Open Culture
The Evolution of Cinema: Watch Nearly 140 Years of Film History Unfold in 80 Minutes
The video above from YouTuber Alex Day includes clips from about 500 movies, and you’ve almost...
a month ago
The video above from YouTuber Alex Day includes clips from about 500 movies, and you’ve almost certainly seen more than a few of them. Battleship Potemkin, Dumbo, Rear Window, Dr. No, The Godfather, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Top Gun, Braveheart, Gladiator, Inception: we’re not...
Open Culture
When a Drunken Charles Bukowski Walked Off the Prestigious French Talk Show Apostrophes (1978)
Charles Bukowski didn’t do TV — or at least he didn’t do American TV. Like a Hollywood movie star...
6 months ago
Charles Bukowski didn’t do TV — or at least he didn’t do American TV. Like a Hollywood movie star shooting a Japanese commercial, he did make an exception for a gig abroad. It happened in 1978, when the poet received an invitation from the popular French literary talk...
On the Arts
How to Start Learning About Aesthetics
Three ways to improve your knowledge about aesthetics, art theory, and the philosophy of art.
a year ago
Three ways to improve your knowledge about aesthetics, art theory, and the philosophy of art.
Open Culture
Browse 64 Years of RadioShack Catalogs Free Online … and Revisit the History of American Consumer...
“I bet RadioShack was great once,” writes former employee Jon Bois in a much-circulated 2014 piece...
3 months ago
“I bet RadioShack was great once,” writes former employee Jon Bois in a much-circulated 2014 piece for SB Nation. “I can’t look through their decades-old catalogs and come away with any other impression. They sold giant walnut-wood speakers I’d kill to have today. They sold...
Handprinted - Blog
Making a Stamp with Japanese Transparent Stamp Carving Block
This new Japanese Transparent Stamp Carving Block enables you to carve your design and bake it in...
over a year ago
This new Japanese Transparent Stamp Carving Block enables you to carve your design and bake it in the oven until it appears clear. Clear stamps are so handy as they let you see where you’re printing! This is great for repeat patterns, accurate registration, multi-colour designs...
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...
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...
Open Culture
The Rolling Stones Introduce Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf on US TV, One of the “Greatest Cultural Moments...
Howlin’ Wolf may well have been the greatest blues singer of the 20th century. Certainly many people...
4 months ago
Howlin’ Wolf may well have been the greatest blues singer of the 20th century. Certainly many people have said so, but there are other measurements than mere opinion, though it’s one I happen to share. The man born Chester Arthur Burnett also had a profound historical effect on...
Seth's Blog
Semantic algebra
Doing math problems in your head is a skill. No one is born knowing the answer to, “You have 35...
7 months ago
Doing math problems in your head is a skill. No one is born knowing the answer to, “You have 35 coins in nickels and quarters. They add up to $4.15. How many quarters do you have?” but we can learn. And some people find it easier than others, but yes, we can learn. The same […]
Seth's Blog
On to the next thing
Vitally important, rarely taught, easily messed up. In order to go onto the next thing, which we all...
a year ago
Vitally important, rarely taught, easily messed up. In order to go onto the next thing, which we all do (unless you’re still wearing pajamas with feet and taking ballet lessons), we need to walk away from the last thing. Wrap it up, learn from it, leave it in good hands. And we...
Seth's Blog
Learning from the Amazon gift card snafu
Millions of people got this email last night: It’s legitimate, but it’s a mistake. A mistake...
a year ago
Millions of people got this email last night: It’s legitimate, but it’s a mistake. A mistake because: We can learn a lot about what not to do from this. First, if you make a mistake by email, fix it. Fix it by email AND fix it on your site. Let everyone who got the wrong […]
Open Culture
Hannah Arendt Explains the Rise of Totalitarian Regimes–and the Strategies Needed to Combat Them
“Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity,” wrote the political philosopher Hannah...
7 months ago
“Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity,” wrote the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, describing the scene leading up to the prominent Holocaust-organizer’s execution. After drinking half a bottle of wine, turning down the offer of religious assistance, and even...
Prolost
Skate Warrior 1992, 1999, 2020
You May Have Seen This Image Before.
In The DV Rebel’s Guide, I used this still frame as an example...
over a year ago
You May Have Seen This Image Before.
In The DV Rebel’s Guide, I used this still frame as an example of guerrilla filmmaking taken too far. Which may also be an apt description of the entire film from which it was taken.
In the summer of 1992, while I was home in Minnesota between...
Seth's Blog
Kazoo lessons
Knowledge and technique used to be closely guarded secrets. Admission to the guild was reserved for...
5 months ago
Knowledge and technique used to be closely guarded secrets. Admission to the guild was reserved for a few, and crafts like typesetting, plumbing and medicine were off limits to most folks. One of the reasons for the explosion in productivity and innovation in the last century is...
Seth's Blog
In and out
Lots of organizations (and individuals) have plans and processes for getting the word out. In fact,...
a year ago
Lots of organizations (and individuals) have plans and processes for getting the word out. In fact, we spend trillions of dollars doing so. Do you have a plan for getting the word in? Is it simply random chance that some ideas get to you and your team, that cultural and technical...
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
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...
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
How Choose Your Own Adventure Books Became Beloved Among Generations of Readers
We’ve all read plenty of literature written in the first person, and plenty of literature written in...
5 months ago
We’ve all read plenty of literature written in the first person, and plenty of literature written in the third person. The second person, with its main subject of neither “I” nor “he” or “she” but “you,” is considerably harder to come by, and the writers who take it up tend to be...
Seth's Blog
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
Peer support
Treasure it when you find it. Offer it when you can. One of the greatest joys of being an author is...
a year ago
Treasure it when you find it. Offer it when you can. One of the greatest joys of being an author is the other authors. The game theory would indicate that authors are competitors–there are a scarce number of publishers, of bookshelf slots, of readers. But, being the only author...
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...
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...
Open Culture
Explore the World’s First 3D Replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Made with AI
In the trailer below for the world’s first 3D replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Yves Ubelmann speaks...
a month ago
In the trailer below for the world’s first 3D replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Yves Ubelmann speaks of using “AI for Good,” which isn’t just an ideal, but also the name of a lab at Microsoft. Microsoft and Ubelman’s digital-preservation company Iconem were two of the participants...
Open Culture
The Amazing Recording History of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”
The most streamed Beatles song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It...
2 months ago
The most streamed Beatles song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It isn’t even “Yesterday.” If you were about to guess “Something,” you’re on the right track, at least as far as the source album and songwriter. In fact, it’s George Harrison’s other...
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...
Marian's Blog
Aquarium Innensicht mit Gopro
Wegen meinem Quadrocopter habe ich eine Gopro, die ja auch wasserfest ist. Da war es naheliegend,...
over a year ago
Wegen meinem Quadrocopter habe ich eine Gopro, die ja auch wasserfest ist. Da war es naheliegend, die mal im Aquarium auszuprobieren. Bei dem Aquarium stand einiges an Arbeit an, da das Glasbecken undicht war, und alles komplett ausgeräumt werden muss, um das Becken...
Seth's Blog
Bye now
The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a...
3 months ago
The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a commitment, we break the trust we’ve earned. For a while, you might not notice the broken trust, because we’re encouraged to keep pushing, treating every individual as a walking...
Open Culture
Google Creates a Career Certificate That Prepares Students for Cybersecurity Jobs in 6 Months
In 2023, Google launched several online certificate programs designed to help students land an...
a month ago
In 2023, Google launched several online certificate programs designed to help students land an entry-level job, without necessarily having a college degree. This includes a certificate program focused on Cybersecurity, a field that stands poised to grow as companies become more...
Seth's Blog
“But what if I’m wrong?
If we’re going to come together and invest the time in conversation, in research or in analysis, we...
8 months ago
If we’re going to come together and invest the time in conversation, in research or in analysis, we should begin by understanding what would be required for you or I to change our minds. If you’re not willing to consider that you’re wrong, then, in the words of a Dan Dennett,...
Seth's Blog
It goes without saying
A phrase that’s been showing up recently is, “no pressure.” It usually comes in a pitch letter of...
a year ago
A phrase that’s been showing up recently is, “no pressure.” It usually comes in a pitch letter of some sort, written by someone who isn’t in a position to exert any pressure. So why say it? It’s a bit like, “while supplies last.” And “to be honest…” which is perhaps the most...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
What is Generative Art?
Randomness, rules and natural systems. Some non-restrictive definitions and
an exploration of the...
over a year ago
Randomness, rules and natural systems. Some non-restrictive definitions and
an exploration of the form.
The Great Discontent...
Lucy McRae
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed to addressing systematic challenges in their communities through creativity and emerging ideologies. Buy Now Can you talk a little bit about where you grew up and how that place...
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...
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
Open Culture
Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell saw the history of civilization as...
a month ago
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell saw the history of civilization as being shaped by an unfortunate oscillation between two opposing evils: tyranny and anarchy, each of which contains the seed of the other. The best course for steering clear of...
Open Culture
When Samuel Beckett Drove Young André the Giant to School
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort...
