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Seth's Blog
A possible AI future Persistent, connected and kind. Most visions of the internet in 1995 were about individuals...
9 months ago
71
9 months ago
Persistent, connected and kind. Most visions of the internet in 1995 were about individuals interacting with content online. It turns out that the internet (inter plus net) is actually about connection. The apps and businesses that were most successful connected people–to ideas,...
Seth's Blog
What comes after trust? Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil society as we know it is dependent on identity and responsibility. A person does something and owns the consequences. This requirement of identity leads to the dynamic of the free...
escape the algorithm
Artisinal white noise Shhhhhhhh
a year ago
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...
9 months ago
65
9 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...
escape the algorithm
Be specific Ode to ᵗᶦⁿʸ ᵗᵒᵒˡˢ
a year ago
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...
a year ago
40
a year 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...
Neocha – Culture &...
Functional Necessities
over a year ago
The Great Discontent...
Mira Nakashima In 1970, Mira Nakashima joined the family business run by her father, renowned furniture designer...
a year ago
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a year ago
In 1970, Mira Nakashima joined the family business run by her father, renowned furniture designer and craftsman George Nakashima. Since his death in 1990, Mira has helmed Nakashima Woodworkers, now a 21-building complex and National Historic Landmark nestled among the trees in...
Blog - Mac Pierce
The Whys and Hows of the Opt-Out Cap. Why I built the Opt-Out Cap cap, and how it all came together.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Bob Dobalina I considered myself someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a narrow range of mid-1960s TV and...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
I considered myself someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a narrow range of mid-1960s TV and certain strains of pop music as well. I was stunned, then, to hear the song Zilch for the first time recently. Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina. It’s unforgettable. And it’s from the...
Seth's Blog
Charged by the word In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the word when you write, in fact, you should pay for every extra word you use. Be as brief as is useful.
Seth's Blog
The generosity of concealment Human beings never reveal all of our emotions. We don’t simply blurt out the first thing that pops...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
Human beings never reveal all of our emotions. We don’t simply blurt out the first thing that pops into our head in a meeting, or insult someone upon meeting them. We’re able to give people the benefit of the doubt (which requires doubt before we can offer the benefit) and to...
Open Culture
Jean-Paul Sartre Rejects the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964: “It Was Monstrous!” In a 2013 blog post, the great Ursula K. Le Guin quotes a London Times Literary Supplement column by...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
In a 2013 blog post, the great Ursula K. Le Guin quotes a London Times Literary Supplement column by a “J.C.,” who satirically proposes the “Jean-Paul Sartre Prize for Prize Refusal.” “Writers all over Europe and America are turning down awards in the hope of being nominated for...
Seth's Blog
A billion choices Game theory has a lousy name. When most people think of games, they think of commercial stuff for...
a week ago
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a week ago
Game theory has a lousy name. When most people think of games, they think of commercial stuff for kids, like Chutes and Ladders or possibly Monopoly. But a game is simply a system where humans, facing scarcity, make choices. Scarcity leads to choices and to competition. It turns...
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...
over a year ago
102
over 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...
Seth's Blog
The seduction of grad school For a certain cohort of high-performing students at famous colleges, graduate school feels...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
For a certain cohort of high-performing students at famous colleges, graduate school feels irresistible. If you’re good at school, the challenge and offer of law school, med school or a famous business school means you get to do more of what you’re good at. You’re offered a...
Anarchy Unfolds
The big picture, AI, chemophobia, rocket mass heaters Green Gatherings #1
9 months ago
Seth's Blog
What do we do when it breaks? The unexpected happens. Systems fail, humans are unpredictable, interfaces aren’t perfect… The...
a month ago
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a month ago
The unexpected happens. Systems fail, humans are unpredictable, interfaces aren’t perfect… The customer service professional demonstrates their strategic insight when they plan for eventual failure instead of denying it’s possible. The first step, of course, is to design things...
Seth's Blog
The lonely unicorn That’s not what usually happens. If there’s at least one unicorn in the world, it’s likely not the...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
That’s not what usually happens. If there’s at least one unicorn in the world, it’s likely not the only one. And if one can make a valid English word from seven Scrabble tiles, it’s likely that more than one word can be found. “Impossible” is a very large set of situations. But...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Midjourney takes on Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings Continuing my mission to use AI tools for things they really weren’t designed for and aren’t very...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Continuing my mission to use AI tools for things they really weren’t designed for and aren’t very good at and then judging the results.
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...
over a year ago
48
over 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...
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...
a year ago
50
a year 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...
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
Seth's Blog
Anti-smart There’s a difference between intellectual and smart. A plumber is smart, they know how to do a...
a year ago
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a year ago
There’s a difference between intellectual and smart. A plumber is smart, they know how to do a skilled and effective job on the task at hand. Intellectualism isn’t about practical results, it’s a passion for exploring what others have said, though this approach is sometimes...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Host Jumping, thinking about viruses and how they’re changing. Thinking about the concepts and reasons behind the making of my work ‘Host Jump’.
over a year ago
Marian's Blog
Arduino-Wetterstation mit Bluetooth, Datalogging und Android-App Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen Schülerwettbewerb (ILC) bekommen und zusammengesetzt habe. Auf dem Board rechnet ein ATxmega128A3U. Temperatur, Luftfeuchte, Luftdruck, Helligkeit, Regenmenge und Windgeschwindigkeit werden...
