Seth's Blog
Is it possible to care at scale?
After 25 years, I stopped using a certain credit card for business. It was easily millions of...
a year ago
After 25 years, I stopped using a certain credit card for business. It was easily millions of dollars worth of transactions over that period. Did anyone at the company notice? Did anyone care? I still remember losing a client in 1987. Small organizations pay attention and care...
On the Arts
From Gothic Invaders to Mall Goths
How an ancient Germanic tribe gave its name to a modern subculture.
a year ago
How an ancient Germanic tribe gave its name to a modern subculture.
Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll x GiveDirectly
Read to the end for an AI cokehead
2 weeks ago
Read to the end for an AI cokehead
Seth's Blog
Noodling for professionals
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the...
7 months ago
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the recording studio. They created one of the bestselling and most important jazz albums of all time in less than a week. Of course, they’d been exploring for months. In clubs, in front of...
Marian's Blog
Visualizing 150000 butterflies from the Natural History Museum
Click here for the interactive visualization.
The Natural History Museum in London has a data portal...
over a year ago
Click here for the interactive visualization.
The Natural History Museum in London has a data portal in which they provide digital records for many of their specimens.
Some of these records have images.
I recently learned how to use machine learning tools such as convolutional...
Seth's Blog
Reality as reassurance
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an...
a year ago
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an invisible burden, until it’s not. Ignoring the changes in our climate makes our days easier, but not our years. We can avoid the bank balance, not work on the annual budget and ignore...
Seth's Blog
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
Drama at work
A divo (or diva) is an opera singer with skill. Sometimes, though, that skill comes in a package...
a year ago
A divo (or diva) is an opera singer with skill. Sometimes, though, that skill comes in a package that also includes imperiousness, skittishness and a fair amount of unpredictable drama. It’s tempting to imagine that CEOs, painters or poets that bring the noise must also have...
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 Alphabet Explained: The Origin of Every Letter
Think back, if you will, to the climactic scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which take...
4 months ago
Think back, if you will, to the climactic scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which take place in the hidden temple that contains the Holy Grail. His father having been shot by the dastardly Nazi-sympathizing immortality-seeker Walter Donovan, Indy has no choice but to...
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...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding the trap questions
A trick question is designed to fool us into proposing the wrong answer (example below). A trap...
5 months ago
A trick question is designed to fool us into proposing the wrong answer (example below). A trap question, on the other hand, stops the train completely. A trap question demands an answer, and the answer will paralyze us and keep us from the work at hand. “Yes, but how many...
Seth's Blog
The Pizza Principle
Good pizza is rare, even though the method to create it is well known. Any efforts to make it more...
a year ago
Good pizza is rare, even though the method to create it is well known. Any efforts to make it more convenient, cheaper or easier will almost always make it worse. If you think this post is about pizza, I’m afraid that we’re already stuck.
Seth's Blog
Customer traction is the hard part
A new business is complicated. It involves weaving together suppliers, partners, customers,...
a year ago
A new business is complicated. It involves weaving together suppliers, partners, customers, processes, technology, leases, employees, logos, capital and more. Along the way, it’s easy to get distracted, but focusing on the hard parts is a useful way to move forward. You could...
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.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Caroline Whitehead
I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with...
a year ago
I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with alternative forms of lithography (mokulito (wood litho), kitchen litho, prontoplate litho, waterless litho, gum transfer). I also make prints on clay. As well as making my own prints, I also...
The Great Discontent...
Brad Montague
Brad Montague is an illustrator, speaker, picture book author, video creator, and all-around maker....
3 months ago
Brad Montague is an illustrator, speaker, picture book author, video creator, and all-around maker. He’s a self-proclaimed dreamer and doer. Above all, he’s a storyteller, “working to create a better world for kids with kids” through Montague Workshop, the creative studio he runs...
The Last...
Ten Extra Seconds Would Have Saved True Detective's Finale
what could it mean?
You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a...
over a year ago
what could it mean?
You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a show been smarter than its writer. I submit as second evidence the season finale for The Bachelor that was on yesterday, for three hours, drawing ten million "people". Just...
Seth's Blog
What happened vs. what we do about it
It’s possible to have a useful conversation about what to do about something that’s broken or needs...
8 months ago
It’s possible to have a useful conversation about what to do about something that’s broken or needs improvement. But first, we must acknowledge that it happened. It’s not controversial to understand the facts, the data and the shifts that are happening in the world we live in. In...
Seth's Blog
The thought that counts
Well, maybe not. In 2024, worldwide gift card sales will pass a trillion dollars for the first time....
9 hours ago
Well, maybe not. In 2024, worldwide gift card sales will pass a trillion dollars for the first time. It’s a good grift. Surveys show that the buyer spends about 21% less per gift than they do when they actually buy something, while the recipients of the gift find themselves...
Open Culture
Meet Madame Inès Decourcelle, One of the Very First Female Taxi Drivers in Paris (Circa 1908)
If you can read this, you almost certainly know the French word for a professional automobile...
5 months ago
If you can read this, you almost certainly know the French word for a professional automobile driver. That’s because we use the same word in English: chauffeur. French nouns, unlike English ones, come in masculine and feminine varieties, and that -eur ending unmistakably...
The Last...
No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up
For some reason, one of the most emailed articles from the NYT was an article about whether women...
over a year ago
For some reason, one of the most emailed articles from the NYT was an article about whether women should or should not wear make up. "New York Times? Sounds progressive." Yes.
Seven
people were asked their opinion in a column called "Room For Debate,"
liars, there was no...
Open Culture
Ancient Egyptian Pyramids May Have Been Built with Water: A New Study Explore the Use of Hydraulic...
Image by Charles Sharp, via Wikimedia Commons The compelling but less-than-straightforward question...
4 months ago
Image by Charles Sharp, via Wikimedia Commons The compelling but less-than-straightforward question of how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids has inspired all manner of theory and speculation, grounded to varying degrees in physical reality. Sheer manpower must have played...
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
Modern apologies
The AI driven voice mail system said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.” Of course, there is no...
3 months ago
The AI driven voice mail system said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.” Of course, there is no “I” and by most definitions of sorry, it’s not. But it made me feel better. The overworked and slightly bitter front desk person who was the frontline flotsam in a poorly designed...
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
Some simple rules for source control
Collaborating on documents and projects has never been easier, which is why we screw it up so often....
2 months ago
Collaborating on documents and projects has never been easier, which is why we screw it up so often. Sharing and interacting with intent will save you heartache and wasted time. Some things to consider: Naming: Begin by naming your file with a digit and concept and a date....
Seth's Blog
Are you weather?
The thunderstorm doesn’t know we exist. Rain dances and wishes are ineffective at bringing or...
6 months ago
The thunderstorm doesn’t know we exist. Rain dances and wishes are ineffective at bringing or preventing a storm, because it isn’t caused by our actions. Metaphorical weather is tempting to mistake as a response. When someone cuts us off in traffic or doesn’t engage with us the...
Open Culture
The Enchanting Opera Performances of Klaus Nomi
After making one of the grandest entrances in music history on the stages of East Village clubs, the...
3 months ago
After making one of the grandest entrances in music history on the stages of East Village clubs, the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, and Saturday Night Live, theatrical German new wave space alien Klaus Nomi died alone in 1983, a victim of the “first beachhead of the AIDS...
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
The landlord and the creative coach
The conflict is real. “Jean-Michel [Basquiat] called,” Mr. Warhol wrote in his diary on Sept. 5,...
4 months ago
The conflict is real. “Jean-Michel [Basquiat] called,” Mr. Warhol wrote in his diary on Sept. 5, 1983. “He’s afraid he’s just going to be a flash in the pan. And I told him not to worry, that he wouldn’t be. But then I got scared because he’s rented our building on Great Jones...
Stat Significant
Unpacking the Rise of Fan Fiction: From 'Star Trek' to 'Twilight'—A Statistical Analysis
An exploration of modern fan fiction and the unique demography of its participants.
2 weeks ago
An exploration of modern fan fiction and the unique demography of its participants.
Seth's Blog
The right marketing question
The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?” The right...
a year ago
The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?” The right question is a little more nuanced and far more important, “We’re seeking to make a change in part of the world. How do we find the right people and tell them the right (true) story that...
Seth's Blog
Doing it step by step
I was surprised to discover that for many AI questions, if you add, “please figure this out step by...
5 months ago
I was surprised to discover that for many AI questions, if you add, “please figure this out step by step,” the AI will provide a dramatically more accurate and useful answer. This works on simple questions like, “how many times does the letter ‘r’ appear in the word ‘strawberry'”...
Seth's Blog
When was the last time you used a compass?
How about an astrolabe? Or even a watch? Technology advances, and sooner or later, the old stuff...
a year ago
How about an astrolabe? Or even a watch? Technology advances, and sooner or later, the old stuff gets left behind. It’s easy to romanticize some of the classic devices that we built civilization on, and it’s worth remembering that the tech we’re wrestling with now will soon be...
Seth's Blog
High fidelity
It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original...
a year ago
It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original recording. It might be the high fidelity of loyalty. No shopping around for a momentarily better deal. It might be the high fidelity of genre. This is just what you hoped it would...
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
Take good notes
Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes)...
a month ago
Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes) our understanding of the world. Good teachers are storytellers, and storytellers are teachers. Notes, then, aren’t recitations of facts. They’re story prompts. A good note reminds...
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
George Orwell’s Political Views, Explained in His Own Words
Among modern-day liberals and conservatives alike, George Orwell enjoys practically sainted status....
7 months ago
Among modern-day liberals and conservatives alike, George Orwell enjoys practically sainted status. And indeed, throughout his body of work, including but certainly not limited to his oft-assigned novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, one can find numerous implicitly or...
