year ago
Not all tech is new tech. The ballpoint pen was a revelation, and a bit controversial. Now, it’s disposable and obvious. Different industries go through tech spurts. My desk is covered with items I use every day (a mouse, headphones, a solid-state drive, transparent tape, and...
Open Culture
Ken Burns’ New Documentary on Leonardo da Vinci Streaming Online (in the US) for a Limited Time
A quick heads up: The filmmaker Ken Burns has just released his new documentary on Leonardo da...
3 weeks ago
A quick heads up: The filmmaker Ken Burns has just released his new documentary on Leonardo da Vinci. Running nearly four hours, the film offers what The New York Times calls a “thorough and engrossing biography” of the 15th-century polymath. Currently airing on PBS, the film can...
Seth's Blog
Throwing shade or throwing light?
One takes a little more effort than the other. While throwing shade might be more fun, it eventually...
a year ago
One takes a little more effort than the other. While throwing shade might be more fun, it eventually runs out of energy. It’s designed to end conversations, not start them, to intimidate, not encourage. Turning on lights helps everyone.
Seth's Blog
Non-professional writers
Nobody asks you to design a bridge, write a sonnet or do open heart surgery. We leave these...
4 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...
Open Culture
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Is Now a Retro Video Game
The Rocky Horror Picture Show–it started first as a musical stage production in 1973, then became a...
2 months ago
The Rocky Horror Picture Show–it started first as a musical stage production in 1973, then became a cult classic film in 1975. Now, a half-century later, it gets reborn as a retro video game. Scheduled to be released by Halloween, the game features “8‑bit chiptune renditions of...
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...
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...
Open Culture
Hear the Evolution of the London Accent Over 660 Years: From 1346 to 2006
Read a novel by Charles Dickens, and you’ll still today feel transported back to the London of the...
4 months ago
Read a novel by Charles Dickens, and you’ll still today feel transported back to the London of the eighteen-twenties. Some of that experience owes to his lavishly reportorial descriptive skills, but even more to his way with dialogue. Dickens faithfully captured the vocabulary of...
Open Culture
Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost Board Game Is Finally for Sale
Kurt Vonnegut’s life was not without its ironies. Fighting in World War II, that descendant of a...
2 months ago
Kurt Vonnegut’s life was not without its ironies. Fighting in World War II, that descendant of a long line of German immigrants in the United States found himself imprisoned in Dresden just when it was devastated by Allied firebombing. To understand the relevance of this...
Seth's Blog
Your preference is not universal
You’re entitled to it, and we will do our best to help you find what you want. But it’s unlikely...
a year ago
You’re entitled to it, and we will do our best to help you find what you want. But it’s unlikely that what you want is what everyone wants. It’s hard to believe that there is only one appropriate standard for value, observance, speed or performance. The easiest way for us to help...
Stat Significant
Quantifying 'The Kevin Bacon Game': A Statistical Exploration of Hollywood’s Most Connected Actors
Examining 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' and its statistical underpinnings.
2 months ago
Examining 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' and its statistical underpinnings.
Seth's Blog
Reality as reassurance
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an...
a year ago
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an invisible burden, until it’s not. Ignoring the changes in our climate makes our days easier, but not our years. We can avoid the bank balance, not work on the annual budget and ignore...
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
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...
Open Culture
David Bowie’s Fashionable Mug Shot From His 1976 Marijuana Bust
David Bowie always managed to look cool, even when he was being booked for a felony. In early 1976,...
2 months ago
David Bowie always managed to look cool, even when he was being booked for a felony. In early 1976, Bowie was on his “Isolar” tour, performing as the Thin White Duke, a persona he would describe as “a very Aryan fascist type — a would-be romantic with no emotions at all.” Bowie...
Seth's Blog
Getting the word out
“How do you get the word out?” I’ve heard this from presidential candidates, from small business...
8 months ago
“How do you get the word out?” I’ve heard this from presidential candidates, from small business leaders and nonprofits as well. It’s easy to believe that the goal of marketing is to shout, hype, hustle and otherwise promote. It’s tempting to focus on your story as the top of the...
Open Culture
Discover Hannah Arendt’s Syllabus for Her 1974 Course on “Thinking”
If you’ve read one work of Hannah Arendt’s, it’s probably Eichmann in Jerusalem, her account of the...
2 weeks ago
If you’ve read one work of Hannah Arendt’s, it’s probably Eichmann in Jerusalem, her account of the trial of the eponymous Nazi official — and the source of her much-quoted phrase “the banality of evil.” That book came out in 1963, at which time Arendt still had a dozen...