Seth's Blog
1,000 fans (which sort?) Not all customers are fans. And not all fans are the sort of customers you can thrive with. Cadres...
a month ago
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a month ago
Not all customers are fans. And not all fans are the sort of customers you can thrive with. Cadres of supporters often migrate into one of two camps… The generous stans (a more positive riff from a twenty-year-old Eminem track), are there for the work and the change being made,...
Seth's Blog
The strategy sessions I’m workshopping a new book. For the last few months, I’ve been feverishly writing a book about...
a year ago
105
a year ago
I’m workshopping a new book. For the last few months, I’ve been feverishly writing a book about strategy. Strategy for individuals, small organizations and large ones as well. Strategy for someone seeking to make a difference, and strategy for people who do projects. Starting...
Seth's Blog
Who pays? Supply and demand are always in a dance, with one outpacing the other from time to time. In the last...
a year ago
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a year ago
Supply and demand are always in a dance, with one outpacing the other from time to time. In the last three years, the green tech revolution has accelerated dramatically. Countless companies are being created to change how food is grown, people are transported and energy is...
Seth's Blog
What spoiled wrecks There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: As a...
a year ago
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a year ago
There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: As a community increases in wealth, the number of spoiled citizens increases as well. It’s often the acid that corrodes the magic that created the wealth in the first place. Whining is a...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Chris Long My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music at the University of Liverpool, a Masters in musical composition at Newcastle University and I completed my PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. I have recently returned to...
John Reynolds -...
Title Designer & Creative Director ︎︎︎ X/Twitter ︎︎︎ Instagram ︎︎︎ LinkedIn
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Is it a skill? If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care of it. Coding is a skill. But it’s not clear that the person who knows how to code should be doing your design. Teaching is a skill. But simply because someone is good at […]
Seth's Blog
What do we owe the future? You are someone’s ancestor. Most immediately, you are the ancestor of the you of tomorrow. That’s...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
You are someone’s ancestor. Most immediately, you are the ancestor of the you of tomorrow. That’s why we don’t spend every penny in our bank account, why we put leftovers in the fridge, why we earn a degree–it’s a gift to the you of tomorrow. Each of us have a way of thinking...
Seth's Blog
It’s not easy …to make it look easy. Sometimes, you don’t need to bother. Making it look hard might be a plus. The...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
…to make it look easy. Sometimes, you don’t need to bother. Making it look hard might be a plus. The important part is how it makes the recipient feel.
Seth's Blog
The ledge Drowning is devastating, a tragic and painful way to go. So much so that feeling like we’re drowning...
9 months ago
65
9 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...
Seth's Blog
“It seems…” What a simple verb. A five-letter modifier that opens the door to discussion. If we state something...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
What a simple verb. A five-letter modifier that opens the door to discussion. If we state something as a fact, we’re asking for an argument. But seems opens the door to learning and discussion. What are you seeing that I’m not seeing?
Open Culture
Is Andrew Huberman Ruining Your Morning Coffee Routine? Andrew Huberman–the host of the influential Huberman Lab podcast–has gotten a lot of mileage out of...
10 months ago
54
10 months ago
Andrew Huberman–the host of the influential Huberman Lab podcast–has gotten a lot of mileage out of his recommended morning routine. His routine emphasizes the importance of getting sunlight within 30–60 minutes of waking; also engaging in light physical activity; hydrating well;...
Blog - Mac Pierce
XL Flex Arms, posable mounting for cameras and lighting. Making a few custom mounts for cameras and camera accessories.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Volition and placebos If a placebo heals your illness, does that mean it was all in your head in the first place? That you...
over a year ago
76
over a year ago
If a placebo heals your illness, does that mean it was all in your head in the first place? That you weren’t really sick, or didn’t really want to get better? If expensive wine tastes better to you, but you can’t tell wine apart in a double-blind taste test, does that mean it...
Open Culture
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...
9 months ago
59
9 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...
Seth's Blog
Enrollment and engagement Teachers and organizations benefit from both, but they’re not the same. Engagement is the delight we...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Teachers and organizations benefit from both, but they’re not the same. Engagement is the delight we have when we lean into the process. Engagement happens when social media is optimized for maximum focus, and it also can be seen in a student who’s in sync with a teacher who...
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...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Clients and customers can be frustrating. Perhaps they don’t know what you know. Perhaps they don’t care. It’s possible to educate and inspire. It might be more productive to find the few that want to go where you do.
Seth's Blog
Why and how Let’s get rid of science class in school. Instead, beginning in kindergarten, we could devote a...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Let’s get rid of science class in school. Instead, beginning in kindergarten, we could devote a class to curiosity and explanation. A class that persistently and consistently teaches kids to ask why and to answer how. The unacceptable single-word answers are “because” and...
Open Culture
A Japanese Zen Monk Explains What Zen Is Really About Despite developing in Asia, as the Chinese form of a religion originally brought over from India and...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
Despite developing in Asia, as the Chinese form of a religion originally brought over from India and later refined in Japan, Zen Buddhism has long appealed to Westerners as well. Some of that owes to the spare, elegant aesthetics with which popular culture associates it, and more...
Seth's Blog
Honesty about better “I don’t want to learn to be better,” is something we rarely admit. We don’t say: I don’t want to...
5 months ago
49
5 months ago
“I don’t want to learn to be better,” is something we rarely admit. We don’t say: I don’t want to learn statistics, even though it will dramatically improve my decision making. I don’t want to learn a new programming language, even though it will get me a better job. I don’t want...
Open Culture
J. G. Ballard Demystifies Surrealist Paintings by Dalí, Magritte, de Chirico & More Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard...