4 months ago
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort of conversation that might transpire in a pickup truck belonging to Samuel Beckett, say, were the Irish playwright to chauffeur the child André Rene Roussimoff—aka pro wrestler...
Open Culture
Watch Tom Waits For No One, the Pioneering Animated Music Video from 1979
Tom Waits For No One, above, is surely the only film in history to have won an Oscar for Scientific...
5 months ago
Tom Waits For No One, above, is surely the only film in history to have won an Oscar for Scientific and Technical Achievement for its creator and a first place award at the Hollywood Erotic Film and Video Festival. Director John Lamb and his partner, Bruce Lyon also deserve...
Open Culture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use
Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic...
a month ago
Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic works. Even better, the museum has placed the vast majority of these images into the public domain, meaning they can be downloaded directly from the museum’s website for...
Handprinted - Blog
Monotype with Natural Materials
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut...
a month ago
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut block or plate. For this project we're using this simple technique to produce beautifully delicate prints using natural materials and found objects. You can also combine this with...
Prolost
Mac Studio and Studio Display
Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and Apple Studio Display, running Cinema 4D and Redshift.
In October of...
over a year ago
Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and Apple Studio Display, running Cinema 4D and Redshift.
In October of 2021 I got to test a 14″ MacBook Pro with M1 Max processor. It performed so well, that I, along with many Mac power-users, questioned whether it could replace my desktop Mac.
Last...
Handprinted - Blog
Drypoint with Aluminium Plates
Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plate with a...
a year ago
Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plate with a pointed tool. These lines create a burr that holds ink, meaning that the print reveals the drawing.
Drypoint is an easy technique to get to grips with and is a great method if you...
Seth's Blog
The Cliffs Notes paradox
For a decade, Cliffs Notes were the bestselling section of the bookstore. They were a simple way for...
a year ago
For a decade, Cliffs Notes were the bestselling section of the bookstore. They were a simple way for any high school student to get insight, examples and answers about the books they were assigned and read (or didn’t read). When Cliffs published a list of their thirty bestselling...
Seth's Blog
Adjacent but not relevant
There’s a sale on band saw blades, including a really good deal on one that fits the saw you owned...
4 months ago
There’s a sale on band saw blades, including a really good deal on one that fits the saw you owned years ago. The folks who live next door to the house you used to live in are having a raucous party. A guy with a name just like yours wins the lottery… These adjacencies can […]
Seth's Blog
Market pressure
Every competitor faces pressure, and it varies by industry, consumer/investor segment and geography....
8 months ago
Every competitor faces pressure, and it varies by industry, consumer/investor segment and geography. This applies to services, products, ideas, organizations, jobs… whenever there’s a choice and a market. The pressure might push you to be: But it’s also possible to choose a...
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,...
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...
Seth's Blog
The status quo is very good…
at sticking around. In fact, that’s what it’s best at. New research shows that computers and robots...
a year ago
at sticking around. In fact, that’s what it’s best at. New research shows that computers and robots are now better at solving CAPTCHA puzzles than humans. This was inevitable. The interesting question is, “how long before they go away?” First, someone has to decide that it’s...
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...
Seth's Blog
The art of estimation
If you’re a freelancer or a contractor of any kind, it’s typical to be asked for an estimate or a...
a year ago
If you’re a freelancer or a contractor of any kind, it’s typical to be asked for an estimate or a quote. And if you’ve been doing business for a while, it’s likely that you’ve heard about price more than just about any other factor in losing an opportunity. So the pressure is on...
Marian's Blog
BTduino
BTduino is an Android app that lets you add a custom bluetooth interface to your Arduino project...
over a year ago
BTduino is an Android app that lets you add a custom bluetooth interface to your Arduino project without any programming on the Android side.
Everything is better with bluetooth! Here are some examples:
Download
Android APK file Android 4.0 or higher is...
Seth's Blog
The positive auction
In 2023, I developed a new idea that transforms an old way of doing commerce. In traditional...
9 months ago
In 2023, I developed a new idea that transforms an old way of doing commerce. In traditional auctions, there are rounds of bidding and the high bidder pays to get the prize. The last bid is the amount paid, and no one else is charged anything. This is an interesting ‘game’ in...
Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll on Offline with Jon Favreau
A chat about online media ecosystems
a month ago
A chat about online media ecosystems
Seth's Blog
“Won’t get fooled again”
Alas, we probably will. Recurring scams, hustles and deceptions work because we’re eager to be...
a month ago
Alas, we probably will. Recurring scams, hustles and deceptions work because we’re eager to be fooled by them. Vaporware, false deadlines, fake budgets, unrealistic promises and straight out con jobs persist because at some level, we demand them. Divisive arguments, mob...
Open Culture
Hear Edgar Allan Poe Stories Read by Iggy Pop, Jeff Buckley, Christopher Walken, Marianne Faithful &...
In 1849, a little over 175 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was found dead in a Baltimore gutter under...
6 months ago
In 1849, a little over 175 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was found dead in a Baltimore gutter under mysterious circumstances very likely related to violent election fraud. It was an ignominious end to a life marked by hardship, alcoholism, and loss. After struggling for years as the...
Seth's Blog
Updating our stuck interactions
There are few sitcoms, thrillers or plays where the plot can tolerate the addition of a cell phone....
8 months ago
There are few sitcoms, thrillers or plays where the plot can tolerate the addition of a cell phone. Once the characters have the ability to connect and clear up misunderstandings at will, a lot of tension disappears. If Juliet had had a smartphone, she and Romeo would have ended...
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...
Seth's Blog
The digital barback
A barback supports the bartending staff. There are always clean glasses and fresh ingredients, ready...
8 months ago
A barback supports the bartending staff. There are always clean glasses and fresh ingredients, ready to go. Having someone else do your mise en place can dramatically improve your productivity. And now, with a bit of effort, you can train an AI and a few systems to do it for you....
Open Culture
David Bowie Predicts the Good & Bad of the Internet in 1999: “We’re on the Cusp of Something...
“We’re on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.” The year is 1999 and David Bowie, in...
4 months ago
“We’re on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying.” The year is 1999 and David Bowie, in shaggy hair and groovy glasses, has seen the future and it is the Internet. In this short but fascinating interview with BBC’s stalwart and withering interrogator cum interviewer...
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
Happiness can often be traded for money
Most of us know what enough happiness feels like. But some people are stuck in an endless cycle of...
12 months ago
Most of us know what enough happiness feels like. But some people are stuck in an endless cycle of seeking more money. That’s a bad trade. Because after a certain threshold, it’s hard for more money to buy you more happiness. And the trap is that trying ends up costing you both.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Makers 2022
We've featured some fantastic makers on our Meet the Maker blog this year! Thank you to all that...
a year ago
We've featured some fantastic makers on our Meet the Maker blog this year! Thank you to all that have been involved and those that are yet to come in 2023! We love reading about your printmaking practices and hearing your beautiful words of advice.
Grab yourself a drink, pop...
Seth's Blog
The sad compromise of “sponsored results”
Google made a fortune and honed sponsored search results into an art form. The theory is that people...
4 months ago
Google made a fortune and honed sponsored search results into an art form. The theory is that people who want the traffic the most will pay for the clicks, and of course, if the advertisers don’t have something you ultimately want, they’ll just waste their money. Let the market...
Seth's Blog
Knowing the territory
There is always room for someone who really knows their way around an industry, a technology or a...
2 months ago
There is always room for someone who really knows their way around an industry, a technology or a problem. That’s what agents, agencies and organizers do. The hard part isn’t in finding people who will value true on-the-ground expertise. The hard part is actually earning it and...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rachael Haggerty
Hello, I’m Rachael and I am a printmaker based in Bath, UK. I generally work with linocut and mainly...
a year ago
Hello, I’m Rachael and I am a printmaker based in Bath, UK. I generally work with linocut and mainly print in monochrome or bright primary colours. My work celebrates family life, nature and the local area.
Describe your printmaking process.
I normally sketch out a composition...
Seth's Blog
Portfolio theory
One show can make Netflix’s year. One stock can make the numbers for an investor. One player can...
a year ago
One show can make Netflix’s year. One stock can make the numbers for an investor. One player can drive a team to victory. The key is, “I’m not sure which one it’s going to be, but it’s going to be one of these.” The challenge with falling in love with the potential of just one...
Blog - Mac Pierce
p5.js on Squarespace - The Basics
A quick guide on how to get p5.js guides working on Squarespace.
over a year ago
A quick guide on how to get p5.js guides working on Squarespace.
Open Culture
Neuroscience Shows That Viewing Art in Museums Engages the Brain More Than Reproductions
We may appreciate living in an era that doesn’t require us to travel across the world to know what a...
2 months ago
We may appreciate living in an era that doesn’t require us to travel across the world to know what a particular work of art looks like. At the same time, we may instinctively understand that regarding a work of art in its original form feels different than regarding even the most...
Open Culture
The Night Frank Zappa Jammed With Pink Floyd … and Captain Beefheart Too (Belgium, 1969)
Recently an older musician acquaintance told me he never “got into ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and all...