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
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...
Seth's Blog
Finding the glitch
Many moths are attracted to light. That works fine when it’s a bright moon and an open field, but...
a year ago
Many moths are attracted to light. That works fine when it’s a bright moon and an open field, but not so well for the moths if the light was set up as a bug trap. Processionary caterpillars follow the one in front until their destination, even if they’re arranged in a circle,...
Seth's Blog
Phrenology
For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge...
6 months ago
For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge someone’s character. Carefully charting the bumps on someone’s head, along with the slope of their forehead and other telltale signs was seen as a thoughtful and proven way to...
Seth's Blog
Amplifying the fringes
Culture is: “People like us do things like this.” We might even have a chance to choose our group....
2 months ago
Culture is: “People like us do things like this.” We might even have a chance to choose our group. Hipsters do this, hippies do that. People in this town wear this outfit, students at this school hang out here on Saturdays… We might be born into a culture. Less agency, but just...
Stat Significant
Is Music Stardom in Decline? A Statistical Analysis
Is music stardom dying?
a month ago
Seth's Blog
What are the stakes?
How big a swing do we need to make it feel like it matters? At the casino, some folks play with $5...
9 months ago
How big a swing do we need to make it feel like it matters? At the casino, some folks play with $5 chips, some with $100 chips. Do the high rollers have more fun? Are they more engaged? It’s natural to imagine that bigger swings matter more. That a bigger audience means our...
Seth's Blog
Is there a market(place)?
Not all needs have a market (yet). A market is a category. A market is a place with competition. In...
3 weeks ago
Not all needs have a market (yet). A market is a category. A market is a place with competition. In a market, people have habits and budgets and social pressure to engage. There are buyers and sellers. In many cultures, there’s a market for all the items that go with a...
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...
4 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...
Seth's Blog
Effect vs affect
In a culture fascinated by attitude, gloss and performance, it’s easy to believe that adopting an...
a year ago
In a culture fascinated by attitude, gloss and performance, it’s easy to believe that adopting an affect is precisely what you need to make a difference. In fact, the persistent, generous work that happens when no one is looking is what actually makes a difference. Looking the...
Seth's Blog
The missing post
I had a great idea for a post, my best blogging of the year, in fact. I worked it all out when I was...
a year ago
I had a great idea for a post, my best blogging of the year, in fact. I worked it all out when I was driving, but when I arrived, it was gone. Vanished. So I went searching for it, trying out dozens of possible ideas. I never found it. But I did find five other […]
Anarchy Unfolds
One Year on Substack
Writing the upside-down, plus Pride Myths & Recs
5 months ago
Writing the upside-down, plus Pride Myths & Recs
Prolost
Red Giant & Maxon, Sitting in a Tree
Red Giant, where I’ve been Chief Creative Officer for a couple of years now, but making filmmaking...
over a year ago
Red Giant, where I’ve been Chief Creative Officer for a couple of years now, but making filmmaking tools for you for 17 years, is merging with Maxon, makers of Cinema 4D.
From the Red Giant blog:
Hi folks — by now you’ve probably heard the news that Maxon and Red Giant are...
On the Arts
What does Wabi-Sabi really mean?
Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
a year ago
Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
Open Culture
The Fake Buildings of New York: What Happens Inside Their Mysterious Walls
You can’t go on a walk with a serious enthusiast of New York history without hearing the stories...
2 months ago
You can’t go on a walk with a serious enthusiast of New York history without hearing the stories behind at least a few notable, beautiful, or downright strange buildings. Yet most longtime New Yorkers, famed for tuning out their surroundings to better strive for their goals of...
Seth's Blog
The reluctant spammer
“I don’t want to send this pitch to a list of every single podcaster in the world, but we have to...
a year ago
“I don’t want to send this pitch to a list of every single podcaster in the world, but we have to get the word out.” “I don’t want to send an email to every one of our previous donors every three days until they unsubscribe, but our work is so important, it has to be […]
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...
4 weeks 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.
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
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...
The Great Discontent...
The Legacy of Corita Kent
Corita Kent was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. She worked in the...
over a year ago
Corita Kent was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. She worked in the Immaculate Heart College Art Department, above, c. 1955. (Photo/Fred Swartz, courtesy of the Corita Art Center) “Sometimes you can take the whole of the world in, and sometimes you...
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...
10 months 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
Jevons paradox is not surprising
When a resource can be used more efficiently, we end up using more of the thing, not less. So, when...