10 months ago
48
10 months ago
Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard published three apocalyptic novels, The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World. Each of those books offers a different vision of large-scale environmental disaster, and...
Open Culture
Isaac Newton Creates a List of His 57 Sins (Circa 1662) Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the most important and influential scientist in history, discovered the...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the most important and influential scientist in history, discovered the laws of motion and the universal force of gravity. For the first time ever, the rules of the universe could be described with the supremely rational language of mathematics....
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:...
7 months ago
39
7 months 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
Behold James Sowerby’s Strikingly Illustrated New Elucidation of Colours (1809) James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was...
11 months ago
47
11 months ago
James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was also enormously interested in color, especially given the era in which he lived. Born in 1757, he made his professional start as a painter of flowers: a viable career path in...
Infinite Scroll
A User's Guide to Building a Subculture How communities form online
6 months ago
Open Culture
Discover Paul Éluard and Max Ernst’s Still-Bizarre Proto-Surrealist Book Les Malheurs des immortels... When the names of French poet Paul Éluard and German artist Max Ernst arise, one subject always...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
When the names of French poet Paul Éluard and German artist Max Ernst arise, one subject always follows: that of their years-long ménage à trois — or rather, “marriage à trois,” as a New York Times article by Annette Grant once put it. It started in 1921, Grant writes, when the...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of points Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your scorekeeping wisely. Too much focus on the score can bend us or break us, pushing us to engage with too much focus and without regard for balance. And our attachment to obvious points...
Open Culture
B.B. King Changes a Broken Guitar String Mid-Song at Farm Aid, and Doesn’t Miss a Beat (1985) The scene is Farm Aid, 1985, attended by a crowd of 80,000 people. The song is “How Blue Can You...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
The scene is Farm Aid, 1985, attended by a crowd of 80,000 people. The song is “How Blue Can You Get.” And the key moment comes at the 3:10 mark, when the blues legend B.B. King breaks a guitar string, then manages to replace it before the song finishes minutes later. All the...
Seth's Blog
The hubris of creativity Where’s your permit? Who said you could try to solve this problem? I don’t get it… That’s too...
a year ago
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a year ago
Where’s your permit? Who said you could try to solve this problem? I don’t get it… That’s too original. It’s not original enough. You missed a comma. That’s not funny. That’s been done before. That’s never been done before. It’s not your best work. None of us are authorized to...
Seth's Blog
The useful agreement Contrary to expectations, written contracts don’t have to be adversarial. In fact, the effective...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Contrary to expectations, written contracts don’t have to be adversarial. In fact, the effective ones rarely are. When you hand someone a release, a royalty agreement or even a partnership document, it pays to point out the gnarly parts, the controversial bits and the ones that...
Open Culture
When a Drunken Charles Bukowski Walked Off the Prestigious French Talk Show Apostrophes (1978) Charles Bukowski didn’t do TV — or at least he didn’t do American TV. Like a Hollywood movie star...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Charles Bukowski didn’t do TV — or at least he didn’t do American TV. Like a Hollywood movie star shooting a Japanese commercial, he did make an exception for a gig abroad. It happened in 1978, when the poet received an invitation from the popular French literary talk...
Seth's Blog
Willfully uninformed Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and...
a year ago
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a year ago
Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and time at the microfilm reader was booked in advance. Today, if there’s something I don’t know, it’s almost certainly because I haven’t cared enough to find out. I don’t understand...
Open Culture
Albert Einstein’s Grades: A Fascinating Look at His Report Cards Albert Einstein was a precocious child. At the age of twelve, he followed his own line of reasoning...
a month ago
11
a month ago
Albert Einstein was a precocious child. At the age of twelve, he followed his own line of reasoning to find a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. At thirteen he read Kant, just for the fun of it. And before he was fifteen he had taught himself differential and integral calculus....
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: The Deep State Cometh /r/FedNews, DeepSeek hot takes, and a brutal menswear guy post
5 months ago
Open Culture
When the Dutch Tried to Live in Concrete Spheres: An Introduction to the Bolwoningen in the... In the decades after the Second World War, many countries faced the challenge of rebuilding their...
2 weeks ago
8
2 weeks ago
In the decades after the Second World War, many countries faced the challenge of rebuilding their housing and infrastructure while also having to accommodate a fast-arriving baby boom. The government of the Netherlands got more creative than most, putting money toward...
Open Culture
The Romans Stashed Hallucinogenic Seeds in a Vial Made From an Animal Bone What’s popular in the metropolis sooner or later makes its way out into the provinces. This...
a year ago
40
a year ago
What’s popular in the metropolis sooner or later makes its way out into the provinces. This phenomenon has become more difficult to notice in recent years, not because it’s slowed down, but because it’s sped way up, owing to near-instantaneous cultural diffusion on the internet....
Seth's Blog
Wrestling, fighting or dancing? We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we...
a year ago
29
a year ago
We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we can dance with someone else as we seek a mutual way forward. Fighting tends to be more brutal, final and hurtful than is often productive. You don’t want to spend your days...
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
49
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...
escape the algorithm
A complete guide to pretending you saw the total solar eclipse I cannot relate to you
a year ago
Open Culture
How Olivetti Designed the First Personal Computer in History, the Programma 101 (1965) If you were to come across an Olivetti Programma 101, you probably wouldn’t recognize it as a...
11 months ago
37
11 months ago
If you were to come across an Olivetti Programma 101, you probably wouldn’t recognize it as a computer. With its 36 keys and its paper-strip printer, it might strike you as some kind of oversized adding machine, albeit an unusually handsome one. But then, you’d expect that...