3 months ago
Recently an older musician acquaintance told me he never “got into ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and all that,” referring to the “first major space jam” of Pink Floyd’s career and the subsequent explosion of space rock bands. I found myself a little taken aback. Though I was born too...
Seth's Blog
Self restaint vs systemic restraint
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the...
a year ago
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the restaurant to limit the number of trips that people take so that the restaurant can become sustainable. It’s possible to argue for systemic changes to cultural systems while also...
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
Small groups, well organized
And those are the two challenges of anyone seeking to make an impact. First, we get distracted by...
a year ago
And those are the two challenges of anyone seeking to make an impact. First, we get distracted by the inclination to make the group as big as we can imagine. After all, the change is essential, the idea is a good one. It’s for everyone. Except that’s a trap. Because a group...
Anarchy Unfolds
Harris/Waltz, tenant unions, Bangladesh, UBI
Red Round-up #1
4 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Duncan Tattersall
I’m an artist and maker from southern Scotland, designing and hand printing bespoke textiles for...
10 months ago
I’m an artist and maker from southern Scotland, designing and hand printing bespoke textiles for interiors. My work focuses on the relationship between pattern & place; all of my designs are inspired by a particular location and aim to interpret the story of their surroundings....
Open Culture
Simone de Beauvoir Explains “Why I’m a Feminist” in a Rare TV Interview (1975)
In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his...
5 months ago
In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his childhood friend Marcel’s reaction to the word “revolution”: It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not meddle...
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...
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...
escape the algorithm
Close reading the trees
How competitive Google Street Viewing makes the world feel seen
10 months ago
How competitive Google Street Viewing makes the world feel seen
Open Culture
How a 16th-Century Explorer’s Sailing Ship Worked: An Animated Video Takes You on a Comprehensive...
These days, it feels as if you can’t go very long at all before scrolling past another announcement...
3 months ago
These days, it feels as if you can’t go very long at all before scrolling past another announcement about some new technological development (realized or scheduled) related to space exploration. Some react to this by wondering what could possibly be out there in the universe to...
Marian's Blog
Connecting my fish tank to the Internet of Things – Part 1: Hacking an automatic fish feeder
I bought a used automatic fish feeder from ebay. This device is completely mechanic and very old...
over a year ago
I bought a used automatic fish feeder from ebay. This device is completely mechanic and very old (older than 1989). It has 27 containers for fish food and a disc that does one rotation per day. By sticking pins into that disc one can trigger one or more feedings per day. A pin...
Open Culture
How Henri Matisse Scandalized the Art Establishment with His Daring Use of Color
Even those of us not particularly well-versed in art history have heard of a painting style called...
2 months ago
Even those of us not particularly well-versed in art history have heard of a painting style called fauvism — and probably have never considered what it has to do with fauve, the French word for a wild beast. In fact, the two have everything to do with one another, at least in the...
Open Culture
Honoré de Balzac Writes About “The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee,” and His Epic Coffee Addiction
174 years after his death, Honoré de Balzac remains an extremely modern-sounding wag. Were he alive...
5 months ago
174 years after his death, Honoré de Balzac remains an extremely modern-sounding wag. Were he alive today, he’d no doubt be pounding out his provocative observations in a coffice, a café whose free wifi, lenient staff, and abundant electrical outlets make it a magnet for writers....
Infinite Scroll
Why You Should Read Web Fiction
A beginner's guide to an underappreciated format
3 weeks ago
A beginner's guide to an underappreciated format
Seth's Blog
Getting AI to do your work
That’s the first step, certainly. If you don’t, your boss will. The second step is to take the time...
3 months ago
That’s the first step, certainly. If you don’t, your boss will. The second step is to take the time you’ve freed up and do work that the AI can’t do.
Open Culture
Behold the First American Board Game, Travellers’ Tour Through the United States (1822)
Asked to name a classic American board game, most of us would first think of Monopoly, whose imagery...
3 months ago
Asked to name a classic American board game, most of us would first think of Monopoly, whose imagery and verbiage — Park Place, Rich Uncle Pennybags, “Do not pass go” — has worked its way deep into the culture since Parker Brothers brought it to market in 1935. Despite that, it...
The Great Discontent...
Sofía Gallisá Muriente
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed to addressing systematic challenges in their communities through creativity and emerging ideologies. Buy Now ¿Puedes compartir un poco sobre dónde y cómo creciste y qué influencia...
Seth's Blog
What does the world owe us?
This question is a trap. It’s based on scarcity and entitlement, and most of all, the world isn’t...
6 months ago
This question is a trap. It’s based on scarcity and entitlement, and most of all, the world isn’t listening. When more and more people focus on this question, it simply pushes us apart. On the other hand, “what do I owe the world?” opens the door for endless opportunity. When...
Open Culture
John Waters’ RISD Graduation Speech: Real Wealth Is Life Without A*Holes
John Waters’ rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some...
3 months ago
John Waters’ rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some good one-liners and a few pearls of wisdom, though phrased, quite naturally, in an irreverent way. Ready for some sage advice on what really counts as wealth? And what career choices...
Seth's Blog
True/useful
Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in...
a year ago
Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in something that’s useful but not true, it can serve a helpful purpose. The tooth fairy, perhaps. When we act on something that’s useful and also true, we’ve found a resilient path...
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...
Open Culture
Sci-Fi Author J.G. Ballard Predicts the Rise of Social Media (1977)
Say you were a fan of Steven Spielberg’s moving coming-of-age drama Empire of the Sun, set in a...
6 months ago
Say you were a fan of Steven Spielberg’s moving coming-of-age drama Empire of the Sun, set in a Japanese internment camp during World War II and starring a young Christian Bale. Say you read the autobiographical novel on which that film is based, written by one J.G. Ballard. Say...
Seth's Blog
The power of expectations
When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to...
a year ago
When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to possibility. We offer them dignity and a chance to grow. We are offering them trust. But if we become attached to those expectations, if the expectation unmet leads us to distress or...
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
The 11 Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Cartoons That Haven’t Been Aired Since 1968
For decades and decades, Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons have served as a...
3 months ago
For decades and decades, Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons have served as a kind of default children’s entertainment. Originally conceived for theatrical exhibition in the nineteen-thirties, they were animated to a standard that held its own against the...
Handprinted - Blog
Mark Marking - Using Etching Tools
When you’ve degreased and prepared your plate for etching, there are a variety of tools you can use...
a year ago
When you’ve degreased and prepared your plate for etching, there are a variety of tools you can use to mark into the surface. Any marks made into the surface of the grounds will expose your plate to the mordant. When etched, these marks will become sunken areas for ink to sit,...
Seth's Blog
Make or buy?
If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to...
10 months ago
If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to set up a little machine shop to make your own pens. That’s pretty obvious. Should the smoothie shop make its own almond milk? It’s pretty clear that Starbucks should have a team of...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of insular language
We often develop slang or codewords to keep the others from understanding what we’re saying. Here’s...
a year ago
We often develop slang or codewords to keep the others from understanding what we’re saying. Here’s an example (thanks BK) of the lengths that some are going to be able to take about Chinese politics. Of course, if you come up with a concealed enough code, the people you’re...
Prolost
Lightroom Adds Video Color Editing, with Prolost Presets
From the Lightroom Blog:
The same edit controls that you already use to make your photography shine...
over a year ago
From the Lightroom Blog:
The same edit controls that you already use to make your photography shine can now be used with your videos as well! Not only can you use Lightroom’s editing capabilities to make your video clips look their best, you can also copy and paste edit settings...
Open Culture
The “Nonsense” Botanical Illustrations of Victorian Artist-Poet Edward Lear (1871–77)
Since the Victorian era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for generation upon...
5 months ago
Since the Victorian era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for generation upon generation in the English-speaking world, the kind of poem that one simply knows, whether one remembers actually having read it or not. As with most such works that seep so...
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
A labor of love
That’s magical. To have the resources to expend labor on something that fills us with joy. If you’re...
3 months ago
That’s magical. To have the resources to expend labor on something that fills us with joy. If you’re lucky enough to encounter this, perhaps it makes sense not to confuse the issue by also trying to turn it into labor for maximum profit. When we focus on one, we often decrease...
Open Culture
Watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the Influential German Expressionist Horror Film (1920)
In early 1920, posters began appearing all over Berlin with a hypnotic spiral and the mysterious...
a month ago
In early 1920, posters began appearing all over Berlin with a hypnotic spiral and the mysterious command Du musst Caligari werden — “You must become Caligari.” The posters were part of an innovative advertising campaign for an upcoming movie by Robert Wiene called The Cabinet of...
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...
Seth's Blog
Appropriate tension
Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even...
a year ago
Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even the fear of failure. Of course, risk also feels risky (or at least it should). Differentiating between the two is difficult, which is why finding institutions, methods or coaches...
cabel.com
Marching Age
This is a short story about something delightful. In 2014, I did a bunch of music for my friends...
12 months ago
This is a short story about something delightful. In 2014, I did a bunch of music for my friends Neven Mrgan and Matt Comi who were making an incredible iOS game called Space Age. I had never written that much music in my life, and it was incredibly fun for me in every way. (You...