Handprinted - Blog
Sue Brown Paper Lithography Book Review
Our good friend Sue Brown has recently released her new book Paper Lithography! In this step-by-step...
a year ago
Our good friend Sue Brown has recently released her new book Paper Lithography! In this step-by-step guide Sue takes us through the process of making paper lithography prints using the humble photocopy as your plate.
Paper lithography is a quick and straightforward process that...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Eternal September
Plus: A little TPOT and a very good Christmas song
a week ago
Plus: A little TPOT and a very good Christmas song
Seth's Blog
Should we assume rational goodwill?
There’s often a choice between following the cultural dictates of a given group or seeking out...
a year ago
There’s often a choice between following the cultural dictates of a given group or seeking out demonstrable facts and the scientific method. Which do you expect most people would choose? Which would you choose? When we revert to a testable analysis of what works, we’re relying on...
Open Culture
Mythology Expert Reviews Depictions of Greek & Roman Myths in Popular Movies and TV Shows
It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most...
a month ago
It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most of us no longer believe in their literal existence, but some of us have faith in their box-office potential. This two-part video series from Vanity Fair examines a variety of movies...
Seth's Blog
Cheating at golf
Someone who cheats at a friendly game of golf when nothing much is at stake–how can you possibly...
a year ago
Someone who cheats at a friendly game of golf when nothing much is at stake–how can you possibly trust them with something important? And yet, organizations and individuals “cheat at golf” all the time. They put clever clauses in the fine print. Spam a media list. Conceal the...
Open Culture
Gustave Doré’s Macabre Illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)
One of the busiest, most in-demand artists of the 19th century, Gustave Doré made his name...
6 months ago
One of the busiest, most in-demand artists of the 19th century, Gustave Doré made his name illustrating works by such authors as Rabelais, Balzac, Milton, and Dante. In the 1860s, he created one of the most memorable and popular illustrated editions of Cervantes’ Don Quixote,...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “rapid evolution of form” edition
1. Why should Trump deliver for anyone but Trump? This Bloomberg piece forgets one important fact:...
2 weeks ago
1. Why should Trump deliver for anyone but Trump? This Bloomberg piece forgets one important fact: Donald Trump is not going to be on the ticket next time. He doesn’t have to deliver a dime for ordinary voters, and will act accordingly. 2. You can now sync Apple Passwords with...
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...
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Olesya Dzhurayeva
I am Olesya Dzhurayeva, Ukrainian artist. I was born in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, but I...
5 months ago
I am Olesya Dzhurayeva, Ukrainian artist. I was born in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, but I moved to Ukraine as a child. Now I live in Kyiv. Despite the war, I am staying in Ukraine and continue to work.
I am an active member of the international printmaking community,...
Seth's Blog
Choose your customers
…choose your future. It’s an odd way to think about your project, your job, your startup, but...
a year ago
…choose your future. It’s an odd way to think about your project, your job, your startup, but there’s little that matters more. There are two key elements: At one extreme is the first few years of Google’s growth. The salesforce didn’t matter–the customers showed up on their own,...
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...
Seth's Blog
Fingerprints
If a jacket is made by Patagonia or a piece of hardware is made by Teenage Engineering, you can...
7 months ago
If a jacket is made by Patagonia or a piece of hardware is made by Teenage Engineering, you can probably tell who made it the first time you see it, even without a logo. A painting by Sonia Delaunay doesn’t need to be signed to know who it’s by. On the other hand, AppleTV streams...
escape the algorithm
Be specific
Ode to ᵗᶦⁿʸ ᵗᵒᵒˡˢ
11 months ago
Blog - Mac Pierce
Bits and bobs, some of the small projects I've been working on.
Rounding up a few smaller projects I’ve been working on here and there.
over a year ago
Rounding up a few smaller projects I’ve been working on here and there.
Open Culture
The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors...
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from...
a month ago
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.” Featuring 825 colors, each associated with different types of mushrooms, the interactive atlas lets you appreciate the broad spectrum of colors latent in the...
The Last...
Hunger Games Catching Fire: Badass Body Count
sorry old man, I have a dress fitting to go to
Number of people killed: 15
Number of...
over a year ago
sorry old man, I have a dress fitting to go to
Number of people killed: 15
Number of people Katniss kills: 1
Number of times she is saved by someone else: 6
Number of times she saves someone else: 0
But boy oh boy, wasn't she spectacular at practice, 9 targets in 30...
Seth's Blog
Decisions as effort
Why are we more likely to get tasks done than to take on new initiatives? Checking something off a...
2 months ago
Why are we more likely to get tasks done than to take on new initiatives? Checking something off a to-do list requires far less emotional energy than adding something to the list was in the first place. As is often the case, “resistance” is the answer. It’s easy to type a book,...
Open Culture
Get Unlimited Access to Courses & Certificates: Coursera Is Offering 40% (or $159) Off of Coursera...
A heads-up on a deal: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its...
a month ago
A heads-up on a deal: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $239.40) gives you access to 7,000+ courses for one all-inclusive...
Handprinted - Blog
Making a Multi-Block Linocut
A multi-block linocut uses more than one piece of lino to create a layered image. Usually, each...
a year ago
A multi-block linocut uses more than one piece of lino to create a layered image. Usually, each block is inked with a separate colour. Where the colours overlap, another colour can be achieved.
Multi-block linocuts allow you to partially print an edition and create complete...
Open Culture
Stephen King Names His Five Favorite Works by Stephen King
Stephen King has no doubt forgotten writing more books than most of us will ever publish. But even...
6 months ago
Stephen King has no doubt forgotten writing more books than most of us will ever publish. But even now, in his prolific “late career,” if you ask him to name his own most favored works, he can do it without hesitation. Stephen Colbert tried that out a few years ago on The Late...
Seth's Blog
Freedom of attitude
There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating...
a year ago
There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating and is reliably busy. The other has an astonishingly low 1.5 out of 5 rating. The physical plant is virtually identical, and the marketing and promo are the same. The only difference...
Seth's Blog
Transitions are difficult
They’re risky (unknown territory leads to unforeseen outcomes) and a very recent phenomenon. A kid...
10 months ago
They’re risky (unknown territory leads to unforeseen outcomes) and a very recent phenomenon. A kid dropped off at pre-school, a new boss, a food you’re not familiar with. None of this was common for most of pre-history. When the transition occurs, we’re tempted to direct our...
Open Culture
Google Launches a New Course Called “AI Essentials”: Learn How to Use Generative AI Tools to...
This week, Google announced the launch of Google AI Essentials, a new self-paced course designed to...
7 months ago
This week, Google announced the launch of Google AI Essentials, a new self-paced course designed to help people learn AI skills that can boost their productivity. Taught by Google’s AI experts, and assuming no prior knowledge of programming, the course ventures to show students...
Seth's Blog
Wrestling, fighting or dancing?
We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we...
a year ago
We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we can dance with someone else as we seek a mutual way forward. Fighting tends to be more brutal, final and hurtful than is often productive. You don’t want to spend your days...
Open Culture
What It Takes to Pass “the Knowledge,” the “Insanely Hard” Exam to Become a London Taxicab Driver
Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab...
4 months ago
Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab driver is no mean feat. Tony Walker, one of the series’ most memorable participants, was selected at the age of seven from an East End primary school, already distinguished as a...
Handprinted - Blog
Printing with Heat Stamps
If you haven’t tried printing with Heat Stamps yet, this is your new project. It’s really quick to...
a year ago
If you haven’t tried printing with Heat Stamps yet, this is your new project. It’s really quick to create a unique block that can be reused again and again to create different textures and patterns.
All you need is a heat gun and a variety of objects and surfaces to create your...
Seth's Blog
How to change the world
All successful cultural change (books, movies, public health), has a super-simple two-step loop:...
a year ago
All successful cultural change (books, movies, public health), has a super-simple two-step loop: AWARENESSTENSION–>Loop<– It’s easy to focus on awareness. Get the word out. Hype. Promo. I think that’s a mistake. Because awareness without tension is useless. The tension is like...
Seth's Blog
Play fair & work hard
Two of the building blocks of a resilient society. And the opposite of the lazy shortcut. The...
7 months ago
Two of the building blocks of a resilient society. And the opposite of the lazy shortcut. The meanings of both clauses change over time… Play fair: Work hard: Social media and politics have done a great job of celebrating people who seek selfish shortcuts, simply because it’s...
Open Culture
Hear Moby Dick Read in Its Entirety by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Stephen Fry...
Image of Moby Dick by David Austen. In 2013, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read,...
2 months ago
Image of Moby Dick by David Austen. In 2013, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read, promising a full audiobook of Herman Melville’s influential novel, with famous (and not so famous) voices taking on a chapter each. When we first wrote about it here, only six...
Open Culture
How Magician David Copperfield Made the Statue of Liberty Disappear (1983)
In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the...
a month ago
In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, straight into thin air. If you’re north of 50, you perhaps remember the spectacle. How did he do it? 40 years later, the YouTube channel Mind Blown Magic...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Coding my Handwriting
Coding my handwriting in Javascript - how I did it and what I’m doing with
it.
7 months ago
Coding my handwriting in Javascript - how I did it and what I’m doing with
it.
Seth's Blog
Three things about innovation
New approaches will never be embraced by everyone at first. If you need unanimous consent, you’re...
a year ago
New approaches will never be embraced by everyone at first. If you need unanimous consent, you’re not going to move forward. And it’s not convenient. If it were, someone would have done it already. Finally, it’s not sure to work. If you need any or all three of these things for...
Seth's Blog
Getting to no
“Yes” is magical. It brings possibility and forward motion. But it’s almost impossible without “no”...
a year ago
“Yes” is magical. It brings possibility and forward motion. But it’s almost impossible without “no” and no can be just as frightening. First, there’s the no of “I can’t go for that.” The no of refusing to race to the bottom, the no of avoiding the selfish hustle, the no of...