Seth's Blog
“I don’t like it” Everyone is entitled to their own taste. But this isn’t the helpful answer to the question, “is this...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Everyone is entitled to their own taste. But this isn’t the helpful answer to the question, “is this good?” Whether it suits your taste might be irrelevant. “It doesn’t resonate with me” is not the same as “No one will like this.” The professional understands that they need...
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
29
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...
Seth's Blog
It’s Mac Day (#40) A lot shifted when the Apple Macintosh was introduced, and it wasn’t about the RAM, the chips or the...
a year ago
34
a year ago
A lot shifted when the Apple Macintosh was introduced, and it wasn’t about the RAM, the chips or the processor speed. Our world changed forty years ago today. Marketing, technology, commerce, luxury brands, communities, communication and our expectations for how we might spend...
Open Culture
Watch the Performance of a Mozart Composition That Had Been Lost for Centuries For most musicians, a long-lost song written in their teenage years would be of interest only to...
9 months ago
48
9 months ago
For most musicians, a long-lost song written in their teenage years would be of interest only to serious fans — and even then, probably more for biographical reasons than as a standalone piece of work. But that’s hardly the case for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was composing...
Open Culture
How Civilizations Built on Top of Each Other: Discover What Lies Beneath Rome, Troy & Other Cities The idea of discovering a lost ancient city underground has long captured the human imagination. But...
a month ago
15
a month ago
The idea of discovering a lost ancient city underground has long captured the human imagination. But why are the abandoned built environments of those fantasies always buried? The answer, in large part, is that such places do indeed exist under our feet, at least in certain parts...
Seth's Blog
It goes without saying A phrase that’s been showing up recently is, “no pressure.” It usually comes in a pitch letter of...
a year ago
73
a year ago
A phrase that’s been showing up recently is, “no pressure.” It usually comes in a pitch letter of some sort, written by someone who isn’t in a position to exert any pressure. So why say it? It’s a bit like, “while supplies last.” And “to be honest…” which is perhaps the most...
Seth's Blog
Tools and the long tail Have you ever made a video that was seen by someone you didn’t know? Or written something that got...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Have you ever made a video that was seen by someone you didn’t know? Or written something that got shared outside of your inner circle? The odds of either of these things happening a generation ago were close to zero. Now, it’s common. The skeptics said that people wanted to...
Seth's Blog
It just barely works This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers...
9 months ago
67
9 months ago
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers have ever created. The first Wright Bros. plane just barely flew. The first version of VisiCalc was just barely useful. The earliest bridges were shaky, unreliable and made of vines....
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
66
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
But it’s included… Perhaps your wedding package includes a cake. It’s paid for, better eat it. Even if you’re allergic...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
Perhaps your wedding package includes a cake. It’s paid for, better eat it. Even if you’re allergic to wheat. Perhaps the amusement park includes as many rides as you like, even if you’re feeling sick or have had quite enough for today. The thing about included is that it’s free....
Infinite Scroll
How Gay Marriage Ruined Democratic Activism The end of Moral Triumphalism
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Confusion about performance The thing that your product or service delivers could be called performance, and it’s made of two...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
The thing that your product or service delivers could be called performance, and it’s made of two components: –The story and expectations and cultural impact of what you do (the story). –The deliverables that are objectively measured (the spec). It helps to have both. Many...
Seth's Blog
Small doses If you go to a health food store and buy some pills with selenium, colloidal silver or other...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
If you go to a health food store and buy some pills with selenium, colloidal silver or other mysterious substances in them, it’s possible that they’ll make you feel a bit better. On the other hand, if you take a large dose, you’ll get sick or possibly die. In very small doses,...
Open Culture
How Steven Soderbergh Directs a Scene & Makes It Great Steven Soderbergh was one of the earliest filmmakers to break out in what’s now called the...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Steven Soderbergh was one of the earliest filmmakers to break out in what’s now called the “Indiewood” movement of the nineteen-nineties. He was early enough, in fact, to have done so in the eighties, with the Palme d’Or-winning Sex, Lies, and Videotape. His subsequent films have...
Seth's Blog
What’s the right size? There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the...
a year ago
33
a year ago
There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the driver’s effort if we put in a few more seats, but add too many and the bus is too big to make a turn–and soon we’d have to add conductors and cleaners and then the bus […]
Anarchy Unfolds
To change everything, start anywhere Letters to an anarchist - Part 2
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
The opposite of ‘perfect’ It’s not junk. No, the opposite of perfect is: Meets spec Useful On time Productive Valuable By...
9 months ago
48
9 months ago
It’s not junk. No, the opposite of perfect is: Meets spec Useful On time Productive Valuable By definition, good enough is good enough. If the spec isn’t what you need, change the spec. But perfect is unattainable and perfect is a place to hide.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Keith A. Pettit I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex....
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex. I left school and started work with a signwriter. I thought I was learning a trade for life - alas I was unaware of the digital revolution that was sweeping all before it. I've...
Seth's Blog
Thinking about jobs Since I was born, the planet has invented 6 billion jobs. Technology is said to threaten the...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
Since I was born, the planet has invented 6 billion jobs. Technology is said to threaten the replacement of human labor, yet, somehow we’ve found useful activities for a rapidly growing population. Coordinated without a coordinator, people go to work each day, often doing...
Marian's Blog
Raspberry Pi Wetterstation Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich entschieden, das Projekt jetzt mit einem Raspberry Pi weiterzuführen. Die Sensordaten werden wieder vom ILC-Board geliefert, das ich für den Schülerwettbewerb Intel Leibniz Challenge...