8 months ago
When a resource can be used more efficiently, we end up using more of the thing, not less. So, when cars get better gas mileage, people drive more, and consumption can actually go up. When AI learns to write computer code, the demand for programmers goes up, because more...
Open Culture
How Car Chase Scenes Have Evolved Over 100 Years: The Technology Behind Bullitt, The French...
For many a classic action-movie enthusiast, no car chase will ever top the one in Bullitt. The...
a month ago
For many a classic action-movie enthusiast, no car chase will ever top the one in Bullitt. The narrator of the Insider video above describes it as “the scene that set the standard for all modern car chases,” one made “iconic partly because of the characters, but also because of...
Seth's Blog
Brakes and acceleration
Every driver benefits from good brakes. It makes driving safer. Only a few skilled drivers benefit...
a year ago
Every driver benefits from good brakes. It makes driving safer. Only a few skilled drivers benefit from better acceleration. Our habit is to compare top speed, horsepower, short-term returns and status. In every field, not just cars. But it probably pays to make sure that there...
Seth's Blog
Different kinds of people
It’s a tempting shortcut. Different kinds of people prefer pop tarts to pizza, or prefer expensive...
a year ago
It’s a tempting shortcut. Different kinds of people prefer pop tarts to pizza, or prefer expensive wine to beer, or prefer amusement parks to bowling. Except everyone is the same and everyone is different. What’s actually useful is to realize that in this moment, under these...
Prolost
M1 Max MacBook Pro Long-term Report
The 2021 MacBook Pro alongside the cable-management fail of my iMac Pro
Back in October when I got a...
over a year ago
The 2021 MacBook Pro alongside the cable-management fail of my iMac Pro
Back in October when I got a chance to use a pre-release 14″ MacBook Pro with M1 Max processor, I openly questioned whether this laptop could replace my venerable iMac Pro. Four months later, I’m back with an...
Open Culture
Watch Fantasmagorie, the World’s First Animated Cartoon (1908)
Trying to describe the plot of Fantasmagorie, the world’s first animated cartoon, is a folly akin to...
3 months ago
Trying to describe the plot of Fantasmagorie, the world’s first animated cartoon, is a folly akin to putting last night’s dream into words: I was dressed as a clown and then I was in a theater, except I was also hiding under this lady’s hat, and the guy behind us was plucking out...
Seth's Blog
The absence of proof
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and...
a year ago
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and build community. Our personal taste and our preferences belong to us as well, helping us believe in ourselves. For millennia, belief thrived in most parts of our lives. We didn’t...
Seth's Blog
Preference and utility
Taste varies. That’s why we don’t call it utility. Taste is individual preference, not absolute...
9 months ago
Taste varies. That’s why we don’t call it utility. Taste is individual preference, not absolute truth. In team settings, then, it’s much more helpful to say, “I prefer this over that,” instead of, “this is wrong.” Some things are wrong. There are standards that we can all accept...
Open Culture
Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Cover for On the Road (1952)
This falls under the category, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” In 1950,...
4 months ago
This falls under the category, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” In 1950, when Jack Kerouac released his first novel, The Town and the City, he was less than impressed by the book cover produced by his publisher, Harcourt Brace. (Click here to see why.) So,...
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...
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...
Seth's Blog
The problem with the movie version
There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit. Happily ever...
a month ago
There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit. Happily ever after, a climax at just the right moment, perfect heroes, tension, resolution and a swelling soundtrack. Every element is amplified and things happen right on schedule. Consume...
Seth's Blog
Unintended consequences
…are still consequences. We’re all participants in the systems around us, and complicit in their...
2 months ago
…are still consequences. We’re all participants in the systems around us, and complicit in their consequences even if we didn’t intend them. First, we need to see the systems, and then we have the opportunity to work to change them.
Marian's Blog
Raspberry Pi Projekte
Was macht man eigentlich mit einem Raspberry Pi? Ich habe mir vor einem halben Jahr einen gekauft....
over a year ago
Was macht man eigentlich mit einem Raspberry Pi? Ich habe mir vor einem halben Jahr einen gekauft. Seitdem steht er hier auf meinem Schreibtisch und führt eine Reihe von Aufgaben aus. Hier eine Übersicht:
http-Server für einige Webseiten auf dem Pi und die Daten auf meiner...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Jenny Stringer
I am Jenny Stringer, and I have been block printing fabrics (and sometimes papers) for the last...
4 months ago
I am Jenny Stringer, and I have been block printing fabrics (and sometimes papers) for the last thirty years; as and when possible.