Seth's Blog
Stopping a runaway train
It feels urgent because it is. But by the time the train is running away, it might be too late. The...
4 months ago
It feels urgent because it is. But by the time the train is running away, it might be too late. The better strategy is to not sign up for trains that are likely to run away. The first principle of risk reduction is to figure out if you can stop it later. If you can’t, […]
Marian's Blog
Faster Than Life – Global Game Jam 2019 Project
Like in the previous year, I took part in the Global Game Jam.
I joined a team of six programmers,...
over a year ago
Like in the previous year, I took part in the Global Game Jam.
I joined a team of six programmers, unfortunately there was a shortage of artists this year.
During the 48 hour jam, we made a space game that is inspired by Faster Than Light.
You travel through...
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
Digital stocking stuffers (and the other kind)
Ever since O. Henry wrote about the Magi, it’s been pretty clear that gifts aren’t about the stuff...
a year ago
Ever since O. Henry wrote about the Magi, it’s been pretty clear that gifts aren’t about the stuff as much as they are the intent. Holidays where gifts are expected undermine this, because it’s hard to tell where obligation begins and intent fades away. One lightweight and quick...
Marian's Blog
3D printed model of my neighborhood
I 3D printed a model of the street where I live. This post will explain how I prepared the data for...
over a year ago
I 3D printed a model of the street where I live. This post will explain how I prepared the data for it.
Update: I have now automated the entire process and published my code. You can find it here.
I worked with aerial Lidar data that is provided by the state I live in to download...
Seth's Blog
Bought or sold?
Most things that consumers acquire are bought, not sold. We decide we’re interested in something and...
a year ago
Most things that consumers acquire are bought, not sold. We decide we’re interested in something and we go shopping to get it. Potato chips, wedding venues and cars are all purchased by people who set out to get them. Selling is a special sort of marketing. It’s interactive,...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rachel Snowdon
Hello! I’m Rachel Snowdon of Rachel Snowdon Studio, a London-born relief printmaker and illustrator...
3 months ago
Hello! I’m Rachel Snowdon of Rachel Snowdon Studio, a London-born relief printmaker and illustrator who has been based in West Devon since 2009.
Describe your printmaking process.
Having recently introduced more colour into my designs, multi-block lino printing is probably...
Seth's Blog
Default to surrender
AI chatbots highight a challenge that is worth understanding. It applies to customer service,...
9 months ago
AI chatbots highight a challenge that is worth understanding. It applies to customer service, bureaucracies and teachers as well… If you ask an AI a question and it’s not confident in the answer, it should say, “I’m not sure.” That could be followed up with, “do you want me to...
Seth's Blog
Practical approaches for more effective teamwork
Give credit, take responsibility Get aligned on timeframes Insist on a spec, write one, improve it...
3 months ago
Give credit, take responsibility Get aligned on timeframes Insist on a spec, write one, improve it Agree on a budget Keep a calendar Don’t hold a grudge Speak up clearly and generously Show your work Share your fears Make promises and keep them Do the reading Talk about people...
Open Culture
Coursera Offers 30% Off of Coursera Plus (Until September 30), Giving You Unlimited Access to...
As the new school year gets underway, millions of students are heading back to classrooms. And you...
3 months ago
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, Coursera Plus...
Open Culture
How the Ancient Greeks & Romans Made Beautiful Purple Dye from Snail Glands
Much has been written about the loss of color in the twenty-first century. Our environments offered...
6 months ago
Much has been written about the loss of color in the twenty-first century. Our environments offered practically every color known to man not so very long ago — and in certain eras, granted, it got to be a bit much. But now, everything seems to have retreated to a narrow palette...
Seth's Blog
Useful assumptions for teachers
Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment....
a year ago
Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment. Either someone is committed to learning or they’re not. While many situations place people into a spot where they are compelled to show up (exhibit A: learning arithmetic in grade...
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...
Seth's Blog
Who owns your words?
There are many ways to ask and answer this question. Authorship used to be rare, but now, all of us...
2 weeks ago
There are many ways to ask and answer this question. Authorship used to be rare, but now, all of us write something. If you’re putting your words on a social media platform, you might be surprised to discover that they could disappear at any moment. Some platforms acknowledge...
Seth's Blog
The four cohorts of the status quo
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around...
10 months ago
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around it. The second group cares about stability. They have limited bandwidth, and they’re not particularly interested in reconsidering everything, all the time. The third group doesn’t...
Seth's Blog
The catfight and the construction site
We’re quick to stop to see the car wreck, the billionaire having a meltdown, or the professional...
a year ago
We’re quick to stop to see the car wreck, the billionaire having a meltdown, or the professional wrestlers pretending to be political leaders. But it often seems more difficult to take a moment to watch people building something that matters instead. We’ll probably spend billions...
Open Culture
Explore and Download 14,000+ Woodcuts from Antwerp’s Plantin-Moretus Museum Online Archive
We appreciate illuminated manuscripts and historical books here on Open Culture, adhere though we do...
3 weeks ago
We appreciate illuminated manuscripts and historical books here on Open Culture, adhere though we do to a much more restrained aesthetic style in our own texts. But that’s not to deny the temptation to start this paragraph with one of those oversized initial letters that grew...
On the Arts
Gore Vidal Was Everywhere and Now He Is Nowhere
The literary afterlife of "...an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and...
a year ago
The literary afterlife of "...an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right."
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...
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...
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....
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
Sufficient resolution
Robert Johnson is known as the king of the Delta blues. One reason is that his small output was...
a year ago
Robert Johnson is known as the king of the Delta blues. One reason is that his small output was brilliant. The other, bigger reason is that the recordings that remain of his short life are among the earliest that sound good… most audio recordings from before 1936 sound antique...
Handprinted - Blog
How to Design and Print a Half Drop Repeating Pattern
A half drop is a great way of creating a repeating pattern where the repeat is slightly obscured. It...
a year ago
A half drop is a great way of creating a repeating pattern where the repeat is slightly obscured. It can make for a less gridded-looking structure and add complexity to your design. Here's a simple, analogue way to make one.
Start by drawing around your block. We are...
Seth's Blog
Scaffolds and talent
Kindergarten teachers matter more than you think. Chess isn’t a talent, it’s a learned practice....
a year ago
Kindergarten teachers matter more than you think. Chess isn’t a talent, it’s a learned practice. We’re sorting for head starts, not growth. And that’s just the first chapter. I think Hidden Potential is the most important book in Adam Grant’s career. The indoctrination around...
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.
Seth's Blog
Unfettered
That’s unlikely. You’re rarely going to get the freedom and resources to do your best work...
a year ago
That’s unlikely. You’re rarely going to get the freedom and resources to do your best work unfettered. The hard part (and the opportunity) is to figure out how to get comfortable with fettered. Because fettered is what’s on offer. Boundaries and scarcity aren’t simply...
Seth's Blog
You’ve already failed
No project is going to exactly match every hope you have for it. And even before you ship the work,...
2 weeks ago
No project is going to exactly match every hope you have for it. And even before you ship the work, you’ve already succeeded. No project is totally worthless. So, given that failure and success are on a spectrum, at least partly out of our control, the real question is: Now that...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Chaos in the medium: watercolour plotting
Over the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with painting in watercolours using my AxiDraw...
6 months ago
Over the past few weeks, I've been experimenting with painting in watercolours using my AxiDraw plotter. Watercolour is a medium I enjoy painting in (by hand) as a personal hobby, kind of separate from my public art making, so it’s been interesting to combine it with code. I’ve...
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...
Seth's Blog
A next frontier for spam and scams
Please be on the alert for: Spam that includes your name, address, phone number and other personal...
3 months ago
Please be on the alert for: Spam that includes your name, address, phone number and other personal details. Phone calls that are from human-sounding bots that pretend to be from friends or trusted brands. Job offers. Video mashups that include AI-generated people that seem to be...
Open Culture
How Editing Saved Ferris Bueller’s Day Off & Made It a Classic
“In our salad days, we are ripe for a particular movie that will linger, deathlessly, long after the...
4 months ago
“In our salad days, we are ripe for a particular movie that will linger, deathlessly, long after the greenness has gone,” writes the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane in a recent piece on movies in the eighties. “When a friend turned to me after the first twenty minutes of Ferris...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker - Angela Hall
My name is Angela Hall, I’m an artist and silkscreen printer based in North Yorkshire, and I have...
8 months ago
My name is Angela Hall, I’m an artist and silkscreen printer based in North Yorkshire, and I have been making and selling my limited-edition prints for the last 5 years from my studio, specialised print events and regional galleries.
My creative journey started with a degree in...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Madder Cutch & Co.
We are screen printers. We presume everyone knows that this is pushing ink through a mesh, which has...
over a year ago
We are screen printers. We presume everyone knows that this is pushing ink through a mesh, which has a pattern on it, using a squeegee. In our case, the screen and squeegee are quite big!
We print linen by the metre and it is mainly used for home decorations, including...
Seth's Blog
Stumbling in the dark
Learning is complicated. While we’re doing it, it’s easy to imagine that those around us are...
11 months ago
Learning is complicated. While we’re doing it, it’s easy to imagine that those around us are completely sure of themselves, moving forward in a well-lit space. In fact, if you visit a growing company, a useful school or anywhere that growth is happening, you’ll quickly see that...
Open Culture
Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Living Virtuously (1930)
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life...
a month ago
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life concerned with big topics in logic, mathematics, politics, and society, but that didn’t keep him from thinking seriously about how to handle his own day-to-day relationships. That hardly...
Seth's Blog
A good idea, well executed
Why isn’t this enough? There are plenty of good ideas, easy to learn from and copy. There are...
11 months ago
Why isn’t this enough? There are plenty of good ideas, easy to learn from and copy. There are countless projects, well executed, with the steps on display. Any entrepreneur could find a local business and bring a version of it from over here to over there. And a social change...