Seth's Blog
The thing about decay
One reason we have so much trouble fixing chronic degenerative conditions is that we need to remove...
a year ago
One reason we have so much trouble fixing chronic degenerative conditions is that we need to remove elements before we can start building new functions. If we simply put effort on top of a shaky foundation, it’ll all be wasted. The best way forward might be to take a few steps...
Marian's Blog
No Man’s Starfield
This is a shader I made that renders a flight through a starfield. It’s meant to look like the...
over a year ago
This is a shader I made that renders a flight through a starfield. It’s meant to look like the galactic map that you can see in No Man’s Sky. Here is a link to the project on shadertoy:
No Man’s Starfield
The cool thing about this is that it runs inside a shader. A shader is a...
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
George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele
George Harrison loved the ukulele, and really, what’s not to love? For its dainty size, the uke can...
2 months ago
George Harrison loved the ukulele, and really, what’s not to love? For its dainty size, the uke can make a powerfully cheerful sound, and it’s an instrument both beginners and expert players can learn and easily carry around. As Harrison’s old friend Joe Brown remarked, “You can...
Seth's Blog
Getting it right the first time
How unlikely is this? The artist who paints a masterpiece, from scratch, without hesitation. The...
a year ago
How unlikely is this? The artist who paints a masterpiece, from scratch, without hesitation. The playwright who doesn’t need a workshop or a reading. The architect who designs a food hall that has a layout and vibe that works without one alteration… Evolution is powerful. It...
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
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...
Seth's Blog
The conspiracy of mediocrity
Solo mediocrity is rampant, of course. We know that toasting the bread before making the sandwich...
3 months ago
Solo mediocrity is rampant, of course. We know that toasting the bread before making the sandwich makes it more delicious, but in service of convenience and speed, we skip a step. It becomes a conspiracy when more than one of us is involved. The freelancer who offers cheap and...
Seth's Blog
Design has a language
And it changes over time. You and I know what to do when we see a revolving door, or to speak...
a year ago
And it changes over time. You and I know what to do when we see a revolving door, or to speak quietly in a library. We have expectations of how the world works and what designers are saying with their work. Here’s a photo of a device with two controls. We’ve been taught our whole...
Seth's Blog
The early adopter (and the dilettante)
The early adopter bought an iPhone in 2008 and never looked back. They played a few games of...
a year ago
The early adopter bought an iPhone in 2008 and never looked back. They played a few games of pickleball and then joined a club and bought the equipment. They picked up a new magazine on the newsstand and then subscribed, and they bought the new bestseller and then read the...
On the Arts
Are wind turbines ugly? Could they be beautiful?
How to make ugly things appear less ugly – or appear like something else entirely.
a year ago
How to make ugly things appear less ugly – or appear like something else entirely.
Seth's Blog
Headwinds
When it’s tough going and it feels fraught, it’s easy to imagine that the headwinds will never end....
9 months ago
When it’s tough going and it feels fraught, it’s easy to imagine that the headwinds will never end. And yet, when all is going well and the wind is at our back, it’s tempting to imagine that this is the way it’s going to stay. Neither is true. The reason we see them as headwinds...
The Great Discontent...
Ophelia Chong
Ophelia Chong has had a long and storied career in photography, art, and creative direction that...
a year ago
Ophelia Chong has had a long and storied career in photography, art, and creative direction that spans from magazines and music labels to film festivals and book publishing. When a family member’s medicinal marijuana use inspired her to dip her toes into the world of weed, Chong...
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...
Seth's Blog
The distribution of character
Along the way, we have been taught to associate character skills like honesty, rationality,...
5 months ago
Along the way, we have been taught to associate character skills like honesty, rationality, agreeableness, grit and care with surface metrics like wealth or power. That’s almost certainly incorrect. And if we make assumptions based on vague measures of class, we’re going to get...
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...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “your time is up” edition
This week… But first, an announcement! TLDR: Over the holidays, I will be migrating this site from...
2 days ago
This week… But first, an announcement! TLDR: Over the holidays, I will be migrating this site from WordPress.com to Ghost. This may mean a little disruption, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Why am I doing this? I’ve been a paying customer of WordPress.com for my site...
Seth's Blog
PW1: Two hats for productivity
Welcome to 2024. Back to work, here we go. So it’s Productivity Week on the blog. Productivity is...
11 months ago
Welcome to 2024. Back to work, here we go. So it’s Productivity Week on the blog. Productivity is the measure of the output (value) we get for the time or money we spend. Two hats for productivity: When I’m clearing my inbox, responding to comments in a doc, cooking lunch–these...
Seth's Blog
Redefining a profession
Pharmacists used to mix chemicals by hand to create prescriptions. Opticians used to grind lenses...
3 months ago
Pharmacists used to mix chemicals by hand to create prescriptions. Opticians used to grind lenses from scratch. Lawyers used to start with an empty page. Graphic designers needed to know how to draw. All of these jobs are still important. None of them are the same as they were...
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
Widespread resistance
Steve Pressfield defines Resistance as the inertia, stories and excuses we manage to create to avoid...
a year ago
Steve Pressfield defines Resistance as the inertia, stories and excuses we manage to create to avoid powerful or creative work. Writer’s block, procrastination, overconfidence, or a belief in un-delivered talent are all symptoms of resistance. Knowing that it has a name helps us...
Seth's Blog
Can’t wait
The urgent problem might actually benefit from a short cooling-off period. But important challenges...
a year ago
The urgent problem might actually benefit from a short cooling-off period. But important challenges can’t wait. Today is a good day to remember that better is possible, and that we shouldn’t wait for the problem to become easy or fade away. Better begins with each of us, but it...
Open Culture
How Rasputin Inspired the “Fictitious Persons” Disclaimer Commonly Seen in Movies
“This is a work of fiction,” declares the disclaimer we’ve all noticed during the end credits of...
3 weeks ago
“This is a work of fiction,” declares the disclaimer we’ve all noticed during the end credits of movies. “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” In most cases, this may seem so trivial that it hardly merits a mention, but the...
Open Culture
Behold James Sowerby’s Strikingly Illustrated New Elucidation of Colours (1809)
James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was...
5 months ago
James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was also enormously interested in color, especially given the era in which he lived. Born in 1757, he made his professional start as a painter of flowers: a viable career path in...
Open Culture
Watch Animations Showing How Humans Migrated Across the World Over the Past 60,000 Years
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the...
7 months ago
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the probable inspiration for Isak Dinesen’s poem “Ex Africa,” itself the probable inspiration for her memoir Out of Africa, which in turn was loosely adapted into Sydney Pollack’s...
Seth's Blog
Informed consent (rarely is)
Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice...
a year ago
Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice cream we prefer, or what career to choose. We’re good at knowing what we want. In practice, this works really well for certain kinds of decisions. But when we add the network effect,...
Open Culture
Behold a Digital Restoration of 655 Plates of Roses & Lilies by Pierre-Joseph Redouté: The Greatest...
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a...
a month ago
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a meticulousness that exceeds all bounds of normality. He published his three-volume collection Les Roses and his eight-volume collection Les Liliacées between 1802 and 1824, and a glance...
Anarchy Unfolds
The big picture, AI, chemophobia, rocket mass heaters
Green Gatherings #1
2 months ago
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.
Open Culture
Eno: The New “Generative Documentary” on Brian Eno That’s Never the Same Movie Twice
Brian Eno once wrote that “it’s possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say,...
5 months ago
Brian Eno once wrote that “it’s possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say, ‘You mean you used to listen to to exactly the same thing over and over again?’ ” That speculation comes from an essay on what he calls “generative music,” which is automatically...
Seth's Blog
Refusing the salon of the refused
This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was...
8 months ago
This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was organized by and featured artists who weren’t even among those that had a slot at the runner’s up exhibit for artists who weren’t featured in the real Salon in Paris. Manet didn’t have...
Seth's Blog
The color-coded wires
Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was...
8 months ago
Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was like? Neither have I. The Beatles recorded some of their best work there, and I have no idea if it was a rat’s nest of tangled wires, or if each wire was labeled, coded and perfectly...
Seth's Blog
The Western Union trap
When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get...
6 months ago
When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get even better at sending telegrams.
Seth's Blog
Putting up the big numbers
Some people go to the gym for health and energy. Some go to lift more weight than they did yesterday...
8 months ago
Some people go to the gym for health and energy. Some go to lift more weight than they did yesterday (or more than the person next to them). You can start a company to make an impact and surround yourself with people on a similar journey, or you can seek to maximize the stock...
Seth's Blog
Game design and strategy (Bongo part 3)
What’s it for? Making something fun is a good place to start if you’re building a casual word game...
a month ago
What’s it for? Making something fun is a good place to start if you’re building a casual word game like Bongo. But it’s not enough. Lots of things are fun, for a while, but that doesn’t meant that they’re worth the investment of time and money it takes to build them. From the...
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
Avert your eyes
There are things we avoid looking at too closely. If we looked, really saw what was happening, we’d...
a year ago
There are things we avoid looking at too closely. If we looked, really saw what was happening, we’d have to change our minds, admit we were mistaken, refactor our priorities or take action. It’s so frightening that we even hesitate to make a list of the things we don’t want to...