How did you start your creative career?
I was an archaeological illustrator after a brief museum career, and worked with a team of...
Seth's Blog
Discovery and invention
Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was there all along. He simply named and explained it. The...
2 months ago
Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was there all along. He simply named and explained it. The same is true for planets, continents and obscure species. They’re discovered, not invented. Michelangelo talked about removing all the parts of the marble that weren’t the statue on...
Prolost
iPhone ProRes Log in Peru and Taiwan
This is a blog post about a video, which is about new color-conversion LUTs for Apple Log footage...
10 months ago
This is a blog post about a video, which is about new color-conversion LUTs for Apple Log footage from the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max (updated from my first set). The video is also a mini-travelogue of my recent trips to Taiwan and Peru. This post dives a bit deeper into both the...
Open Culture
Buckminster Fuller’s Map of the World: The Innovation That Revolutionized Map Design (1943)
In 2017, we brought you news of a world map purportedly more accurate than any to date, designed by...
4 months ago
In 2017, we brought you news of a world map purportedly more accurate than any to date, designed by Japanese architect and artist Hajime Narukawa. The map, called the AuthaGraph, updates a centuries-old method of turning the globe into a flat surface by first converting it to a...
Seth's Blog
Time, consquences and opportunities
Dreams have consequences Hisham Matar Time passes, decisions are made, we face the consequences or...
11 months ago
Dreams have consequences Hisham Matar Time passes, decisions are made, we face the consequences or enjoy the benefits. A few books for this moment, about navigating our days, and the possibility of light. It bends toward justice. The Return, by Hisham Matar. A beautiful and...
Seth's Blog
For customers vs to customers
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for...
a year ago
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your customers, to squeeze out extra income? This doesn’t mean that the only path is to keep...
Seth's Blog
Product and process
What do we get in exchange for our work? There’s pay, of course, and the satisfaction of a job well...
a year ago
What do we get in exchange for our work? There’s pay, of course, and the satisfaction of a job well done. There’s stress and human interaction, learning and physical exertion. We get the drama of what might happen next and the delight of actually pulling it off. And mostly we get...
Infinite Scroll
Flat Earthers and Belief in Belief
What flat earthers can teach us about politics
2 days ago
What flat earthers can teach us about politics
Seth's Blog
Focusing attention is a skill
Where we choose to direct our gaze determines not only what we learn or believe, but how we choose...
a year ago
Where we choose to direct our gaze determines not only what we learn or believe, but how we choose to see the world. Typing is a skill. Juggling is a skill. So is project management. It’s easy to overlook the fact that we can get better at what we think about, create and consume....
Open Culture
How Well Does Medieval Armor Actually Stand Up to Medieval Arrows?: A Historical Re-Creation Lets...
The popular image of the medieval suit of armor looks formidable enough that any of us could be...
6 months ago
The popular image of the medieval suit of armor looks formidable enough that any of us could be forgiven for assuming that, with its steel-plated protection, we’d emerge from even the most harrowing battle without a scratch. Yet if we really found ourselves transported to, say,...
Open Culture
What Is Religion Actually For?: Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury Weigh In
In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to...
7 months ago
In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to side with either the Beatles or their rivals, the Rolling Stones. On some level, it must have made sense, given the growing aesthetic divide between the music the two world-famous...
Seth's Blog
“This time will be different”
Why is that? The new diet. The fundraising after a natural disaster. The relationship. The hype...
8 months ago
Why is that? The new diet. The fundraising after a natural disaster. The relationship. The hype cycle of a new technology or the media frenzy around a hot new fad or candidate… It always feels like it will be different this time. It rarely is. If it’s going to be different, the...
Open Culture
Watch 70+ Classic Literary Films Free Online: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Gulliver’s Travels, Jane...
The term gaslight has gained so much traction in popular discourse so recently that you’d swear it...
a month ago
The term gaslight has gained so much traction in popular discourse so recently that you’d swear it was coined around 2010. In fact, that particular usage goes at least as far back as 1938, when British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton wrote a stage thriller about a...
Open Culture
Behold the Kräuterbuch, a Lavishly Illustrated Guide to Plants and Herbs from 1462
When Konrad von Megenberg published his Buch der Natur in the mid-fourteenth century, he won the...
4 months ago
When Konrad von Megenberg published his Buch der Natur in the mid-fourteenth century, he won the distinction of having assembled the very first natural history in German. More than half a millennium later, the book still fascinates — not least for its depictions of cats,...