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.
Open Culture
The Origins of Anime: Watch Early Japanese Animations (1917 to 1931)
Japanese animation, AKA anime, might be filled with large-eyed maidens, way cool robots, and...
8 months ago
Japanese animation, AKA anime, might be filled with large-eyed maidens, way cool robots, and large-eyed, way cool maiden/robot hybrids, but it often shows a level of daring, complexity and creativity not typically found in American mainstream animation. And the form has spawned...
Stat Significant
How Long Does Music Stardom Last? A Statistical Analysis
When do music stars achieve fame, and how long does fame typically last?
4 months ago
When do music stars achieve fame, and how long does fame typically last?
Open Culture
Behold a Creative Animation of the Bayeux Tapestry
In previous centuries, unless you were a member of the nobility, a wealthy religious order, or a...
3 months ago
In previous centuries, unless you were a member of the nobility, a wealthy religious order, or a merchant guild, your chances of spending any significant amount of time with a Medieval tapestry were slim. Though “much production was relatively coarse, intended for decorative...
Stat Significant
How Streaming Elevated (and Ruined) Documentaries: A Statistical Analysis
Unpacking streaming's embrace and erosion of non-fiction storytelling.
2 months ago
Unpacking streaming's embrace and erosion of non-fiction storytelling.
Seth's Blog
The hard parts (and the important parts)
The hard parts of what you do all day can feel fraught. It’s heavy lifting. Emergencies. Dangerous...
4 months ago
The hard parts of what you do all day can feel fraught. It’s heavy lifting. Emergencies. Dangerous labor. The stakes are high and the work can be difficult. The important parts of what you do all day are valuable to someone else. This is what you’re getting paid for–solving a...
Seth's Blog
Throwing shade or throwing light?
One takes a little more effort than the other. While throwing shade might be more fun, it eventually...
a year ago
One takes a little more effort than the other. While throwing shade might be more fun, it eventually runs out of energy. It’s designed to end conversations, not start them, to intimidate, not encourage. Turning on lights helps everyone.
Seth's Blog
The paradox of lessons
The people most likely to sign up for coaching or additional learning are the folks who are already...
5 months ago
The people most likely to sign up for coaching or additional learning are the folks who are already good at their craft. “I’m terrible at this,” can lead to, “and I don’t want to be reminded of it.” Or perhaps, “I don’t want to waste their time,” or, “I’m never going to get...
Seth's Blog
Ice sculpture
There are very few activities that are fully reversible. Ice sculpture might be one of them. Once...
a month ago
There are very few activities that are fully reversible. Ice sculpture might be one of them. Once the ice melts, all the effort and information is lost, and refreezing lets you begin again with a new, fresh block of ice. Of course, it’s not completely gone. The thing you made...
Open Culture
An Oscar-Winning Animation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” Painted on 29,000 Frames...
Ernest Hemingway’s romantic adventure of man and marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, has perhaps spent...
4 months ago
Ernest Hemingway’s romantic adventure of man and marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, has perhaps spent more time on high school freshman English reading lists than any other work of fiction, which might lead one to think of the novel as young adult fiction. But beyond the book’s...
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...
Open Culture
Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization...
I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term...
a month ago
I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term of dread for the many government and corporate agencies that have an inordinate amount of power over our permanent records, and that seem as inscrutable and chillingly absurd as...
Seth's Blog
Banana Equivalents
Bananas are (slightly) radioactive. The banana equivalent dose (BED) is a measurement of radiation....
3 months ago
Bananas are (slightly) radioactive. The banana equivalent dose (BED) is a measurement of radiation. It’s definitely not enough to hurt you. When we think about risk, the BED is a useful way to find perspective. Is the exposure this new thing will cause on the order of a banana?...
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.
Open Culture
Public.Work: A Smoothly Searchable Archive of 100,000+ “Copyright-Free” Images
We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our...
4 months ago
We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our imagination. These days, this notion tends to refer to artificial intelligence-powered systems that generate visual material from text prompts, like DALL‑E and the many others that...
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...
Open Culture
Orson Welles Narrates Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner in an Experimental Film Featuring the...
Around here we subscribe to the theory that there’s no such thing as too much Orson Welles. In years...
2 months ago
Around here we subscribe to the theory that there’s no such thing as too much Orson Welles. In years past, we gave you Welles narrating Plato’s Cave Allegory and Kafka’s “Before the Law,” and, before that, the Welles-narrated parable Freedom River, and the list goes on. Now, we...
Seth's Blog
A long time is not the same as never
It might feel like an endless slog now, but when the innovation appears, people won’t remember how...
a year ago
It might feel like an endless slog now, but when the innovation appears, people won’t remember how long it took to get here. Often, we assume that today’s snapshot is actually the entire movie, but it rarely is.
Seth's Blog
Your audiobook
Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project...
3 months ago
Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project is about to launch, when a meeting has been successful, when the sun is shining… take your phone and go for a walk. Hit record on an audio app and make a twenty-minute audiobook....
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Michelle Hughes
I’m a printmaker and illustrator, living in York, North Yorkshire. I create limited edition linocut...
a year ago
I’m a printmaker and illustrator, living in York, North Yorkshire. I create limited edition linocut prints inspired by the British countryside and British wildlife.
Describe your printmaking process.
When I started making lino prints I used SoftCut lino and a wooden spoon to...
Seth's Blog
Jump in the lake
The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a...
10 months ago
The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a swim. But it’s also a hassle. You need to change your clothes, find someone to guard, bring a towel and most of all, gasp at the transition when the cold water hits. And yet… no one...
On the Arts
Winter as Reading Season
David Foster Wallace on the necessity of quiet time in order to read.
a year ago
David Foster Wallace on the necessity of quiet time in order to read.
Open Culture
A 5‑Hour Journey Through North Korean Entertainment: Propaganda Films, Kids’ Cartoons, Sketch Comedy...
Over the second half of the twentieth century, South Korea became rich, and in the first decades of...
7 months ago
Over the second half of the twentieth century, South Korea became rich, and in the first decades of the twenty-first, it’s become a global cultural superpower. The same can’t be said for North Korea: after a relatively strong start in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, its economy...
On the Arts
How do you actually create AI art?
A Walkthrough of Using Midjourney, a Popular AI Art Creation App
a year ago
A Walkthrough of Using Midjourney, a Popular AI Art Creation App
Anarchy Unfolds
Genshin Impact & the appeal of open-world games
I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact lately.
2 months ago
I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact lately.
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Ieuan Edwards
I’m a linocut printmaker and illustrator based in Broadstairs on the Isle of Thanet in Kent, which...
a year ago
I’m a linocut printmaker and illustrator based in Broadstairs on the Isle of Thanet in Kent, which is home to a good few other lino folks and a thriving and supportive art scene in general.
Describe your printmaking process.
I tend to print fairly small runs of reduction linocut...
Seth's Blog
Reclaiming “fiasco”
Usually modified with “total,” the failure might not be as bad as we fear. The origin of the word...
4 months ago
Usually modified with “total,” the failure might not be as bad as we fear. The origin of the word probably comes from Italian, a long time ago. The person who loses a round in a game has to buy the next bottle for the group (from: flask). Which means that there is going to be […]
Infinite Scroll
Get a Discount on Infinite Scroll
Limited time! 30% off paid access to Infinite Scroll
a month ago
Limited time! 30% off paid access to Infinite Scroll
Open Culture
Hear Flannery O’Connor Read “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1959)
Flannery O’Connor was a Southern writer who, as Joyce Carol Oates once said, had less in common with...
8 months ago
Flannery O’Connor was a Southern writer who, as Joyce Carol Oates once said, had less in common with Faulkner than with Kafka and Kierkegaard. Isolated by poor health and consumed by her fervent Catholic faith, O’Connor created works of moral fiction that, according to Oates,...
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...
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
The paradox of brittle
Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the...
2 months ago
Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the short-run, optimization works as long as the world stays the same. We can optimize a device to work at capacity. However, something working at capacity blows up if you step on the gas when...
Seth's Blog
The ledge
Drowning is devastating, a tragic and painful way to go. So much so that feeling like we’re drowning...
3 months ago
Drowning is devastating, a tragic and painful way to go. So much so that feeling like we’re drowning is a trigger, an overwhelming emotion that causes us to grasp, struggle and leave our best self behind. It’s easy to experience this even when we’re out of the water. When the...
On the Arts
What are Liminal Spaces? And why are they so popular?
“Liminal spaces” have become trendy in recent years, especially on TikTok, Tumblr, and YouTube. But...
a year ago
“Liminal spaces” have become trendy in recent years, especially on TikTok, Tumblr, and YouTube. But what makes a space liminal? And why are they so popular lately?
Seth's Blog
The absence of proof
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and...
a year ago
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and build community. Our personal taste and our preferences belong to us as well, helping us believe in ourselves. For millennia, belief thrived in most parts of our lives. We didn’t...
Seth's Blog
Becoming intentional about virtual meetings
A manual I recently read listed the “cons” of having a meeting virtually: To be accurate, every one...
9 months ago
A manual I recently read listed the “cons” of having a meeting virtually: To be accurate, every one of these points should have “so far” added. The videogame market is far bigger than the box office of Hollywood films. The people who play video games at home for hours at a time...
The Great Discontent...
Tony Whlgn®
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 Let’s start at the beginning—back to the environment where you grew up....
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Matt Hooper
My name is Matt Hooper and I’m a relief printmaker working from my rather compact studio I built in...
2 months ago
My name is Matt Hooper and I’m a relief printmaker working from my rather compact studio I built in the garden of my home in a town just outside Leeds. I’m a self taught artist and printmaker, ironically having being in the print industry for 32 years. I left school at 16 with no...