Seth's Blog
The half-life of magic
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke Try to...
7 months ago
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke Try to imagine the you of twenty years ago holding a Rabbit R1, or using a cell phone or being able to listen to every song, ever recorded, for just a few dollars a month. We don’t just take...
Seth's Blog
Software done well
There are a few tools I use regularly that make me smile, because the craftspeople who made them...
5 months ago
There are a few tools I use regularly that make me smile, because the craftspeople who made them decided to build something with extra magic and care. By using and paying for well crafted software, we often get far more than we pay for… Ecamm is the tool I use for all my online...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Gemma Berenguer (Monostereo)
My name is Gemma Berenguer and I'm from Barcelona. I'm a printmaker specialising in screen printing,...
3 months ago
My name is Gemma Berenguer and I'm from Barcelona. I'm a printmaker specialising in screen printing, although I also dabble in etching and block printing as well. I run Monostereo, a screen printing company in Barcelona, which has been operating for 15 years now.
I first...
Seth's Blog
Where are you?
When you’re reading a good historical novel, you might be there and then. When you’re checking your...
9 months ago
When you’re reading a good historical novel, you might be there and then. When you’re checking your email, you are in a conversation between and among, over there, not here. When you’re imagining what went wrong in that conversation yesterday, you are living in yesterday. And...
Seth's Blog
Deadlines and tailgaters
If the ferry is leaving in fifteen minutes, do you drive faster than normal to get to the dock on...
a year ago
If the ferry is leaving in fifteen minutes, do you drive faster than normal to get to the dock on time? If someone is driving close behind you and pressuring you to turn when you don’t feel safe, are you more likely to go for it? We can do our work as fast as makes […]
Handprinted - Blog
Using Schmincke Water-Based Inks to Create a Jigsaw Linocut
We love the range of colours that are available in Schmincke water-based inks. We’re creating a...
over a year ago
We love the range of colours that are available in Schmincke water-based inks. We’re creating a jigsaw linocut to allow us to use multiple colours of Schmincke ink in just one block!
We are using Easy Carve Blue as it’s soft to cut up with a scalpel, making it ideal for a jigsaw...
Seth's Blog
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
The problems with flat out
The desire for 11 is proof that we often want to go all the way to ten. While 11 is silly, there is...
a year ago
The desire for 11 is proof that we often want to go all the way to ten. While 11 is silly, there is a lot of pressure to give our all. But there are problems. The first is that if you try to sprint an entire marathon, you’ll hurt yourself. Systems can be stressed for […]
Infinite Scroll
Is a Progressive Joe Rogan Impossible?
Why the online environment has broken sharply to the right
a month ago
Why the online environment has broken sharply to the right
escape the algorithm
For WIRED: Google's relentless search for answers
I wouldn’t ordinarily email you twice in one week, but I have an essay in WIRED today about Google,...
a year ago
I wouldn’t ordinarily email you twice in one week, but I have an essay in WIRED today about Google, its philosophy of information retrieval, and how its Search history may be a premonition of the future that generative AI is leading us towards.
Seth's Blog
Create value
If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for...
a year ago
If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for the feeling of security. But real security lies in creating value. Creating value isn’t easy, but it’s resilient and generous and often profitable. “How do I create more value?” is...
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
Chasing cool
The cool thing is always a little out of reach. And for most of us, once we get it, it’s not seen as...
a year ago
The cool thing is always a little out of reach. And for most of us, once we get it, it’s not seen as cool any more. This is not an accident. One definition of cool are things that are just out of reach.
Open Culture
Andy Warhol’s One Minute of Professional Wrestling Fame (1985)
Andy Warhol did for art what the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) did for wrestling. He made it a...
2 months ago
Andy Warhol did for art what the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) did for wrestling. He made it a spectacle. He made it something the “everyman” could enjoy. He infused it with celebrity. And, some would say, he cheapened it too. Looking back, it makes perfect sense that Warhol...
On the Arts
Do biographies need to start at the beginning?
Alternatives to the predictably linear narratives of most biographies.
a year ago
Alternatives to the predictably linear narratives of most biographies.
Marian's Blog
BTduino documentation
The BTduino app sends data using the serial interface of a microcontroller and a bluetooth...
over a year ago
The BTduino app sends data using the serial interface of a microcontroller and a bluetooth connection. The concept of the protocol is to send all data in text form. Each set of data consists of the name and the value, seperated by a colon. This way of communication is not the...
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
Is it a t-shirt brand?
Not all projects become t-shirt brands, nor should they. The risk is in thinking you’re building one...
a year ago
Not all projects become t-shirt brands, nor should they. The risk is in thinking you’re building one when you’re not. T-shirt worthy brands are a very small subset of the whole. The question is: Would your customers want to wear your logo on a t-shirt? Why? If you’re creating...
Marian's Blog
Quadrocopter
Ich habe mir dieses Jahr den Traum erfüllt, einen selbst zusammengestellten Quadrocopter zu...
over a year ago
Ich habe mir dieses Jahr den Traum erfüllt, einen selbst zusammengestellten Quadrocopter zu bauen.
Investitionen
Für mich ist dieses Projekt bisher immer an zu hohen Kosten und mangelnden Informationen für Einsteiger gescheitert. Diese Probleme wurden zum Teil ausgeräumt durch...
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
Stat Significant
Unpacking Vinyl's Remarkable Revival: A Statistical Analysis
The fall and rise of vinyl and record stores.
3 months ago
The fall and rise of vinyl and record stores.
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...
Open Culture
Coursera Offers $120 Off of Coursera Plus (Until September 30), Giving You Unlimited Access to...
A quick reminder: As the new school year gets underway, millions of students are heading back to...
3 months ago
A quick reminder: As the new school year gets underway, millions of students are heading back to classrooms. And you can too. From now until September 30, 2024, Coursera is offering a 30% discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399,...
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:
...
Seth's Blog
Which agenda?
Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda....
11 months ago
Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda. It’s easy to become so focused on checking the boxes that we forget that there are people involved. Peers, colleagues and friends that with something human to offer, if we only...
Seth's Blog
Cat and mouse games
I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the...
5 months ago
I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the street is a significant safety problem. The speed limit is there for good reason, and if you selfishly and recklessly blow through the crosswalk, you ought to get a summons....
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...
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
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...
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...
Seth's Blog
The near future (and summer reads)
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can...
6 months ago
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can think hard about the tomorrow we’re about to live in. Summer reads are supposed to be a bit lighter. Technological change is making our near future a bit harder to dance with, and...
Seth's Blog
When the media is ready (Bongo part 2)
Media isn’t a magazine or a website. It’s a system. We can learn to see the system and contribute to...
a month ago
Media isn’t a magazine or a website. It’s a system. We can learn to see the system and contribute to it with leverage. There are three elements to consider in a media system that’s worth a professional creator’s time: Systems are changed by technology. When desktop publishing...
Seth's Blog
Glib
One of the valid complaints about some AI systems is that they make stuff up, with confidence, and...
5 months ago
One of the valid complaints about some AI systems is that they make stuff up, with confidence, and without sourcing, and then argue when challenged. Unsurprisingly, this sounds a lot like people. We often end up with what we are willing to tolerate. Show your work and ask for...
Seth's Blog
A transformative summer
Living indoors, connected to a screen, it’s easy for the months and years to blur together. The...
10 months ago
Living indoors, connected to a screen, it’s easy for the months and years to blur together. The seasons used to matter more. But for young adults, they still do. Transitions are built around the seasons, and the headlong rush to a career is still sometimes interrupted by months...
Open Culture
4 Franz Kafka Animations: Watch Creative Animated Shorts from Poland, Japan, Russia & Canada
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari thought of Kafka as an international writer, in solidarity with...
7 months ago
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari thought of Kafka as an international writer, in solidarity with minority groups worldwide. Other scholars have characterized his work—and Kafka himself wrote as much—as literature concerned with national identity. Academic debates, however, have...
Seth's Blog
“But what if it doesn’t work?”
The best way to win a short-term game is to bet it all on one strategy. Someone is going to get...
a year ago
The best way to win a short-term game is to bet it all on one strategy. Someone is going to get lucky and it might be you. But we rarely thrive in the long run if we persist in playing a series of short-term games. Instead, organizations, individuals and teams do better when they...
Open Culture
How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur...
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in...
7 months ago
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in 1863. Today, we might assume that the controversy surrounding the painting had to do with its containing a nude woman. But, in fact, it does not contain a nude woman — at least...
Seth's Blog
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
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...
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.
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “stoically facing the end times” edition
1. When is AI coding not AI coding? You might have heard something about how Google now creates a...
a month ago
1. When is AI coding not AI coding? You might have heard something about how Google now creates a quarter of its code using AI. But as with most things concerning everyone’s favourite hot tech, the devil is in the details. And the details, according to this poster on Hacker News,...
Marian's Blog
Uni-Timer
Ich bin seit diesem Semester Student und in der Uni dauern Vorlesungen immer 90 Minuten, von...
over a year ago
Ich bin seit diesem Semester Student und in der Uni dauern Vorlesungen immer 90 Minuten, von “viertel nach” bis “viertel vor”. Da kam mir die Idee, dass man eine Uhr bräuchte, die nicht den Fortschritt der aktuellen Stunde, sondern den der aktuellen Vorlesung zeigt. Dazu habe ich...