Seth's Blog
The A.R.E. skills matter more than ever
Perhaps this is what your team needs from you: Agreeableness is not the same as agreeing. In fact,...
a year ago
Perhaps this is what your team needs from you: Agreeableness is not the same as agreeing. In fact, they have little in common. Finding someone who’s only job is to agree with everything that is said is easy. On the other hand, agreeableness is the skill of having a contrary...
Stat Significant
Who's the Worst Actor in Movie History? A Statistical Analysis
Who's the worst actor of all time, and why?
3 months ago
Who's the worst actor of all time, and why?
Seth's Blog
The seduction of compliance
We can tell from the words. “I’m just doing my job.” “Will this be on the test?” “Don’t blame me.”...
a year ago
We can tell from the words. “I’m just doing my job.” “Will this be on the test?” “Don’t blame me.” “It’s what everyone else is wearing.” Keep your head down, do what you’re told, don’t stick your neck out, and most of all, pay attention to what everyone else is doing. All of this...
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets of 2024 - Dishonorable Mentions
All of the most horrifying posts on Twitter that didn't make the final bracket
5 days ago
All of the most horrifying posts on Twitter that didn't make the final bracket
Seth's Blog
The lens or the problem?
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around...
a year ago
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around money, the activist might see an opportunity for social justice. The technologist figures that a computer and more data might help, and the bureaucrat is looking for a system to put...
escape the algorithm
Befriending neighbors and beneighboring friends
The Casement Window Theory of community building
4 months ago
The Casement Window Theory of community building
Open Culture
The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors...
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from...
a month ago
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.” Featuring 825 colors, each associated with different types of mushrooms, the interactive atlas lets you appreciate the broad spectrum of colors latent in the...
Open Culture
The Brilliant Engineering That Made Venice: How a City Was Built on Water
Many of us have put off a visit to Venice for fear of the hordes of tourists who roam its streets...
4 months ago
Many of us have put off a visit to Venice for fear of the hordes of tourists who roam its streets and boat down its canals day in and day out. To judge by the most visible of its economic activity, the once-mighty city-state now exists almost solely as an Instagramming...
Handprinted - Blog
Creating Cyanotypes using the Speedball UV Lamp
Cyanotypes are made using a light sensitive solution to create designs on fabric and paper. Prints...
a year ago
Cyanotypes are made using a light sensitive solution to create designs on fabric and paper. Prints are typically created using direct sunlight. Unfortunately here in the UK, sunshine is often in short supply! But we have discovered a work around using the Speedball UV Lamp, a...
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...
10 months 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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Fiona Black
My name is Fiona Black and I am an artist, folk musician, writer, history geek and lover of stories....
6 months ago
My name is Fiona Black and I am an artist, folk musician, writer, history geek and lover of stories. Home for me is the Highland village of Evanton, just north of Inverness on the shore of the Cromarty Firth. I am happy to have returned to live and create in the Highlands, and I...
Open Culture
14 Self-Portraits by Pablo Picasso Show the Evolution of His Style: See Self-Portraits Moving from...
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic...
3 weeks ago
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic shifts of style as a kind of self-portraiture, an exercise in shifting consciousness and trying on of new aesthetic identities. The Spanish modernist made a career of sweeping...
On the Arts
The Sea Has Always Looked the Same
A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
a year ago
A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
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,”...
4 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
Spam 3.0
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out...
6 months ago
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out the good ones. The new normal: Someone finds a database of every residential property, then another of cell phones. An AI is trained to call every homeowner, every day, asking if...
Marian's Blog
Quadcopter Lightpainting
Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung...
over a year ago
Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung aufgenommen.
Bei diesen Fotos stimmte die Einstellung noch nicht, sodass sie zu dunkel sind:
...
Anarchy Unfolds
Queer Folk Don't Need Orientation
How decade-old discourse shows us a way out
2 months ago
How decade-old discourse shows us a way out
Seth's Blog
Volition and placebos
If a placebo heals your illness, does that mean it was all in your head in the first place? That you...
a year ago
If a placebo heals your illness, does that mean it was all in your head in the first place? That you weren’t really sick, or didn’t really want to get better? If expensive wine tastes better to you, but you can’t tell wine apart in a double-blind taste test, does that mean it...
Open Culture
The Doctor Who Theme Reimagined as a Jacques Brel-esque Jazz Tune
?si=tyjBCsSNLIAgh7SM Written by Ron Grainer, and then famously arranged and recorded by Delia...