Seth's Blog
The lonely zone
For many, the goal is to be the deciding vote, the donation that gets a cause over the goal, the...
a year ago
For many, the goal is to be the deciding vote, the donation that gets a cause over the goal, the person who counts. And often, we enjoy piling on. Once the cause or fashion or tech is clearly working, it’s easy and fun to say “me too.” More rare, more vulnerable and more...
Seth's Blog
Project management
A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of...
a year ago
A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of value. Showing up on time for a meeting is a project (airlines! traffic! weather!) and so is building a skyscraper. That next podcast you’re going to publish is a project, and so is...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker Round-Up 2024!
It has been another incredible year of printmaking inspiration. We've put together a round-up of all...
a week ago
It has been another incredible year of printmaking inspiration. We've put together a round-up of all our fantastic Meet the Maker artists from 2024, alongside their advice or inspiration for other printmakers. Read through for a wholesome dose of printmaking magic, and click...
Handprinted - Blog
Blind Embossing with Lino
Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds...
8 months ago
Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds subtle texture and interest. Emboss prints ‘blind’ (without ink) or combine with inked lino for a complex final print.
Prepare the design. These white pencils are brilliant for...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Moïra Swann
Bonjour everyone! Moïra Swann is an English and Proustian adaptation from my real name Anne-Marie:...
over a year ago
Bonjour everyone! Moïra Swann is an English and Proustian adaptation from my real name Anne-Marie: while Anne-Marie lives in France and works full-time in a wonderful museum dedicated to the French painter Anne-Louis Girodet, Moïra Swann does lino printing whenever she can, as an...
Seth's Blog
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
Them or us?
What kind of culture will we build? At work, in our community, online? Each of us builds culture...
8 months ago
What kind of culture will we build? At work, in our community, online? Each of us builds culture every time we interact with anyone else. Opting out isn’t possible, all we can do is decide what sort of impact and contribution we’re each going to make. It’s tempting to say, “they”...
Open Culture
The Final Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured in Rare Footage from 1910
114 years ago today (November 20, 1910), Leo Tolstoy—the author who gave us two major Russian...
a month ago
114 years ago today (November 20, 1910), Leo Tolstoy—the author who gave us two major Russian classics Anna Karenina and War & Peace—died at Astapovo, a small, remote train station in the heart of Russia. Pneumonia was the official cause. His death came just weeks after Tolstoy,...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date” Edition
1. Who rules us? Google changed its rules on what kind of behaviour it regards as “spam” and, of...
4 weeks ago
1. Who rules us? Google changed its rules on what kind of behaviour it regards as “spam” and, of course, the impact on some companies will be pretty negative. The behaviour it is targeting is so-called “parasite SEO”, where a publisher allows a third party to create content for...
Seth's Blog
Getting better at bucket management
If you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. Pour a...
a year ago
If you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. Pour a bucketful of sake into one of those little glasses and you’ll waste most of it and ruin the table setting. And try to use a bucket to refill a dried-out lake and not much will happen. […]
Seth's Blog
Which team?
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a...
a year ago
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a whole bunch of time gets saved, and fear is reduced as well. The labeling goes beyond which team, cadre, tribe or village someone is part of. It extends to the ways we demonstrate...
Seth's Blog
Opening the pod bay door
A brand new episode of Akimbo this week, all about artificial intelligence. Part one of of two on...
a year ago
A brand new episode of Akimbo this week, all about artificial intelligence. Part one of of two on mediocrity and the choices we’re going to need to make. And, a while in the making, an experimental AI chat bot that has been trained on all 5,000,000 words of this blog. You can...
Open Culture
The Amazing Engineering of Roman Baths
Few depictions of ancient Roman life neglect to reference all the time ancient Romans spent at the...
6 months ago
Few depictions of ancient Roman life neglect to reference all the time ancient Romans spent at the baths. One gets the impression that their civilization was obsessed with cleanliness, in contrast to most of the societies found around the world at the time, but that turns out...
Open Culture
Moebius Gives 18 Wisdom-Filled Tips to Aspiring Artists
Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, was a comic book artist who combined blinding speed with boundless...
3 months ago
Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, was a comic book artist who combined blinding speed with boundless imagination. He shaped the look of Alien, Empire Strikes Back and The Fifth Element. He reimagined the Silver Surfer for Stan Lee. And he is an acknowledged influence on everyone from...
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
Twelve days until the first worldwide strategy meetup
There are now 280 cities being organized. You can find the list and all the details by clicking...
2 months ago
There are now 280 cities being organized. You can find the list and all the details by clicking here. It’s free, and it works better when you become a part of it. Find the others. Connect, inspire and lead. It’s a great excuse to organize some friends and colleagues and have a...
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...
Blog - Mac Pierce
+ / - , Actualization
Reposting some writing I did a while back on the subject of how additive
manufacturing is...
over a year ago
Reposting some writing I did a while back on the subject of how additive
manufacturing is necessarily a destructive process.
The Last...
The Maintenance Of Certification Exam As Fetish
no need to wait for the receipt
(I had reworked an old post for a psychiatry trade journal, which I...
over a year ago
no need to wait for the receipt
(I had reworked an old post for a psychiatry trade journal, which I would happily have linked you to, except that page 2 is behind a login wall. So here is the version I submitted before the editors edited it, slightly longer with more typos. I am...
Seth's Blog
Allocating scarcity
If we’re lucky, we invent something that’s going to be in high demand. Reservations at a hot...
a year ago
If we’re lucky, we invent something that’s going to be in high demand. Reservations at a hot restaurant. Limited edition trading cards. Concert tickets… How to decide who gets them? One attractive option is “first-come-first-served.” It feels fair, after all. The theory is that...
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
The spark
No matter how big your backpack is, you can’t carry a bonfire with you when you go on a camping...
a year ago
No matter how big your backpack is, you can’t carry a bonfire with you when you go on a camping trip. A match is sufficient. Conversations are like that. Conversations are the tools that change our culture. Someone who cares talking with and teaching and learning from someone who...
Seth's Blog
After the meteorite
When it slams into your house and destroys it, we’re likely to pursue one of two lines of thinking:...
a year ago
When it slams into your house and destroys it, we’re likely to pursue one of two lines of thinking: –How did I cause this? What choices did I make, what mistakes did I permit, why did I deserve to have this damage, or who can I blame? –Well, that happened, now what should I do?...
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
Consider switching sides
One of the spokespeople for the new milk marketing campaign confessed that she doesn’t really like...
a year ago
One of the spokespeople for the new milk marketing campaign confessed that she doesn’t really like drinking milk. Sales are way down, and an entire generation is drinking other beverages. Other than the people who are paid to sell or lobby for milk sales, few people are...
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
How the Hugely Acclaimed Shōgun TV Series Makes Translation Interesting
Many of us grew up seeing hardback copies of Shōgun on various domestic bookshelves. Whether their...
3 months ago
Many of us grew up seeing hardback copies of Shōgun on various domestic bookshelves. Whether their owners ever actually got through James Clavell’s famously hefty novel of seventeenth-century Japan is open to question, but they may well have seen the first television adaptation,...
Seth's Blog
Finding the others
Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer...
a year ago
Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer support, brainstorming, community workshops, coaching, dailies and more. Distributed work doesn’t have to be disconnected work. Freelancing, creating, and leading can feel solitary,...
Open Culture
Steven Spielberg Calls Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange “the First Punk Rock Movie Ever Made”
Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick are two of the first directors whose names young cinephiles get...
8 months ago
Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick are two of the first directors whose names young cinephiles get to know. They’re also names between which quite a few of those young cinephiles draw a battle line: you may have enjoyed films by both of these auteurs, but ultimately, you’re...
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
Commonplace technology
Not all tech is new tech. The ballpoint pen was a revelation, and a bit controversial. Now, it’s...
a year ago
Not all tech is new tech. The ballpoint pen was a revelation, and a bit controversial. Now, it’s disposable and obvious. Different industries go through tech spurts. My desk is covered with items I use every day (a mouse, headphones, a solid-state drive, transparent tape, and...
Seth's Blog
The community orchestra
There are people who get paid to play the flute or bassoon. There are far more people who volunteer...
a year ago
There are people who get paid to play the flute or bassoon. There are far more people who volunteer to participate in a community orchestra. For many, rehearsals or performances are the high points of their day. The metaphor is powerful, because it teaches us that we all benefit...
The Great Discontent...
The Legacy of Corita Kent
Corita Kent was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. She worked in the...
over a year ago
Corita Kent was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. She worked in the Immaculate Heart College Art Department, above, c. 1955. (Photo/Fred Swartz, courtesy of the Corita Art Center) “Sometimes you can take the whole of the world in, and sometimes you...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding technology
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric...
11 months ago
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric typewriter. There are two reasons to avoid learning a proven new technology: You know what it can do and how it will change your life and you don’t want it. You don’t know what it can...
Seth's Blog
The (very) long tail
The average YouTube video gets five new views every day. Let’s parse that for a second. 5 billion...
a year ago
The average YouTube video gets five new views every day. Let’s parse that for a second. 5 billion YouTube plays a day, spread over about a billion videos means that while some videos live in the short head and get millions of views, there are a huge number of videos that get...
Seth's Blog
Looking for a handle
What if your boots don’t have any straps? Bootstrapping is logically impossible. You can’t pick...
11 months ago
What if your boots don’t have any straps? Bootstrapping is logically impossible. You can’t pick yourself up into the air by lifting on your boots, no matter how hard you try, because gravity isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law. But it’s significantly more difficult if your boots...
Open Culture
Do All Roads Lead to Philosophy on Wikipedia?: They Do About 97.3% of the Time
Pull up the Wikipedia page for Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love,” the 1984 single now known for...
3 months ago
Pull up the Wikipedia page for Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love,” the 1984 single now known for re-popularizing the genre of Japanese “city pop.” Then click the first of its links (not related to the language of the article itself), which leads to Takeuchi’s own page. If you keep...