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...
11 months ago
61
11 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...
Seth's Blog
Productive assets and useful flows Assets are ownable. They are devices, skills, connections or properties that allow us to amplify our...
over a year ago
65
over a year ago
Assets are ownable. They are devices, skills, connections or properties that allow us to amplify our effort and do our work with more impact. A drill press is an asset, so is your law degree. The permission you have to talk with your customers, the benefit of the doubt you get...
Seth's Blog
A new cooperative workshop My colleague Ava Morris is running her Song of Significance Workshop on Friday, October 6. It’s...
a year ago
23
a year ago
My colleague Ava Morris is running her Song of Significance Workshop on Friday, October 6. It’s powerful, effective and personal. It runs worldwide, in Zoom, and it’s completely interactive–every participant participates. This will be the third session… the first two got rave...
Neocha – Culture &...
Reflections on Urban Isolation
11 months ago
Seth's Blog
Kazoo lessons Knowledge and technique used to be closely guarded secrets. Admission to the guild was reserved for...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Knowledge and technique used to be closely guarded secrets. Admission to the guild was reserved for a few, and crafts like typesetting, plumbing and medicine were off limits to most folks. One of the reasons for the explosion in productivity and innovation in the last century is...
Seth's Blog
Nihil hic deest This page intentionally left blank has a long history. I thought it was an IBM thing from the 1960s,...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
This page intentionally left blank has a long history. I thought it was an IBM thing from the 1960s, but I was off by a thousand or more years. There are good reasons for a page to be blank. Folding signatures, printing processes, having chapters start on the right or the left…...
Stat Significant
6 Reasons to Be (Cautiously) Optimistic About Movies in 2025: A Statistical Analysis Six reasons to be optimistic about the film industry.
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
Which agenda? Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda....
a year ago
87
a year ago
Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda. It’s easy to become so focused on checking the boxes that we forget that there are people involved. Peers, colleagues and friends that with something human to offer, if we only...
Seth's Blog
Practical approaches for more effective teamwork Give credit, take responsibility Get aligned on timeframes Insist on a spec, write one, improve it...
10 months ago
83
10 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
When the CIA Studied Psychic Techniques to Alter Human Consciousness & Unlock Time Travel: Discover... By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of...
a year ago
109
a year ago
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of experiments involving LSD and other psychoactive drugs called MKUltra from the nineteen-fifties to the seventies. As one might suspect, that wasn’t the only research project into the...
Seth's Blog
The AI effort gap It can take seven years to get a PhD. And a month to write a useful business plan or a year to write...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
It can take seven years to get a PhD. And a month to write a useful business plan or a year to write a book. And yet, when AI shows up, our mistake is thinking that if we can’t find useful brilliance in one simple prompt, it’s broken. Imagine what you could discover and create...
Seth's Blog
Listening to organizational decline Great companies and teams often get stale and then fade away. Here’s what we hear as it happens:...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
Great companies and teams often get stale and then fade away. Here’s what we hear as it happens: “I’m way too important to listen to customers. Send them to the call center.” “It wasn’t a bad idea when we implemented it, so it’s not a bad idea now.” “My boss won’t let me.” “The...
Seth's Blog
Understanding pricing The money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
The money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was to produce or how much the producer likes it. That’s hard to hear, because when we make something, we spend most of our time thinking about those very things. Price is based on...
Seth's Blog
The intentional stance Dan Dennett explained that it began as a survival mechanism. It’s important to predict how someone...
a year ago
94
a year ago
Dan Dennett explained that it began as a survival mechanism. It’s important to predict how someone else is going to behave. That tiger might be a threat, that person from the next village might have something to offer. If we simply wait and see, we might encounter an unwelcome or...
Seth's Blog
The seduction of false promises Why do we buy the pitch of the snake oil salesman, the flim-flam man, the con artist, the demagogue...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Why do we buy the pitch of the snake oil salesman, the flim-flam man, the con artist, the demagogue or the trickster? As our modern world becomes more informed and more rational, we see an increase (not the expected decrease) in scams, hustles, and chaos. There are Jokers and...
Seth's Blog
Stevie and Marvin When Marvin Gaye joined Motown, he went with his strengths. He wanted to work only in the studio. He...
over a year ago
80
over a year ago
When Marvin Gaye joined Motown, he went with his strengths. He wanted to work only in the studio. He hated touring and was sure he lacked the charisma and other gifts that made some musicians great onstage. This didn’t really fit the label’s strengths, and he struggled to find...
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
26
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...
Blog - Mac Pierce
The void will consume us and it'll be dank - Minionotics at Weatherproof A review of the group show Minionotics (March 13th - April 13th, 2025) at Weatherproof Gallery in...
2 months ago
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...
10 months ago
68
10 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
The gratuitous use of plastic At the dawn of the plastic age, it was a cheap substitute. The word “plasticky” is not a compliment....
a year ago
23
a year ago
At the dawn of the plastic age, it was a cheap substitute. The word “plasticky” is not a compliment. Over time, the plastics industry developed new finishes, colors and most of all, cultural impact, and extra (wasted) plastic packaging was seen first as convenient, then as a sign...
John Reynolds -...
Mammoth Life - Lights Out Music Video Title: Lights OutArtist: Mammoth LifeYear: 2014 --
over a year ago
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...
7 months ago
55
7 months 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...