Open Culture
What Victorian People Sounded Like: Hear Recordings of Florence Nightingale & Queen Victoria Herself
More than 120 years after the end of the Victorian era, we might assume that we retain a more or...
a month ago
More than 120 years after the end of the Victorian era, we might assume that we retain a more or less accurate cultural memory of the Victorians themselves: of their social mores, their aesthetic sensibilities, their ambitions great and small, their many and varied hang-ups. Some...
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
What spoiled wrecks
There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: As a...
6 months ago
There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: As a community increases in wealth, the number of spoiled citizens increases as well. It’s often the acid that corrodes the magic that created the wealth in the first place. Whining is a...
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?
Open Culture
9‑Year-Old Edward Hopper Draws a Picture on the Back of His 3rd Grade Report Card
In a 2017 press release, the Edward Hopper House announced that it would receive over 1,000...
7 months ago
In a 2017 press release, the Edward Hopper House announced that it would receive over 1,000 artifacts and memorabilia documenting Edward Hopper’s family life and early years. The collection “consists of juvenilia and other materials from the formative years of Hopper’s life and...
Seth's Blog
Nothing to ad
A recent discussion about the challenges of direct-to-consumer marketing of a skincare product ended...
a year ago
A recent discussion about the challenges of direct-to-consumer marketing of a skincare product ended with one participant describing the hard part with, “nothing to ad.” She was referring to how much the thread had covered, but the pun wasn’t lost on us. Social media offered an...
Open Culture
2000-Year-Old Bottle of White Wine Found in a Roman Burial Site
Image via Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Back in 2017, we featured the oldest unopened...
5 months ago
Image via Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Back in 2017, we featured the oldest unopened bottle of wine in the world here on Open Culture. Found in Speyer, Germany, in 1867, it dates from 350 AD, making it a venerable vintage indeed, but one recently outdone by a bottle...
Seth's Blog
The network scam
Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a...
a year ago
Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a transaction. In the traditional fraud, the scammer tells a lie and the buyer, either with or without diligence, believes it and loses everything. You buy the magic beans, but they don’t...
Open Culture
The Evolution of Hokusai’s Great Wave: A Study of 113 Known Copies of the Iconic Woodblock Print
The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai,...
6 months ago
The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai, 神奈川沖浪裏, is usually translated into English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa. That version of the title reflects the iconic scene depicted in the image well enough, though I can’t help but...
Seth's Blog
Sincerity is expected
Well, not always. That’s why it’s so important. We don’t expect an actor to tell the truth. That’s...
a month ago
Well, not always. That’s why it’s so important. We don’t expect an actor to tell the truth. That’s their job. Musicians and other performers are playing a role. And social niceties encourage us to put on a smile and share appreciation, even in situations where it might not be...
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
Anonymity and Bugs Bunny
I came across this (ironically) anonymous quote recently: “The offline world is full of sticks, but...
4 months ago
I came across this (ironically) anonymous quote recently: “The offline world is full of sticks, but the internet only has carrots.” When we come together in groups, it can bring out the best in people. When those groups are anonymous, porous and transient, though, the opposite...
Seth's Blog
The third impossibility
The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their...
6 months ago
The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their waking hours consuming audio and video recordings of other people. The second was the internet. Five to ten hours a day interacting, in real time, with other people, many of them...
Open Culture
Behold Gustave Doré’s Dramatic Illustrations of the Bible (1866)
One occasionally hears it said that, thanks to the internet, all the books truly worth reading are...
5 months ago
One occasionally hears it said that, thanks to the internet, all the books truly worth reading are free: Shakespeare, Don Quixote, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the Divine Comedy, the Bible. Can it be a coincidence that all of these works inspired illustrations by Gustave Doré?...
Anarchy Unfolds
No Futures
We don't have to think of the children
7 months ago
We don't have to think of the children
Seth's Blog
The leaping curve
The learning curve is familiar to many people. It might be steep, but it’s continuous. Organizations...
a year ago
The learning curve is familiar to many people. It might be steep, but it’s continuous. Organizations (and people) work their way up it, one step at a time (it’s the black line in the graph below). But there’s rarely a continuous learning curve. Instead, it’s often interrupted by...
Seth's Blog
Bongo 4 – Thinking about power users (skive!)
Power users are tempting. They know what they want, they’re happy to share their preferences and...
3 weeks ago
Power users are tempting. They know what they want, they’re happy to share their preferences and they show up. But power users can also be a trap, because their specific needs might not match the market you seek to serve. When you pick your customers, you pick your future. Brooke...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Emergence and Generative Art
Sometimes, a system is more than the sum of its parts. Simple rules can
lead to complex and...
over a year ago
Sometimes, a system is more than the sum of its parts. Simple rules can
lead to complex and surprising phenomena. This is emergence.
Open Culture
J. G. Ballard Demystifies Surrealist Paintings by Dalí, Magritte, de Chirico & More
Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard...
4 months ago
Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard published three apocalyptic novels, The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World. Each of those books offers a different vision of large-scale environmental disaster, and...
Open Culture
The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973–2023)
Hip-hop was once a subculture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unquestionably dominant...
3 weeks ago
Hip-hop was once a subculture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unquestionably dominant forms of popular music — not just in America, and not just among young people. There are, of course, still a fair few hip-hop holdouts, but even they’ve come to know a thing or two...
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...
Seth's Blog
The Coney Island problem
Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so...
6 months ago
Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so much. Coney Island is dozens of small honky tonk vendors and attractions, an ecosystem, not a corporation. Independent local stores got hammered by the more organized stores in the...
Open Culture
The Wisdom of Alan Watts in 4 Mind-Expanding Animations
Perhaps no single person did more to popularize Zen Buddhism in the West than Alan Watts. In a...
2 months ago
Perhaps no single person did more to popularize Zen Buddhism in the West than Alan Watts. In a sense, Watts prepared U.S. culture for more traditionally Zen teachers like Soto priest Suzuki Roshi, whose lineage continues today, but Watts did not consider himself a Zen Buddhist....
Open Culture
Watch the Earliest-Known Charles Dickens Film: The Death of Poor Joe
A little over a decade ago, a curator at the British Film Institute (BFI) discovered the oldest...
6 months ago
A little over a decade ago, a curator at the British Film Institute (BFI) discovered the oldest surviving film featuring a Charles Dickens character, “The Death of Poor Joe.” The silent film, directed by George Albert Smith in 1900, brings to life Dickens’ character Jo, the...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: MrBeast Games The System
Plus! A Momfluencer Horror Story and an Important Orca Update
2 weeks ago
Plus! A Momfluencer Horror Story and an Important Orca Update
Prolost
Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad Event was Shot on iPhone — With Panavision Lenses
Still from Apple’s “Let Loose” video.
Apple unveiled their new line of iPads yesterday in a...
7 months ago
Still from Apple’s “Let Loose” video.
Apple unveiled their new line of iPads yesterday in a pre-recorded video titled “Let Loose.” As with the previous “Scary Fast” MacBook Pro launch video, “Let Loose” ends with a tag proclaiming “Shot on iPhone” — this time adding “Edited on...
Handprinted - Blog
Mono Screen Printing Using a Guide
Mono screen printing is a great technique if you want to create beautiful painterly prints but...
a year ago
Mono screen printing is a great technique if you want to create beautiful painterly prints but achieve the flatness of a screen print. It allows you to incorporate multiple colours in one layer and play with brush strokes and mark making.
When working with this technique,...
Open Culture
When the CIA Studied Psychic Techniques to Alter Human Consciousness & Unlock Time Travel: Discover...
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of...
6 months ago
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of experiments involving LSD and other psychoactive drugs called MKUltra from the nineteen-fifties to the seventies. As one might suspect, that wasn’t the only research project into the...
Seth's Blog
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...
Open Culture
Behold The Drawings of Franz Kafka (1907–1917)
Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece...
7 months ago
Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece about Franz Kafka’s drawings. Kafka, of course, wrote a body of work, mostly never published during his lifetime, that captured the absurdity and the loneliness of the newly emerging...
Seth's Blog
Thinking about jobs
Since I was born, the planet has invented 6 billion jobs. Technology is said to threaten the...
3 weeks ago
Since I was born, the planet has invented 6 billion jobs. Technology is said to threaten the replacement of human labor, yet, somehow we’ve found useful activities for a rapidly growing population. Coordinated without a coordinator, people go to work each day, often doing...
Open Culture
Oh My God! Winston Churchill Received the First Ever Letter Containing “O.M.G.” (1917)
Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the...
6 months ago
Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the middle of every major event. Even before, as Prime Minister, he steeled the resolve of his people and faced down the Third Reich juggernaut; even before he loudly warned of the...
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...
Seth's Blog
Patience
It’s worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.
a year ago
It’s worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.
The Last...
Product Review: Panasonic PT AX200U (Hipsters On Food Stamps Part 3)
but how will you afford a steak?