Seth's Blog
No lunging
I’ve been working hard on my juggling (actual juggling, not metaphorical juggling). The secret, as I...
a year ago
I’ve been working hard on my juggling (actual juggling, not metaphorical juggling). The secret, as I wrote about in The Practice is the throwing, not the catching. If you get the throws right, the catches are easy. The way to focus on the throws is simple but culturally...
Seth's Blog
Little dents
Deciding to fix a big dent in a car isn’t perplexing. It’s an easy choice. There’s a huge dent, get...
2 months ago
Deciding to fix a big dent in a car isn’t perplexing. It’s an easy choice. There’s a huge dent, get it fixed. It’s the little dents that are a dilemma. But not fixing little dents means that pretty soon, we’re driving a car that we’re not happy with. Either that, or we define...
Seth's Blog
Normalizing selfishness
Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly...
10 months ago
Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly steal stuff, because speaking up about it won’t help their cause. Sometimes, though, some people seek to change the culture in a way that celebrates taking. “I own this jetski and I...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Evelyn Polk
I'm a full time abstract artist who primarily uses a range of printmaking techniques to make art and...
a year ago
I'm a full time abstract artist who primarily uses a range of printmaking techniques to make art and sometimes I mix it up a bit by adding paint or collage to my prints. I teach printmaking classes from my studio at home in Suffolk.
Describe your printmaking process.
I love to...
Seth's Blog
Leprechauns
Is there a rainbow underneath your pot of gold? Sometimes, we get it backwards.
6 months ago
Is there a rainbow underneath your pot of gold? Sometimes, we get it backwards.
Seth's Blog
The head of marketing
It’s easy to be confused about this job, because it’s not one job, it’s at least three. This is why...
a year ago
It’s easy to be confused about this job, because it’s not one job, it’s at least three. This is why it’s a difficult job to fill, and why turnover is so high–we’re not allocating resources or setting expectations in a way that matches the work to be done. Marketing strategy: This...
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
Open Culture
Roger Federer’s Dartmouth Commencement Address: “Effortless Is a Myth” & Other Life Lessons from...
In 2006, David Foster Wallace published a piece in the New York Times Magazine headlined “Roger...
6 months ago
In 2006, David Foster Wallace published a piece in the New York Times Magazine headlined “Roger Federer as Religious Experience.” Even then, he could declare Federer, “at 25, the best tennis player currently alive. Maybe the best ever.” Much had already been written about “his...
Seth's Blog
The unwritten rules get written
…when someone decides to selfishly push. There’s an assumption of civility and fairness in all of...
a year ago
…when someone decides to selfishly push. There’s an assumption of civility and fairness in all of our interactions. When a harsh competitor unilaterally breaks unwritten rules (because it’s “not technically against the rules”) the community then writes down a new rule. The best...
Blog - Mac Pierce
The Opt-Out Cap, detailed assembly with photos.
How to assemble the Opt-Out Cap, a tool for facial recognition obfuscation.
over a year ago
How to assemble the Opt-Out Cap, a tool for facial recognition obfuscation.
Seth's Blog
The Santa problem
An echo chamber is created by a marketer to assemble a group of people who are insulated from...
a year ago
An echo chamber is created by a marketer to assemble a group of people who are insulated from conventional discourse. It can happen to sports and music fans, to investors, to companies that have confidence in their view of the world, or to social or political gatherings. We...
Open Culture
Martin Scorsese Plays Vincent Van Gogh in a Short, Surreal Film by Akira Kurosawa
The idea of the auteur director has been a controversial one at times given the sheer number of...
5 months ago
The idea of the auteur director has been a controversial one at times given the sheer number of people required at every stage to produce a film. But it hangs together for me when you look at the films of say, Martin Scorsese or Akira Kurosawa, both directors with very...
Open Culture
14 Self-Portraits by Pablo Picasso Show the Evolution of His Style: See Self-Portraits Moving from...
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic...
3 weeks ago
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic shifts of style as a kind of self-portraiture, an exercise in shifting consciousness and trying on of new aesthetic identities. The Spanish modernist made a career of sweeping...
Seth's Blog
Finding a more useful umwelt
Add up all the senses you use and the things you notice: that’s your umwelt. It’s pretty obvious...
12 months ago
Add up all the senses you use and the things you notice: that’s your umwelt. It’s pretty obvious that your dog has a different one than you do. They see fewer colors and smell far more intelligently. Sea slugs see a much wider range of colors, and bats can sense vibrations. Among...
Open Culture
The Internet Archive Rescues MTV News’ Web Site, Making 460,000+ of Its Pages Searchable Again
Image via Internet Archive Last month, MTV News’ web site went missing. Or at least almost all of it...
5 months ago
Image via Internet Archive Last month, MTV News’ web site went missing. Or at least almost all of it did, including an archive of stories going back to 1997. To some of us, and especially to those of us old enough to have grown up watching MTV on actual television, that won’t...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Forecast
Forecast is a long-form generative art project released on fxhash on 16th
Feb 2023. This article...
a year ago
Forecast is a long-form generative art project released on fxhash on 16th
Feb 2023. This article contains info about techniques and some rambling
about concepts and emotions.
On the Arts
Plastic palm trees and inflatable pineapples
An Interview with Max Ryynänen on the Tropical Kitsch
a year ago
An Interview with Max Ryynänen on the Tropical Kitsch
Prolost
What Does and Doesn’t Matter about Apple Shooting their October Event on iPhone 15 Pro Max
A still from Apple’s “Behind the scenes: An Apple Event shot on iPhone” video
Apple Shot Their...
a year ago
A still from Apple’s “Behind the scenes: An Apple Event shot on iPhone” video
Apple Shot Their “Scary Fast” October Event Video on iPhones And We Had Feelings
You’re somewhere on the spectrum of occasionally shooting video on your iPhone to a professional-ish video maker with...
Seth's Blog
“What’s the catch?”
It’s an important question. Lots of opportunities come with one, and going in with your eyes open...
8 months ago
It’s an important question. Lots of opportunities come with one, and going in with your eyes open helps avoid problems later. Two challenges: Sometimes, a really good opportunity doesn’t actually have a catch. And spending a lot of time looking for one keeps us from the work we...
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...
Seth's Blog
Dreams and roadblocks
The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to...
a year ago
The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to figure out why they don’t have it yet. If you can help people get to where they seek to go, when they’re ready to get there, the stuff called marketing gets significantly easier.
Marian's Blog
Quadrocopter Lichtsystem
Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters...
over a year ago
Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters ansteuert. Das Ziel war, bei möglichst geringen Materialkosten möglichst viele Möglichkeiten bei der Beleuchtung des Quadrocopters zu haben.
Verwendete Teile:
1m RGB-LED Streifen, jeweils...
Seth's Blog
Manipulation, indoctrination and addiction
They’re often related. It’s not unusual for someone to have more experience or knowledge than we do....
7 months ago
They’re often related. It’s not unusual for someone to have more experience or knowledge than we do. If they use that knowledge to their benefit, not ours, they might be manipulating us. If we knew what they knew, we wouldn’t have gone along. This is the difference between a...
Open Culture
Leonard Bernstein Introduces the Moog Synthesizer to the World in 1969, Playing an Electrified...
When Wendy Carlos released Switched-On Bach in 1968, her “greatest hits” compilation of the Baroque...
7 months ago
When Wendy Carlos released Switched-On Bach in 1968, her “greatest hits” compilation of the Baroque composer’s music, played entirely on the Moog analog synthesizer, the album became an immediate hit with both classical and pop audiences. Not only was it “acclaimed as real music...
Open Culture
Buckminster Fuller Tells the World “Everything He Knows” in a 42-Hour Lecture Series (1975)
History seems to have settled Buckminster Fuller’s reputation as a man ahead of his time. He...
5 months ago
History seems to have settled Buckminster Fuller’s reputation as a man ahead of his time. He inspires short, witty popular videos like YouTuber Joe Scott’s “The Man Who Saw The Future,” and the ongoing legacy of the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI), who note that “Fuller’s...
cabel.com
My GDC ’24 Talk: The Playdate Story
In January, I was invited to GDC, the Game Developers Conference, to give a talk about Playdate....
7 months ago
In January, I was invited to GDC, the Game Developers Conference, to give a talk about Playdate. That talk — “The Playdate Story: What Was it Like to Make Handheld Video Game System Hardware?” — has been made available free for all to view. Now, it’s been 10 years since my last...
Open Culture
Johnny Cash & The Clash’s Joe Strummer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” (2002)
In 1958, Merle Haggard saw Johnny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing honest country songs...
2 months ago
In 1958, Merle Haggard saw Johnny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing honest country songs for country outlaws. In 1982, future Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello saw Joe Strummer play with The Clash in Chicago and went on to play angry righteous rock for...
Open Culture
37 Hitchcock Cameo Appearances Over 50 Years: All in One Video
Early in his career, Alfred Hitchcock began making small appearances in his own films. The cameos...
5 months ago
Early in his career, Alfred Hitchcock began making small appearances in his own films. The cameos sometimes lasted just a few brief seconds, and sometimes a little while longer. Either way, they became a signature of Hitchcock’s filmmaking, and fans made a sport of seeing whether...
Seth's Blog
Speaking up
For many, the imagined cost of speaking up is almost always higher than the actual cost. And we live...
a year ago
For many, the imagined cost of speaking up is almost always higher than the actual cost. And we live with the cost in our imagination daily, dying a little bit over time as we keep our insights to ourselves. Speaking up is a skill, and we can only improve it with practice.
Seth's Blog
Ideas need handles: the thing about subject lines
A bureaucracy recently asked me to submit a few documents. They were very specific and the person on...
3 days ago
A bureaucracy recently asked me to submit a few documents. They were very specific and the person on the phone said that the subject line of the email I sent should be blank. This is really unsettling. Almost like taking the labels off bottles at the supermarket. My email...