Stat Significant
How Streaming Elevated (and Ruined) Documentaries: A Statistical Analysis Unpacking streaming's embrace and erosion of non-fiction storytelling.
8 months ago
Open Culture
The Ark Before Noah: Discover the Ancient Flood Myths That Came Before the Bible The Lord said to Noah, there’s going to be a floody, floody; then to get those children out of the...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
The Lord said to Noah, there’s going to be a floody, floody; then to get those children out of the muddy, muddy; then to build him an arky, arky. This much we heard while toasting marshmallows around the campfire, at least if we grew up in a certain modern Protestant tradition....
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “I am your BFDL” edition 1. Tech benevolent dictators are still… dictators in the tech community there is a concept of the...
6 months ago
50
6 months ago
1. Tech benevolent dictators are still… dictators in the tech community there is a concept of the “benevolent dictator for life”. This is a leadership model where one person, usually the founder, has the final say on decisions. They guide the project’s direction, relying on their...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Ian O' Halloran My name is Ian O’Halloran. I am a professional Artist and Printmaker living and working in the...
a month ago
32
a month ago
My name is Ian O’Halloran. I am a professional Artist and Printmaker living and working in the Sussex Weald near Herstmonceux (UK). I am and always have been inspired by the British landscape. I came to art later in life than most, having had a career in civil engineering first...
The Last...
Real Men Want To Drink Guinness, But Don't Expect Them To Pay For It the reason the bubbles go down is because of the drag created by the bubbles rising up the center. ...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
the reason the bubbles go down is because of the drag created by the bubbles rising up the center.  yeah, like a metaphor. "The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character." Yeah, we're sheep.  Message received.  That wasn't the message?  Are you...
On the Arts
From Gothic Invaders to Mall Goths How an ancient Germanic tribe gave its name to a modern subculture.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Is there a market(place)? Not all needs have a market (yet). A market is a category. A market is a place with competition. In...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
Not all needs have a market (yet). A market is a category. A market is a place with competition. In a market, people have habits and budgets and social pressure to engage. There are buyers and sellers. In many cultures, there’s a market for all the items that go with a...
Seth's Blog
There are no stupid mistakes There are mistakes. These are moments when reality teaches us something. And there’s stupid. This is...
over a year ago
77
over a year ago
There are mistakes. These are moments when reality teaches us something. And there’s stupid. This is what happens when we refuse to learn from our mistakes. “Don’t be stupid” is a fine mantra. It’s particularly apt when talking about cultural forces, political agendas and our...
Rectangle
The first rectangle And the first of many
over a year ago
Open Culture
Read 20 Short Stories From Nobel Prize-Winning Writer Alice Munro (RIP) Free Online Note: Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, we published a post...
a year ago
61
a year ago
Note: Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, we published a post featuring 20 short stories written by Munro. Today, with the sad news that Alice Munro has passed away, at the age of 92, we’re bringing the original post (from October 10, 2013) back to...
Open Culture
The Medieval Masterpiece, the Book of Kells, Is Now Digitized and Available Online If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book...
9 months ago
46
9 months ago
If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book of Kells. “One of Ireland’s greatest cultural treasures” comments Medievalists.net, “it is set apart from other manuscripts of the same period by the quality of its artwork and the...
Seth's Blog
Hope and expectations They’re not the same thing. Hope can fuel us. Hope can be refilled. Hope opens the door to...
a year ago
33
a year ago
They’re not the same thing. Hope can fuel us. Hope can be refilled. Hope opens the door to possibility. Expectations, on the other hand, are a trap. They make us brittle and lead to disappointment. When we raise our hopes and lower our expectations, we establish a resilient way...
Open Culture
Thousands of Pablo Picasso’s Works Now Available in a New Digital Archive If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Pablo Picasso, you might start at the Museo Picasso...
a year ago
59
a year ago
If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Pablo Picasso, you might start at the Museo Picasso Málaga, located in the artist’s Spanish birthplace. But to understand how his work developed throughout his life, you’ll have to get out of Spain — which is just what Picasso did...
Open Culture
The First Animation That Hayao Miyazaki Directed on His Own: Watch Footage from the Pilot of Yuki’s... Hayao Miyazaki began his career as an animator in 1963, getting in the door at Toei Animation not...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
Hayao Miyazaki began his career as an animator in 1963, getting in the door at Toei Animation not long before the company ceased to hire regularly. Miyazaki’s equally retirement-resistant contemporary Tetsuya Chiba, already well on his way to fame as a mangaka, or comic artist,...
Open Culture
A Grad Student Asks Carl Sagan If He Believes in God (1994) ?si=yeo1Xsu2ZLuCpQbC Most scientists are prepared to answer questions about their research from...
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks ago
?si=yeo1Xsu2ZLuCpQbC Most scientists are prepared to answer questions about their research from other members of their field; rather fewer have equipped themselves to answer questions from the general public about what Douglas Adams called life, the universe, and everything. Carl...
On the Arts
The Sea Has Always Looked the Same A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
a year ago
Open Culture
Hear the Isolated Vocals of Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush in “Don’t Give Up”: The Power of Perseverance Just by chance, could you use a song about perseverance and overcoming adversity? Something to give...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
Just by chance, could you use a song about perseverance and overcoming adversity? Something to give you a little encouragement and reassurance? Then we submit to you “Don’t Give Up,” featuring the isolated vocals of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. When he released the song on his...
Seth's Blog
Multiple choice “None of the above” is often the best option. We’re regularly confronted with multiple-choice...