2 months ago
?si=tyjBCsSNLIAgh7SM Written by Ron Grainer, and then famously arranged and recorded by Delia Derbyshire in 1963, the Doctor Who theme song has been adapted and covered many times, and even referenced by Pink Floyd. In the hands of comedian Bill Bailey, the song comes out a...
Seth's Blog
Two kinds of salad
A useful metaphor for freelancers and small businesses. Every good restaurant should have two...
a year ago
A useful metaphor for freelancers and small businesses. Every good restaurant should have two different salads on the menu. The boring salad is the regular kind. It’s there for people who know that they want a reliable, repeatable, unremarkable salad. It’s the safe part of a safe...
Seth's Blog
Books and more, winter 2024
They’re a gift that lasts forever, because your friend will remember what they learned and how they...
3 weeks ago
They’re a gift that lasts forever, because your friend will remember what they learned and how they felt… and they can keep it on their bookshelf or hard drive as a reminder in case they forget… Amazon chose This is Strategy for a Kindle deal today. It’s only $4. Also, the...
Seth's Blog
The lazy jugglers
The best jugglers don’t seem to be trying very hard. That’s because they understand what the work...
5 months ago
The best jugglers don’t seem to be trying very hard. That’s because they understand what the work involves, and they don’t confuse effort with results. Some approaches to keep in mind: Focus on the work at hand Don’t take on more than you can handle Establish a spec, and ignore...
Seth's Blog
And it can also do that
If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that...
10 months ago
If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that became Disney, McDonald’s and Holiday Inn, all of which were powered by cheap, plentiful cars. You could have become a major developer of suburbs, mortgage banking and even pop...
Prolost
Virtual NAB at C4DLive
TLDR;
Hi!
C4DLive is happening this week! Already!
Watch my talk at noon PDT on Thursday, April...
over a year ago
TLDR;
Hi!
C4DLive is happening this week! Already!
Watch my talk at noon PDT on Thursday, April 23! Ask questions!
Buy Cinema 4D, Get Red Giant Complete for 50% Off
Red Giant Complete is free for students and teachers
TGNTR;
If it weren’t for COVID-19, the newly-combined...
Open Culture
Hear Moby Dick Read in Its Entirety by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Stephen Fry...
Image of Moby Dick by David Austen. In 2013, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read,...
2 months ago
Image of Moby Dick by David Austen. In 2013, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read, promising a full audiobook of Herman Melville’s influential novel, with famous (and not so famous) voices taking on a chapter each. When we first wrote about it here, only six...
Seth's Blog
Fooling ourselves
It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker....
a year ago
It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker. Other folks might be easily duped by a spammer or a hustler, but not us. And yet, no one fools you more than you. When you look in the mirror, do you see what others see, […]
Seth's Blog
99 vs 0
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other...
a year ago
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other hand, if the scrub nurse only does a 99% job of disinfecting the tools in the operating room, you’re still going to die of an infection. Some projects respond very well to...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Host Jumping, thinking about viruses and how they’re changing.
Thinking about the concepts and reasons behind the making of my work ‘Host
Jump’.
over a year ago
Thinking about the concepts and reasons behind the making of my work ‘Host
Jump’.
Seth's Blog
The slog, the hobby and the quest
Here’s a simple XY grid to help you think about your next project, freelance career or startup: All...
a year ago
Here’s a simple XY grid to help you think about your next project, freelance career or startup: All too common are ‘fun’ businesses where someone finds a hobby they like and tries to turn it into a gig. While the work may be fun, the uphill grind of this sort of project is...
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....
11 months 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
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...
5 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...
The Last...
Ten Extra Seconds Would Have Saved True Detective's Finale
what could it mean?
You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a...
over a year ago
what could it mean?
You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a show been smarter than its writer. I submit as second evidence the season finale for The Bachelor that was on yesterday, for three hours, drawing ten million "people". Just...
Seth's Blog
Complaints
The best way to complain is to make things better. Complaining can be a form of intimacy. It’s a...
a week ago
The best way to complain is to make things better. Complaining can be a form of intimacy. It’s a useful way to explain our behavior. And best of all, it gives us a way to communicate as we work to create community action. The rest sort of complaint requires generosity and...
Open Culture
Carl Jung Offers an Introduction to His Psychological Thought in a 3‑Hour Interview (1957)
In the 1950s, it was fashionable to drop Freud’s name — often as not in pseudo-intellectual sex...