Part 2 here
Three questions, open book:
1. Did Hipster...
over a year ago
but how will you afford a steak?
Part 2 here
Three questions, open book:
1. Did Hipster Gerry get his money's worth from the University of Chicago, either $100k in future income or knowledge? No.
2. Did society get their money's worth in sending him, i.e. by...
Seth's Blog
There’s always a placebo switch
The trick is knowing where it is and using it well. Wanting control doesn’t always mean needing to...
a year ago
The trick is knowing where it is and using it well. Wanting control doesn’t always mean needing to have control. Sometimes it is simply a desire to be acknowledged. HT to Brian.
escape the algorithm
Live Near Friends
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m about to recommend that you subscribe to a product marketing...
5 months ago
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m about to recommend that you subscribe to a product marketing email.
Open Culture
Medievalist Professor Answers Medieval Questions From Twitter: Why Is It called the “Middle” Ages?,...
From Wired comes this: “Professor of English and Medieval Literature Dr. Dorsey Armstrong answers...
6 months ago
From Wired comes this: “Professor of English and Medieval Literature Dr. Dorsey Armstrong answers your questions about the Middle Ages from Twitter. Why is it called the “Middle” Ages? [What did medieval English sound like?] What activities did people do for fun? Why were animals...
Seth's Blog
The leap
In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there,...
9 months ago
In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there, all at once. It’s easy to imagine that sudden leaps are how we make our impact. This is blog post #9000 (give or take). When did the leap happen? It wasn’t an external leap. The...
Seth's Blog
Explaining yourself
The only reason we need to go into detail about our resume, the details of our new idea or the...
9 months ago
The only reason we need to go into detail about our resume, the details of our new idea or the features of a product is to cause action to happen. And action is the result of tension, status or affiliation, and these are based on trust. There are many ways to build that trust,...
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Sunday 8th December 2024
This time of year, work becomes a tension between two opposing forces: the inevitable winding down...
2 weeks ago
This time of year, work becomes a tension between two opposing forces: the inevitable winding down of the year, as fewer projects appear and people begin to drift away, and the equally inevitable rush to get whatever remains to be done. It’s a tension that keeps me awake at night...
Seth's Blog
Benign vs. normal
We evolved to be wary of change. Our attention is limited, new things can be a threat and the status...
11 months ago
We evolved to be wary of change. Our attention is limited, new things can be a threat and the status quo feels comfortable. As a result, we spend a lot of time and energy being afraid (and arguing about) the upcoming changes in our lives, but almost no time at all thinking about...
Seth's Blog
The last little bit
Important hills usually get much steeper at the top. 99% of the training in competitive athletics is...
4 months ago
Important hills usually get much steeper at the top. 99% of the training in competitive athletics is devoted to the last 1% of performance. A tenth of a second. The same is true for squeezing the last bit of performance out of a car, a grape or a semiconductor. And healthcare,...
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...
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
Pink Floyd Plays in Venice on a Massive Floating Stage in 1989; Forces the Mayor & City Council to...
When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd after 1983’s The Final Cut, the remaining members had good reason...
8 months ago
When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd after 1983’s The Final Cut, the remaining members had good reason to assume the band was truly, as Waters proclaimed, “a spent force.” After releasing solo projects in the next few years, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright soon...
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...
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...
Seth's Blog
By association
We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person...
9 months ago
We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person who worked at Google or Apple or Disney gets more of the benefit of the doubt. Even if all they did was bring coffee to someone. But, if that person was one of the hundreds laid off...
Seth's Blog
Perfect pavement
Paving the ground might be an option. Pavement is invisible to the driver. It’s expected, smooth,...
6 months ago
Paving the ground might be an option. Pavement is invisible to the driver. It’s expected, smooth, resilient and gets out of the way. You only notice a road when it’s not paved well. Nature, on the other hand, is never perfect. All untouched forests are natural, yet each is...
Seth's Blog
Fidelity, compression and culture
The alphabet is a miracle, one that is compounded by books. And the lessons we learn from this...
a year ago
The alphabet is a miracle, one that is compounded by books. And the lessons we learn from this cornerstone of modern culture apply to organizations, meetings, tech, politics and almost everything we do together. Your copy of To Kill a Mockingbird contains every single word that...
Seth's Blog
Searching for stars
It’s easy to imagine that talent is a magical gift, and that we’ll know it when see it (and that you...
2 weeks ago
It’s easy to imagine that talent is a magical gift, and that we’ll know it when see it (and that you have it or you don’t). And yet, over the years, Star Search has rejected each of these musicians, picking someone else to win the competition: One could argue that they’re simply...
Infinite Scroll
Revolt and the Reversal of Trust
The digital roots of Trump's surprising youth popularity
a month ago
The digital roots of Trump's surprising youth popularity
Seth's Blog
The page-a-day calendar
Time passes. And humans have always kept track. Distribution and technology combined to create a few...
5 months ago
Time passes. And humans have always kept track. Distribution and technology combined to create a few decades where the tear off daily calendar was nearly ubiquitous (read on for details on my new one, a collaboration with Debbie Millman). First, the industry needed to efficiently...
Seth's Blog
The run-on sentence
Periods were an extraordinary invention. It took thousands of years of writing before we settled on...
a month ago
Periods were an extraordinary invention. It took thousands of years of writing before we settled on this simple convention. The most direct way to improve your writing is to make your sentences shorter. I was reading a magazine article yesterday and was rapidly losing interest....
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...
Open Culture
What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Hit a Major City Today: A Visualization of the Destruction
One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop...
8 months ago
One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, placed prominently in a shot of George C. Scott in the war room, is a binder with a spine labeled “WORLD TARGETS IN MEGADEATHS.” A megadeath, writes Eric...
Open Culture
Tracking Pianist Yuja Wang’s Heartbeats During Her Marathon Rachmaninoff Performance
The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene: On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The...
6 months ago
The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene: On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall for a once-in-a-lifetime, all-Rachmaninoff marathon that featured the composer’s four piano concertos...
Open Culture
Watch The Idea, the First Animated Film to Deal with Big, Philosophical Ideas (1932)
A vague sense of disquiet settled over Europe in the period between World War I and World War II. As...
3 months ago
A vague sense of disquiet settled over Europe in the period between World War I and World War II. As the slow burn of militant ultranationalism mingled with jingoist populism, authoritarian leaders and fascist factions found mounting support among a citizenry hungry for...
Open Culture
The Isolated Bass Grooves of The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh (RIP)
This past Friday, the bassist of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, passed away at age 84. Almost...
a month ago
This past Friday, the bassist of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, passed away at age 84. Almost immediately the tributes poured in, most recognizing that Lesh wasn’t your ordinary bassist. As Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times, Phil Lesh held songs “aloft.” His “bass lines...
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....
escape the algorithm
A complete guide to pretending you saw the total solar eclipse
I cannot relate to you
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
And then that happened
The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what...
a year ago
The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what happened and then decide to do something with that insight. Thirty years ago, AOL was my company’s biggest client. They charged users $3 an hour to use their precursor to the internet,...
Seth's Blog
Wearing the costume
There’s a huge difference between carrying a stethoscope and being a doctor. And being a clown...
a month ago
There’s a huge difference between carrying a stethoscope and being a doctor. And being a clown requires far more than getting a clown suit. Entrepreneurs with business cards, slick websites and mission statements are confused. That’s not the hard part. If the costume puts you in...
Seth's Blog
The Beatles and Taylor Swift
When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too....
a year ago
When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too. That’s part of the magic of a cultural swirl–it’s our friends, our work, our world. Most of these moments are actually tiny pockets. An episode of the much-talked-about TV show...
Seth's Blog
The good news
What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing...
a year ago
What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing but nice things, positive feedback and encouragement coming your way? Amazingly, you could build something like that in just a few minutes and have it forever. If the bad news...
Seth's Blog
Taken for granted
A poignant definition of civilization is all the conveniences, courtesies, standards, insulation and...
3 months ago
A poignant definition of civilization is all the conveniences, courtesies, standards, insulation and tools that we hardly notice now but that we would miss if they were gone.
Stat Significant
How Have Song Lyrics Changed Since the 1960s? A Statistical Analysis
How have song lyrics evolved over time?
2 months ago
How have song lyrics evolved over time?
Seth's Blog
Peak infrastructure
Community resources are easy to take for granted. Unevenly distributed, they’re the sort of thing we...
10 months ago
Community resources are easy to take for granted. Unevenly distributed, they’re the sort of thing we miss only when they’re gone. Invisible things are easy to ignore. I was stunned to see a sign in Connecticut that listed the names of dozens of highway workers who had been killed...
Seth's Blog
The tooth fairy
Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were...
4 months ago
Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were sure of, but now, with the passage of time and the benefit of experience, you know to be incorrect or incomplete. Of course, it’s not just mythical creatures beloved by children....
Anarchy Unfolds
Age of Empires but make it Solarpunk
My favorite strategy game re-imagined
3 hours ago
My favorite strategy game re-imagined
Handprinted - Blog
Collagraph Printing
Collagraphy is a really versatile printing process in which a textured plate is inked up and put...
a year ago
Collagraphy is a really versatile printing process in which a textured plate is inked up and put through a press. Different textures hold varying amounts of ink and print different tones. Anything with a low relief texture can be stuck down and used: wallpaper, leaves, fabrics,...