11 months ago
92
11 months ago
“None of the above” is often the best option. We’re regularly confronted with multiple-choice questions. The foundation is already established, the options are already limited, do you want this or that? But the real questions lie in the assumptions that happened before you were...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Suckered Yet Again Influencer boxing, BlueSky winning, and incredible calendar confessions
7 months ago
Stat Significant
How Long Does Music Stardom Last? A Statistical Analysis When do music stars achieve fame, and how long does fame typically last?
11 months ago
Open Culture
2000-Year-Old Bottle of White Wine Found in a Roman Burial Site Image via Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Back in 2017, we featured the oldest unopened...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Image via Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Back in 2017, we featured the oldest unopened bottle of wine in the world here on Open Culture. Found in Speyer, Germany, in 1867, it dates from 350 AD, making it a venerable vintage indeed, but one recently outdone by a bottle...
Seth's Blog
The length trick It’s possible that the memo or video is simply too long. A 14 minute video explaining how to have a...
a year ago
21
a year ago
It’s possible that the memo or video is simply too long. A 14 minute video explaining how to have a 10 minute brainstorming meeting might benefit from some editing. But it might be that your instruction manual would benefit from some more photos and better in depth explanation....
Marian's Blog
Quadrocopter Lichtsystem Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters...
over a year ago
19
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
The four cohorts of the status quo The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around...
a year ago
27
a year ago
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around it. The second group cares about stability. They have limited bandwidth, and they’re not particularly interested in reconsidering everything, all the time. The third group doesn’t...
Seth's Blog
What does reality look like? Not what we see when we’re present, but what do we see when we imagine we’re present? In the early...
a year ago
65
a year ago
Not what we see when we’re present, but what do we see when we imagine we’re present? In the early days of photography, the world was black and white, and sort of flat. It’s worth noting that no one who saw these pictures complained about the fact that they didn’t exactly match...
Open Culture
Wim Wenders’ New Short Film Reminds Europe of the Lessons of World War II World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945. It followed, by less than three weeks, an...
a month ago
12
a month ago
World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945. It followed, by less than three weeks, an equally momentous event, at least in the eyes of cinephiles: the birth of Wim Wenders. Though soon to turn 80 years old, Wenders has remained both productive and capable of drawing great...
Open Culture
Édouard Manet Illustrates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edition Translated by Stephane... Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame during his lifetime after the publication of The...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame during his lifetime after the publication of The Raven (1845), but he never felt that he received the recognition he deserved. In some respects, he was right. He was, after all, paid only nine dollars for the poem, and he struggled...
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...
10 months ago
60
10 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.
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Generating The Alphabet My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser...
a year ago
26
a year ago
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser based art work, using a “web safe” font could produce inconsistent results, while including a font file would mean a large file size. Additionally, I don’t want a visual element of...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: YouTube's AI Problem Plus! Vibe Shift Reversal and Dr Pepper Guy
2 months ago
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
31
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
Scaffolds and talent Kindergarten teachers matter more than you think. Chess isn’t a talent, it’s a learned practice....
a year ago
24
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
All of it, all at once The smartphone is the most expensive device most people own, and the one they use the most. Here’s...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
The smartphone is the most expensive device most people own, and the one they use the most. Here’s everything you can’t have, can’t afford and won’t get, right here. Here’s everyone you want to have an argument with, one click away. Here is every piece of bad news we can imagine,...
Open Culture
Tracking Pianist Yuja Wang’s Heartbeats During Her Marathon Rachmaninoff Performance The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene: On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The...
a year ago
55
a year ago
The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene: On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall for a once-in-a-lifetime, all-Rachmaninoff marathon that featured the composer’s four piano concertos...
Open Culture
Carl Sagan Issues a Chilling Warning About the Decline of Scientific Thinking in America: Watch His... Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along —...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along — popularizing science and “enthusiastically conveying the wonders of the universe to millions of people on television and in books.” Whenever Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny...
Open Culture
How Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd & Jethro Tull Financed the Making Monty Python and the Holy Grail Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn’t a big-budget spectacle, and nobody knew that better than the...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn’t a big-budget spectacle, and nobody knew that better than the Pythons themselves. Necessity being the mother of invention, they turned the project’s financial constraints into one of its many sources of humor, fashioning memorable gags out of...
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
28
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:
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Gemma Berenguer (Monostereo) My name is Gemma Berenguer and I'm from Barcelona. I'm a printmaker specialising in screen printing,...
10 months ago
89
10 months ago
My name is Gemma Berenguer and I'm from Barcelona. I'm a printmaker specialising in screen printing, although I also dabble in etching and block printing as well. I run Monostereo, a screen printing company in Barcelona, which has been operating for 15 years now.  I first...
Stat Significant
How Are Hit Songs Rediscovered Decades Later? A Statistical Analysis How does music undergo a cultural revival long after its original release?
10 months ago
Seth's Blog
Cats and dogs Does your brand have a personality? When people expect you to act a certain way, you have a brand....
a year ago
96
a year ago
Does your brand have a personality? When people expect you to act a certain way, you have a brand. And that expectation is worth understanding. Can you help us understand whether you’re a cat or a dog in the way you react, respond, delight or sneak around? And if you’re a dog,...
Open Culture
Browse 64 Years of RadioShack Catalogs Free Online … and Revisit the History of American Consumer... “I bet RadioShack was great once,” writes former employee Jon Bois in a much-circulated 2014 piece...