4 months ago
In the 1950s, it was fashionable to drop Freud’s name — often as not in pseudo-intellectual sex jokes. Freud’s preoccupations had as much to do with his fame as the actual practice of psychotherapy, and it was assumed — and still is to a great degree — that Freud had “won” the...
The Last...
Who Can Know How Much Randi Zuckerberg Is Worth?
cue hatred
Part 1 here
IV.
Off topic: Randi strongly believes Facebook has a legitimate place in...
over a year ago
cue hatred
Part 1 here
IV.
Off topic: Randi strongly believes Facebook has a legitimate place in the business world, and this makes me think Facebook is finished. I realize this is a speculative trade to make. The usual anxiety about Facebook's future is that teenagers aren't...
Seth's Blog
As slow as possible
A six-hundred-year-long organ recital is going on, and today marks a change in notes. If you miss...
10 months ago
A six-hundred-year-long organ recital is going on, and today marks a change in notes. If you miss it, the next one is in two years. We’re used to the rapid increase in speed in just about everything around us. Absolutely positively overnight is mostly too slow for many industries...
Seth's Blog
Invite: Behind-the-scenes webinar for the new book
In two weeks, I’ll be hosting a live webinar about my new book, answering questions and connecting...
a year ago
In two weeks, I’ll be hosting a live webinar about my new book, answering questions and connecting people to get serious in discussing the new way of work. The details are here. I hope you can make it. It’s possible that I’ve now written more bestselling business titles than any...
Seth's Blog
Belief is contagious
Placebos work and placebos spread. We’re wired to believe something, but the specifics of what we...
a year ago
Placebos work and placebos spread. We’re wired to believe something, but the specifics of what we believe often come from other people. When there were a limited number of channels, mainstream ideas were the focus of our conversations, because the mainstream was all that was...
Seth's Blog
Tricked (again)
If you knew then what you know now, would you have made the same decision? In the last fifty years,...
a year ago
If you knew then what you know now, would you have made the same decision? In the last fifty years, more than 25,000,000 Americans have died prematurely due to cigarette smoking. Worldwide, it’s significantly higher. That’s fifty times as many U.S. citizens as died in World War...
escape the algorithm
howdidyoufind.me
a website about how people found this website
2 months ago
a website about how people found this website
Seth's Blog
Default to surrender
AI chatbots highight a challenge that is worth understanding. It applies to customer service,...
9 months ago
AI chatbots highight a challenge that is worth understanding. It applies to customer service, bureaucracies and teachers as well… If you ask an AI a question and it’s not confident in the answer, it should say, “I’m not sure.” That could be followed up with, “do you want me to...
Seth's Blog
Explaining it to a kid
It can be difficult. Explaining atoms or molecules, or decision making, or what you do at your job…...
a year ago
It can be difficult. Explaining atoms or molecules, or decision making, or what you do at your job… The reason that it’s difficult is that in order to explain something, we need to really understand it first. Not simply be able to do the task or ace the test. But understand. And...
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...
3 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...
Seth's Blog
Your audiobook
Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project...
3 months ago
Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project is about to launch, when a meeting has been successful, when the sun is shining… take your phone and go for a walk. Hit record on an audio app and make a twenty-minute audiobook....
Seth's Blog
“Home is wherever my cello is”
Ben Zander is bringing the Boston Philharmonic and Beethoven to New York in a few weeks. I’m excited...
a year ago
Ben Zander is bringing the Boston Philharmonic and Beethoven to New York in a few weeks. I’m excited to seem them in person, but it’s also streaming live. I hope you’re able to come. While his impact on the musical canon is legendary, Ben’s ruckus extends far into how we lead,...
Seth's Blog
Thoughts on the manual
We have more ways to offer instructions than ever before, but it’s not obvious that we’re getting...
a year ago
We have more ways to offer instructions than ever before, but it’s not obvious that we’re getting better at it. Not just the operator’s manual, but every way we have to teach and offer instructions… Some (uncategorized) things to consider: The first manual I created, in 1983, was...
Seth's Blog
More is More
More hope. More health. More security. More innovation. More breakthroughs. More connection. More...
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...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Theater Kids, BlueSky momentum, and Kai Cenat's big month
3 weeks ago
Theater Kids, BlueSky momentum, and Kai Cenat's big month
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “I’m sorry about the politics” edition
1. The Reach saga rumbles on I’ve banged on about the parlous strategy of Reach plc before, but the...
a month ago
1. The Reach saga rumbles on I’ve banged on about the parlous strategy of Reach plc before, but the departures from its senior editorial ranks will continue to make a bad strategy worse. What makes this situation more difficult for the company is its board, which is free of any...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Robin Mackenzie
I am Robin Mackenzie, a Wood Engraver and Lino Cutter based in Dorset. I create limited edition...
a year ago
I am Robin Mackenzie, a Wood Engraver and Lino Cutter based in Dorset. I create limited edition relief prints using a combination of hand printing and an Albion printing press. My work explores the British coast and countryside. Beginning with walks and research trips I seek...