The Great Discontent...
Taekyeom Lee
Taekyeom Lee is a graphic designer with an artist’s sensibility. As a researcher, educator, and...
a year ago
Taekyeom Lee is a graphic designer with an artist’s sensibility. As a researcher, educator, and maker — born and raised in South Korea, now living and teaching in Madison, Wisconsin he works in the space where tactility and technology meet, combining ancient materials and...
Seth's Blog
Better pockets
Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a...
3 months ago
Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a universal area for improvement. When in doubt, make the pockets better. The interesting work is in realizing that you might offer a product or service where there are non-universal...
Open Culture
Medieval Cats Behaving Badly: Kitties That Left Paw Prints … and Peed … on 15th Century Manuscripts
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When...
7 months ago
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When Emir O. Filipovic, a medievalist at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited the State Archives of Dubrovnik, he stumbled upon something that will hardly surprise...
Seth's Blog
Emotional labor and its consequences
Forty years ago, Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote about emotional labor. The work that frontline...
a year ago
Forty years ago, Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote about emotional labor. The work that frontline employees had to do (especially women) in managing and expressing emotions as part of their job. She talked about how exhausting it was for flight attendants to show up with a smile,...
Marian's Blog
Procedural pixelart generator
I made a procedural pixelart generator that is inspired by the art style of the upcoming space...
over a year ago
I made a procedural pixelart generator that is inspired by the art style of the upcoming space adventure game No Man’s Sky.
Check it out and generate your own pixelart:
https://marian42.github.io/proceduralart/
The art generator is written in javascript and uses noise functions...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of lottery thinking
Tim Brownson points us to this recent poll of people in Great Britain. About one out of four people...
4 months ago
Tim Brownson points us to this recent poll of people in Great Britain. About one out of four people surveyed (of all ages) believe that they could qualify for the Olympics if they trained for the next four years. This is absurd. It’s the very absurdity of it that makes it common....
Open Culture
How Well Does Medieval Armor Actually Stand Up to Medieval Arrows?: A Historical Re-Creation Lets...
The popular image of the medieval suit of armor looks formidable enough that any of us could be...
6 months ago
The popular image of the medieval suit of armor looks formidable enough that any of us could be forgiven for assuming that, with its steel-plated protection, we’d emerge from even the most harrowing battle without a scratch. Yet if we really found ourselves transported to, say,...
Prolost
Log is the “Pro” in iPhone 15 Pro
And I’ve got some free LUTs for you.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max feature log video recording. This...
a year ago
And I’ve got some free LUTs for you.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max feature log video recording. This is a big deal, but there’s already some confusion about it. Where consumer devices and pro video overlap, that’s where the Prolost Signal gleams brightest in the night sky. So...
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?...
Prolost
The M1 Max MacBook Pros
Apple opened their October event with a young musician creating an Apple-inspired music track in a...
over a year ago
Apple opened their October event with a young musician creating an Apple-inspired music track in a dingy garage filled with gear worth tens of thousands of dollars. Some viewers commented on the unrealistic portrayal of a creative professional. But I felt like I was looking in a...
Seth's Blog
In search of incompetence
Learning is about becoming incompetent on our way to getting better. If you’re not open to the...
9 months ago
Learning is about becoming incompetent on our way to getting better. If you’re not open to the tension that is caused by knowing you could do better, it’s unlikely you’re willing to do the work to get better. As you’re doing that work, there’s the satisfaction it brings, but also...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Frankie Brown
I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic...
a year ago
I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic storybooks and I love to create whimsical hand-printed illustrations.
I also work part-time at Handprinted; looking after the studio, liaising with tutors, teaching some Fab Fridays,...
Seth's Blog
Bitterness is consistent
It will never let you down. Bitterness is never-ending, impenetrable and refuses to negotiate. If...
a year ago
It will never let you down. Bitterness is never-ending, impenetrable and refuses to negotiate. If you give it a chance, it will persist. It lacks nuance or surprise. It’s simply a wall you can lean against, whenever you choose. Consistency is all it has to offer, actually.
Seth's Blog
Complex or complicated?
Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the...
a year ago
Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the complicated portions into smaller pieces. And complicated problems often have an emotional component, because there are parts of the problem we don’t want to look at closely, or deal with...
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...
Seth's Blog
Transforming two-sided markets
AI agents are going to overhaul the way we think about buying and selling. Uber already did this in...
7 months ago
AI agents are going to overhaul the way we think about buying and selling. Uber already did this in a small way. They organized the drivers, and now they organize the riders. Hailing a cab was already sort of anonymous, but with competition and structure, AI will continue to get...
Seth's Blog
Amplifying the fringes
Culture is: “People like us do things like this.” We might even have a chance to choose our group....
2 months ago
Culture is: “People like us do things like this.” We might even have a chance to choose our group. Hipsters do this, hippies do that. People in this town wear this outfit, students at this school hang out here on Saturdays… We might be born into a culture. Less agency, but just...
Open Culture
Keith Moon, Drummer of The Who, Passes Out at 1973 Concert; 19-Year-Old Fan Takes Over
In November 1973, Scot Halpin, a 19-year-old kid, scalped tickets to The Who concert in San...
4 months ago
In November 1973, Scot Halpin, a 19-year-old kid, scalped tickets to The Who concert in San Francisco, California. Little did he know that he’d wind up playing drums for the band that night — that his name would end up etched in the annals of rock ’n’ roll. The Who came to...
Seth's Blog
Omitting the herbs
Without salt, human beings don’t survive long. But it’s possible to eat for a month without tasting...
3 months ago
Without salt, human beings don’t survive long. But it’s possible to eat for a month without tasting an herb. The food will sustain you. Herbs are an expensive non-obvious addition, while also being a bargain if the goal is to create delight, interest or satisfaction. As we...
Seth's Blog
Evenly distributed
For the first time, the only time, everyone on Earth was in the same boat at the same time. We’ve...
a year ago
For the first time, the only time, everyone on Earth was in the same boat at the same time. We’ve long been divided by privilege, by caste, by accidents of birth or by organized hierarchies. Sure, there have been events that struck us all at once. Landing on the moon caused us...
Seth's Blog
The Le Guin precepts
Fabled author Ursula Le Guin had a sign over her desk: Not a bad place to begin.
a year ago
Fabled author Ursula Le Guin had a sign over her desk: Not a bad place to begin.
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.
Infinite Scroll
The Internet is More Real than Real Life
A victory of online spaces over traditional institutions
a month ago
A victory of online spaces over traditional institutions
Open Culture
The First “Selfie” In History Taken by Robert Cornelius, a Philadelphia Chemist, in 1839
In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that “selfie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The...
4 months ago
In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that “selfie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The term, whose first recorded use as an Instagram hashtag occurred on January 27, 2011, was actually invented in 2002, when an Australian chap posted a picture of himself on an...
Seth's Blog
99 vs 0
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other...
a year ago
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other hand, if the scrub nurse only does a 99% job of disinfecting the tools in the operating room, you’re still going to die of an infection. Some projects respond very well to...
Seth's Blog
Did we give up before AI arrived?
Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI....
6 months ago
Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI. It can often draw, write and compose as well as a mediocre freelancer, sometimes better. But why were there mediocre freelancers? The system that pushed us to turn our writing into...
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...
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
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 the 1896 Film The Pistol Duel, a Startling Re-Creation of the Last Days of Pistol Dueling in...
One sometimes hears lamented the tendency of movies to depict Mexico — and in particular, its...
5 months ago
One sometimes hears lamented the tendency of movies to depict Mexico — and in particular, its capital Mexico City — as a threatening, rough-and-tumble place where human life has no value. Such concerns turn out to be nearly as old as cinema itself, having first been raised in...
Seth's Blog
Spam 3.0
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out...
6 months ago
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out the good ones. The new normal: Someone finds a database of every residential property, then another of cell phones. An AI is trained to call every homeowner, every day, asking if...
Marian's Blog
Work in progress: Location based online game
This is a game prototype I’m currently working on. The game is played online, on a real world map...
over a year ago
This is a game prototype I’m currently working on. The game is played online, on a real world map and the location of the player is also the location ingame, just like in Ingress.
I know that making an online game like this is an ambitious goal and it will probably never be...
Seth's Blog
Learning in August
What better time? An hour a day for a month and you can learn a skill you’ll have forever. Beach...
4 months ago
What better time? An hour a day for a month and you can learn a skill you’ll have forever. Beach reads are a fine way to chill out, but a month spent to learn a skill is a fine way to take advantage of a quiet time. My brand new course on Strategy is now […]
Seth's Blog
Surprise and uncertainty
Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic. Two...
8 months ago
Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic. Two reasons that are worth considering: Eliminate surprise and explain the circumstances and panic starts to fade.
Seth's Blog
The answer to every question
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If,...
a year ago
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If, regardless of the problem, the answer is crypto, homeopathy, or the internet, or perhaps GPT, essential oils or decarbonization, it’s possible we’re taking an easy way out. A new...
Seth's Blog
The missing file
It contained some of my best writing. Cogent, clear and powerful. I found it. It wasn’t nearly as...
4 months ago
It contained some of my best writing. Cogent, clear and powerful. I found it. It wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered. In fact, it was hardly useful. The opposite happens with the things we fear. When they show up, they’re likely to be a lot less fearsome than we imagined.
Seth's Blog
Return on effort
It’s a pretty simple calculation. How much value per dollar does a freelancer produce for you?...
6 months ago
It’s a pretty simple calculation. How much value per dollar does a freelancer produce for you? What’s the psychic reward for the time you put into your favorite hobby? That machine that takes time and money to set up and run… what does it create when it’s operating? Not...