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...
Blog - Mac Pierce
USB C to 12vDC Adaptors for Camera gear
Making converters to power all of my camera accessories off of USB-C
over a year ago
Making converters to power all of my camera accessories off of USB-C
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...
Open Culture
How Upside-Down Models Revolutionized Architecture, Making Possible St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sagrada...
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems...
a month ago
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems to be doing, as its ongoing construction realizes ever more fully a host of forms that look and feel not quite of this earth. It makes a kind of sense to learn that, in designing...
Open Culture
This 392-Year-Old Bonsai Tree Survived the Hiroshima Atomic Blast & Still Flourishes Today: The...
Image by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia Commons The beautiful bonsai tree pictured above–let’s call it the...
6 months ago
Image by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia Commons The beautiful bonsai tree pictured above–let’s call it the Yamaki Pine Bonsai–began its journey through the world back in 1625. That’s when the Yamaki family first began to train the tree, working patiently, generation after generation,...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rosanna Morris
I am an illustrator and printmaker, working mainly with relief. I work from my large studio on the...
8 months ago
I am an illustrator and printmaker, working mainly with relief. I work from my large studio on the top floor of an creative warehouse in east Bristol. I also run a courses, workshops and printmaking events.
Describe your printmaking process.
I usually start with a pencil...
Seth's Blog
What are you thinking about?
A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making...
4 months ago
A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making assertions, testing theories, understanding how others are thinking about it as well. But this exercise shouldn’t be reserved for academics. What are you working on? When will you change...
Anarchy Unfolds
May all roads lead to solarpunk
Letters to an anarchist - Part 8
3 weeks ago
Letters to an anarchist - Part 8
Seth's Blog
Password stupidity is no longer viable
[Of course, it’s not stupidity. It’s fear and superstition, which often go together. First, the...
a year ago
[Of course, it’s not stupidity. It’s fear and superstition, which often go together. First, the rant.] It’s 2023. Major corporations should not be posting rules like this: This is not just security theatre. It’s a waste of time, the math makes no sense and it leads people to...
Seth's Blog
“I don’t know”
Particularly when it comes to the future. And perhaps about the past. More often than not, we find...
a year ago
Particularly when it comes to the future. And perhaps about the past. More often than not, we find ourselves in situations where we don’t know. Where we can’t know. That’s a given. The open question is how often we claim that stance. If it feels uncomfortable or awkward to...
Seth's Blog
Purchase decisions
All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later… But it’s helpful to realize...
9 months ago
All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later… But it’s helpful to realize that all decisions involve a purchase. When we decide to spend time or take a risk or make a commitment, our brains act in a way very similar to how we choose to make a purchase....
Seth's Blog
Don’t know, don’t care
Clients and customers can be frustrating. Perhaps they don’t know what you know. Perhaps they don’t...
a year ago
Clients and customers can be frustrating. Perhaps they don’t know what you know. Perhaps they don’t care. It’s possible to educate and inspire. It might be more productive to find the few that want to go where you do.
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.
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “ignoring the election” edition
1. UK university fees going up (but not by enough to make the system work) For those of you not in...
a month ago
1. UK university fees going up (but not by enough to make the system work) For those of you not in the UK, the British system of university funding is a weird mash-mash of different stuff, cobbled together from the mistakes made by successive governments. When I was young, the...
Handprinted - Blog
In the Studio 2024
What a busy year in the studio! Thank you to everyone who has joined us for a workshop, event or...
3 days ago
What a busy year in the studio! Thank you to everyone who has joined us for a workshop, event or open access studio session. Let's take a look at what's being going on in the Handprinted Studio in 2024:
WORKSHOPS
2024 has been packed with workshops, taught by our team as well as...
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
The hard part first
If you’re trying to reduce risk, do the hard part first. That way, if it fails, you’ll have...
a year ago
If you’re trying to reduce risk, do the hard part first. That way, if it fails, you’ll have minimized your time and effort. On the other hand, if you’re looking for buy-in and commitment so you can through the hard part, do it last. People are terrible at ignoring sunk costs, and...
Open Culture
Explore Burj Al Babas, Turkey’s Abandoned Town of 587 Disney-Style Castles
Burj Al Babas might have been constructed expressly to attract the attention of the internet....
a month ago
Burj Al Babas might have been constructed expressly to attract the attention of the internet. “Sitting near the Black Sea, the town is full of half-finished, fully abandoned mini castles — 587 of them to be exact,” write Architectural Digest’s Katherine McLaughlin and Jessica...
Seth's Blog
The challenge of nonprofit fundraising
When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise...
8 months ago
When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise funds and get it off the ground. After that, though, the purpose of the business is completely aligned with the idea of not running out of money. We run a business to make money, not...
Stat Significant
What Makes a Movie Hateable? A Statistical Analysis
What makes a movie bad, and what makes a review of a bad movie?
a month ago
What makes a movie bad, and what makes a review of a bad movie?
Seth's Blog
Three sheet metaphors
Here’s a large blue bedsheet, queen sized. If we’re going to pull it taut, it will take the...
a year ago
Here’s a large blue bedsheet, queen sized. If we’re going to pull it taut, it will take the coordinated effort of eight people, each pulling just the right amount, from each corner and edge. If we’re going to billow it up and down, like a parachute, we’re going to need those...
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...
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.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: 2023 Round Up!
What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put...
a year ago
What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put together a round up for you with all of the wonderful advice our makers have given for creatives at any stage of their creative practice.
Pop your feet up, grab yourself a nice...
Open Culture
Ray Bradbury Wrote the First Draft of Fahrenheit 451 on Coin-Operated Typewriters, for a Total of...
Image by Alan Light, via Wikimedia Commons It sounds like a third grade math problem: “If Ray...
6 months ago
Image by Alan Light, via Wikimedia Commons It sounds like a third grade math problem: “If Ray Bradbury wrote the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 (1953) on a coin-operated typewriter that charged 10 cents for every 30 minutes, and he spent a total of $9.80, how many hours did it...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Strangford (Jo Pearson)
Hi! I’m Jo, working as a printmaker under the name 'Strangford' in Northern Ireland - though I’m...
6 months ago
Hi! I’m Jo, working as a printmaker under the name 'Strangford' in Northern Ireland - though I’m originally from South London.
Describe your printmaking process.
I make large, bright, unusual relief prints from my home studio; mostly of animals. I carve into flooring lino - it’s...
Open Culture
Hear Leo Tolstoy Read From His Last Major Work in Four Languages, 1909
In years past, we’ve brought you rare recordings of Sigmund Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in...
7 months ago
In years past, we’ve brought you rare recordings of Sigmund Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in English. Today we present a remarkable series of recordings of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy reading a passage from his book, Wise Thoughts for Every Day, in four...
Seth's Blog
“Let’s face it”
In 1959, three years after Columbia Records spent a fortune rolling out stereo recording, a senior...
12 months ago
In 1959, three years after Columbia Records spent a fortune rolling out stereo recording, a senior A&R executive named Ward Botsman told the New York Times, “Let’s face it, the craze for stereo has not been as intense as expected,” writing off the format that would end up...
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...
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...
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...
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.
Open Culture
How Filmmakers Make Cameras Disappear: Mirrors in Movies
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges...
2 months ago
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges are the creation of effects-laden spectacles: starships duking it out in space, monsters stomping through major cities, animals speaking and dancing like Broadway stars, that sort...
Seth's Blog
Misunderstanding bigness
IBM spent a fortune fighting calls for them to be broken up. So did AT&T and Microsoft. In all three...
4 months ago
IBM spent a fortune fighting calls for them to be broken up. So did AT&T and Microsoft. In all three cases, there’s plenty of evidence that they would have been better off if they had simply broken themselves up. Microsoft is still recovering and IBM never will. One computer...
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:
...
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,...
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
Beyond CRM
Many marketers spend time with their CRM systems. Expensive cloud-based tools that automate Customer...
7 months ago
Many marketers spend time with their CRM systems. Expensive cloud-based tools that automate Customer Relationship Management. Maybe customers don’t want to be managed. They probably don’t. It might be more useful to think of our most important work as customer relationship...
Seth's Blog
The seduction of “why”
It’s classic linkbait. Headlines that explain why something is happening. Questions to AI about why...
a year ago
It’s classic linkbait. Headlines that explain why something is happening. Questions to AI about why something happens. Even kids, asking their parents. Why is easy to sell. Why is hard to deliver. Consultants make a good living explaining the why. And media companies try to. But...
Open Culture
What’s Under London? Discover London’s Forbidden Underworld
When the words London and underground come together, the first thing that comes to most of our...
6 months ago
When the words London and underground come together, the first thing that comes to most of our minds, naturally, is the London Underground. But though it may enjoy the honorable distinction of the world’s first railway to run below the streets, the stalwart Tube is hardly the...
Anarchy Unfolds
Pride, noise, and fear
Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
3 months ago
Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
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