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...
11 months 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....
Seth's Blog
Further vs. faster
Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is...
4 weeks ago
Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is different, and so is the technique. Which one are you signing up for? What about the thing you sell? Are we trying to get there faster, or do we promise to go further?
Seth's Blog
Incrementally better
Massive leaps in utility and quality are extraordinary events. Going from ver 2.0 to 3.0 is a step...
6 months ago
Massive leaps in utility and quality are extraordinary events. Going from ver 2.0 to 3.0 is a step change. But that is almost never what improvement looks like. Instead, the persistent commitment to slightly better on a regular schedule inexorably makes a difference over time.
Seth's Blog
Valuable contributions
We actually don’t really know. Netflix just released their first-ever detailed analysis of how many...
a year ago
We actually don’t really know. Netflix just released their first-ever detailed analysis of how many hours of engagement the top 15,000+ most watched shows on the network received over a six month period. Here’s the file. Who won? That question is actually the lesson here. The...
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...
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...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Bits and bobs, some of the small projects I've been working on.
Rounding up a few smaller projects I’ve been working on here and there.
over a year ago
Rounding up a few smaller projects I’ve been working on here and there.
Open Culture
Bruce Springsteen Endorses Kamala Harris & Makes the Case Against Donald Trump
The Boss speaks the truth in a dinner. Find it on Instagram.
2 months ago
The Boss speaks the truth in a dinner. Find it on Instagram.
Seth's Blog
Rituals
The things we do each day, every day, often arrive without intent. By the time we realize that...
a year ago
The things we do each day, every day, often arrive without intent. By the time we realize that they’re now habits, these random behaviors have already become part of how we define ourselves and the time we spend. Bringing intent to our rituals gives us the chance to rewire our...
Seth's Blog
Better at being better
In most competitive markets, when an organization offers a new benefit, others will quickly move to...
a week ago
In most competitive markets, when an organization offers a new benefit, others will quickly move to match it. This means that it’s hard to justify the hard work of creating something better, because it’s just going to become a new standard. It doesn’t pay for a credit card...
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
A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and nifty CSS tools.
Seth's Blog
Launching GOODBIDS
Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty...
8 months ago
Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty team has been working on this for a year. I want to share the highlights along with some of the critical design choices we made along the way Each year, charities in the US raise...
Seth's Blog
Five lessons from week one of This is Strategy
Once you decide to write a book about strategy, it raises the bar for having a strategy for the...
a month ago
Once you decide to write a book about strategy, it raises the bar for having a strategy for the launch. People generally focus far too much on the launch of a project. Rocketships need a perfect launch, because just about everything after the launch is simply ballistic. But most...
Seth's Blog
“And” fatigue
Digital abundance creates a new problem. Most of our lives are filled with “or” decisions. You can...
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...
Open Culture
The Night When Luciano Pavarotti & James Brown Sang “It’s a Man’s World” Together (2002)
Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown are remembered as larger-than-life performers with an almost...
2 months ago
Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown are remembered as larger-than-life performers with an almost mythical-seeming presence and distinctiveness. But it wasn’t so very long ago that both of them were active — and even active onstage together. In the video above, the King of the High...
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...
11 months 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...
Stat Significant
How Long Does Music Stardom Last? A Statistical Analysis
When do music stars achieve fame, and how long does fame typically last?
4 months ago
When do music stars achieve fame, and how long does fame typically last?
Ian Betteridge
20241202 Ten Blue Links, the late late late show edition!
Technically this is eight blue links, because I spent the weekend in Bristol and we’re getting...
2 weeks ago
Technically this is eight blue links, because I spent the weekend in Bristol and we’re getting towards Christmas. Next week: five blue links and a bag of wine gums. 1. RIP ChromeOS (sort of) Odd as it sounds today, when I talk a lot about user privacy and avoiding cloud services,...
Stat Significant
Do People Actually Hate 'Forrest Gump'? A Statistical Analysis
Examining the legacy of 'Forrest Gump.'
a month ago
Examining the legacy of 'Forrest Gump.'
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,...
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...
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