Seth's Blog
Thoughts on the manual
We have more ways to offer instructions than ever before, but it’s not obvious that we’re getting...
a year ago
We have more ways to offer instructions than ever before, but it’s not obvious that we’re getting better at it. Not just the operator’s manual, but every way we have to teach and offer instructions… Some (uncategorized) things to consider: The first manual I created, in 1983, was...
Open Culture
T. S. Eliot’s Classic Modernist Poem The Waste Land Gets Adapted into Comic-Book Form
The phrase “April is the cruelest month” was first printed more than 100 years ago, and it’s been in...
2 months ago
The phrase “April is the cruelest month” was first printed more than 100 years ago, and it’s been in common circulation almost as long. One can easily know it without having the faintest idea of its source, let alone its meaning. This is not, of course, to call T. S. Eliot’s The...
escape the algorithm
Gift interfaces, an interview, and how you found me
Some updates on things that have happened and that are coming in the escape the algorithm cinematic...
a month ago
Some updates on things that have happened and that are coming in the escape the algorithm cinematic universe:
Open Culture
Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline...
More than 50 years and 10 presidential administrations have passed since Orson Welles narrated...
2 months ago
More than 50 years and 10 presidential administrations have passed since Orson Welles narrated Freedom River. And while it shows signs of age, the animated film, a parable about the role of immigration, race, and wealth in America, still resonates today. Actually, given the...
Open Culture
Artificial Intelligence & Drones Uncover 303 New Nazca Lines in Peru
If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu...
2 months ago
If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu Picchu. If you visit another, it’ll probably be the Nazca Desert, home to many large-scale geoglyphs made by pre-Inca peoples between 500 BC and 500 AD. Many of these “Nazca lines”...
Seth's Blog
The Hegelochus lesson
More than 2,000 years ago, an actor in Greece botched a line in a play. In an inflection error, he...
a year ago
More than 2,000 years ago, an actor in Greece botched a line in a play. In an inflection error, he said “weasel” when he meant to say “calm sea.” As a result, he was mocked by Sannyrion and then Aristophanes and others. He never worked again. The lesson might be that one innocent...
The Great Discontent...
Schessa Garbutt
Schessa Garbutt is the founder of the Inglewood–based design studio, Firebrand. An educator,...
5 months ago
Schessa Garbutt is the founder of the Inglewood–based design studio, Firebrand. An educator, lecturer, and published essayist (see The Black Experience in Design anthology, a must-read). Garbutt works at the intersection of co-design practices and making huge, mind-bending ideas...
Seth's Blog
The nature of traps
Our culture is filled with man-made traps, situations worth avoiding. They have three elements:...
a month ago
Our culture is filled with man-made traps, situations worth avoiding. They have three elements: Because of the third element, the organizer or beneficiaries of a trap can spend time and money to make it ever more seductive and to conceal the nature of what you’re actually signing...
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?
Seth's Blog
What’s new at purple.space?
There are now 1,000 of us in this online community that’s not a social network. Proudly a millionth...
a year ago
There are now 1,000 of us in this online community that’s not a social network. Proudly a millionth the size of some other online experiences. It includes the original Creative’s Workshop, with hundreds of people working through it, side by side. And just added, access to the...
Seth's Blog
“What’s next?”
The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference. Leaders of every stripe make one...
a year ago
The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference. Leaders of every stripe make one thing more than any other: decisions. In any environment with constraints (which is, actually, any environment), the decisions about time and resources–about what to do next–change...
Seth's Blog
Phrenology
For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge...
6 months ago
For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge someone’s character. Carefully charting the bumps on someone’s head, along with the slope of their forehead and other telltale signs was seen as a thoughtful and proven way to...
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...
Open Culture
The Illustrated Version of “Alice’s Restaurant”: Watch Arlo Guthrie’s Thanksgiving Counterculture...
Alice’s Restaurant. It’s now a Thanksgiving classic, and something of a tradition around...
3 weeks ago
Alice’s Restaurant. It’s now a Thanksgiving classic, and something of a tradition around here. Recorded in 1967, the 18+ minute counterculture song recounts Arlo Guthrie’s real encounter with the law, starting on Thanksgiving Day 1965. As the long song unfolds, we hear all about...
Seth's Blog
The perfect conditions
Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or...
a year ago
Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or the most romantic sunset for a proposal. But it’s not right here and it’s not right now. Our success has a lot to do with how we dance with conditions that aren’t quite perfect.
Anarchy Unfolds
March '24 Myths & Recs
Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
9 months ago
Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
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
The 500 ways
There are thousands of ways to express encouragement and enthusiasm and support. Few of them require...
a year ago
There are thousands of ways to express encouragement and enthusiasm and support. Few of them require a blood oath or even much inconvenience. “I’m thrilled that you’re contributing.” “Can’t wait to see how this turns out.” “I know someone who really needs to hear about this.” “Go...
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing a Repeat Pattern
Printing a length of your own designed fabric is so exciting but most of us do not have the luxury...
a year ago
Printing a length of your own designed fabric is so exciting but most of us do not have the luxury of a fabric registration table. Here's an easy step by step guide to printing a repeat pattern on a length of fabric using an A4 43T screen.
Draw the design motifs onto...
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...
Prolost
Visual Effects Compositing in Adobe After Effects: My IBC 2019 Talk
Adobe graciously invited me to speak at their IBC 2019 booth about visual effects compositing in...
over a year ago
Adobe graciously invited me to speak at their IBC 2019 booth about visual effects compositing in After Effects — something I’ve been doing against all advice for many (many!) years. You can watch the entire talk here:
Seth's Blog
“What will I tell my boss?”
If you can’t answer that six-word question, you’re selling a commodity. Organizations don’t buy...
6 months ago
If you can’t answer that six-word question, you’re selling a commodity. Organizations don’t buy things, people do. And people at companies aren’t spending their own money, so this is the only question on the table. A cogent story, based on affiliation and status, one that sees...
Seth's Blog
Intuition
Intuition is simply a theory we haven’t yet put into words. Once we write down and share our...
a month ago
Intuition is simply a theory we haven’t yet put into words. Once we write down and share our intuition, it becomes more resilient, focused and useful to others.
Seth's Blog
But what if we’re wrong?
Of course, we think we’re right. That’s why we’re sharing our opinion. But when there’s a...
a year ago
Of course, we think we’re right. That’s why we’re sharing our opinion. But when there’s a disagreement, or we’re predicting the future, it’s likely that someone will turn out to be incorrect. Sometimes, being wrong is a minor embarrassment, with very little real cost. And...
Seth's Blog
The Net Promoter Score
More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their...
7 months ago
More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their customers. Some are using it to measure employee satisfaction as well. The P stands for ‘promoter’, but of course, it doesn’t actually measure promotion. If that many of your customers...
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
If it’s all in bold
Then none of it is in bold.
a year ago
Then none of it is in bold.
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.
Seth's Blog
What comes after trust?
Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil...
a year ago
Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil society as we know it is dependent on identity and responsibility. A person does something and owns the consequences. This requirement of identity leads to the dynamic of the free...
Seth's Blog
PW 5: Measuring the right thing
Last in the series… Most of us were indoctrinated to believe that completing chores is the...
11 months ago
Last in the series… Most of us were indoctrinated to believe that completing chores is the appropriate measure of productivity. “I did all my homework.” Doing all your homework is a measure for industrial bosses. But what, precisely, did your homework ever do for you? The actual...
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...
Seth's Blog
Generosity and gratitude
A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility and energy. And the magic...
a year ago
A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility and energy. And the magic of gratitude is that it improves everything it touches, especially the person who offered it in the first place. So, what holds us back? Fear. Fear of connection, of change, of...
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
Retreat!
We’ve managed to lionize, celebrate and elevate the mindset of “CHARGE!” Even when better judgment...
5 months ago
We’ve managed to lionize, celebrate and elevate the mindset of “CHARGE!” Even when better judgment and experience would indicate that we’re often more likely to succeed with a strategic re-evaluation of the situation. Making a new decision based on new information isn’t weakness....
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...
Handprinted - Blog
On The Course: Creating Life Drawing Mono Screen Prints
I (Bridget) was lucky enough to take part on last years Life-Drawing Monoscreen Printing workshop...
a year ago
I (Bridget) was lucky enough to take part on last years Life-Drawing Monoscreen Printing workshop with Tricia Johnson. During the course, we worked with a life model to create painterly screen prints using the mono screen method. We used acrylic based screen printing inks and...
Open Culture
Private Snafu: The World War II Propaganda Cartoons Created by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc
Private Snafu was the U.S. Army’s worst soldier. He was sloppy, lazy and prone to shooting off his...
2 months ago
Private Snafu was the U.S. Army’s worst soldier. He was sloppy, lazy and prone to shooting off his mouth to Nazi agents. And he was hugely popular with his fellow GIs. Private Snafu was, of course, an animated cartoon character designed for the military recruits. He was an...
Seth's Blog
Actionable feedback
“Do you want to know what I think?” The best answer might be, “no.” Because this person is not very...
a year ago
“Do you want to know what I think?” The best answer might be, “no.” Because this person is not very good at offering useful feedback. Because you didn’t create this product or service or performance to please this person. They’re not the customer. Because you’re not going to...
Seth's Blog
Unstable equilibrium
We’re testing a brand new way to host a charity auction, and I’m hoping you can check it out and...
a year ago
We’re testing a brand new way to host a charity auction, and I’m hoping you can check it out and even bid to support BuildOn. In this post, I want to take a moment to explain the attraction and risk of unstable equilibrium, and there’s also a fun contest at the end… If you drop...
Seth's Blog
The simple word replacement for connection
What do we say when a customer or colleague says, “thank you”? For a long time, it was “you’re...
a year ago
What do we say when a customer or colleague says, “thank you”? For a long time, it was “you’re welcome.” This indicates that you put in some effort and you’re willing to do it again on request. Recently “no problem” has become more common. This implies that the effort could have...
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