10 months ago
68
10 months ago
“I bet RadioShack was great once,” writes former employee Jon Bois in a much-circulated 2014 piece for SB Nation. “I can’t look through their decades-old catalogs and come away with any other impression. They sold giant walnut-wood speakers I’d kill to have today. They sold...
Open Culture
The First Professional Footage of Pink Floyd Gets Captured in a 1967 Documentary (and the Band Also... British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with...
a year ago
59
a year ago
British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with his promo films for the Rolling Stones in the mid-60s. According to Ali Catterall and Simon Wells, authors of Your Face Here, a study of “British Cult Film since the Sixties,”...
Seth's Blog
The lens or the problem? We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around money, the activist might see an opportunity for social justice. The technologist figures that a computer and more data might help, and the bureaucrat is looking for a system to put...
Open Culture
The Night Frank Zappa Jammed With Pink Floyd … and Captain Beefheart Too (Belgium, 1969) Recently an older musician acquaintance told me he never “got into ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and all...
10 months ago
38
10 months ago
Recently an older musician acquaintance told me he never “got into ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and all that,” referring to the “first major space jam” of Pink Floyd’s career and the subsequent explosion of space rock bands. I found myself a little taken aback. Though I was born too...
Marian's Blog
Infinite procedurally generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm This is a game where you walk through an infinite city that is procedurally generated as you...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
This is a game where you walk through an infinite city that is procedurally generated as you walk. It is generated from a set of blocks with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm. You can download a playable build of the game on itch.io and you can get the source code on...
Open Culture
Frank Lloyd Wright Thought About Making the Guggenheim Museum Pink Image via The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives Seen today, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,...
10 months ago
36
10 months ago
Image via The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives Seen today, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, seems to occupy several time periods at once, looking both modern and somehow ancient. The latter quality surely has to do with its bright white...
Open Culture
The Invisible Horror of The Shining: How Music Makes Stanley Kubrick’s Iconic Film Even More... Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy...
22 hours ago
2
22 hours ago
Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy the work of Stanley Kubrick. But even his most steadfast non-appreciators have to hand it to him for The Shining, his 1980 Stephen King adaptation widely considered one of the...
Seth's Blog
Flashing on contempt It doesn’t have to happen with intent, in fact, it rarely does. Micro-emotions appear on our face...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
It doesn’t have to happen with intent, in fact, it rarely does. Micro-emotions appear on our face and then disappear in less than a second. Blink and you’ll miss them. But sometimes, people don’t blink. We’ve evolved to be hyperware of these tiny displays of emotion. And yet,...
Prolost
Slugline 2 From the Slugline Blog: Slugline 2 is a new app that replaces the old Slugline for Mac. It has a...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
From the Slugline Blog: Slugline 2 is a new app that replaces the old Slugline for Mac. It has a slick new UI, which includes a lovely dark mode. Big new features include: a drag-and-drop outline, an awesome new timeline, color-coded notes, Final Draft import/export, and Live...
Open Culture
How an Ancient Roman Shipwreck Could Explain the Universe In a 1956 New Statesman piece, the British scientist-novelist C. P. Snow first sounded the alarm...
10 months ago
37
10 months ago
In a 1956 New Statesman piece, the British scientist-novelist C. P. Snow first sounded the alarm about the increasingly chasm-like divide between what he called the “scientific” and “traditional” cultures. We would today refer to them as the sciences and the humanities, while...
Neocha – Culture &...
Deep Baby Sleep Realm
over a year ago
Open Culture
RIP David Sanborn: See Him Play Alongside Miles Davis, Randy Newman, Sun Ra, Leonard Cohen and... It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the...
a year ago
116
a year ago
It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the saxophonist David Sanborn appears onscreen, instrument in hand, introducing the eclectic blues icon Taj Mahal, who in turn declares his intent to play a number with “rural humor” and...
Seth's Blog
Easy/lazy tech journalism Choose either one: When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance...
a year ago
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a year ago
Choose either one: When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance or caution how it will instantly change the world. Go into the details of this first instantiation of it and assume it will never change, it’s done, here we go. When a new...
Seth's Blog
“We used to do that” When electricity came along, there was a swath of industries that were trapped in an old way of...
a year ago
32
a year ago
When electricity came along, there was a swath of industries that were trapped in an old way of thinking. The only ones that thrived were able to walk away from what they used to do and eagerly embrace something new. When the internet was young, the major book publishers had...
Open Culture
Every Frame a Painting Returns to YouTube & Explores Why the Sustained Two-Shot Vanished from Movies Video essayists don’t normally retire; in most cases, they just drift into inactivity. Hence the...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
Video essayists don’t normally retire; in most cases, they just drift into inactivity. Hence the surprise and even dismay of the internet’s cinephiles when Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos declared the end of their respected channel Every Frame a Painting in 2016. We here at Open...
Seth's Blog
Raising the bar That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the...
a year ago
73
a year ago
That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the bar became well understood: If you can’t jump over the bar that the current leader cleared, you don’t win. But most of the innovations that change our culture don’t actually...
Prolost
Introducing Prolost Beta Prolost Beta is a new subscription offering on the Prolost Store. It's an occasional email from me...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
Prolost Beta is a new subscription offering on the Prolost Store. It's an occasional email from me containing a download or a link to something cool I'm working on, that's not quite ready to become a product yet. Or maybe ever. This will most often be Lightroom presets or...
Open Culture
The Heavy-Metal Band Disturbed Covered Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” Ten Years Ago, and... “The Sound of Silence” Is the Most Metal Song of the Past Decade”: imagine that headline, and the...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
“The Sound of Silence” Is the Most Metal Song of the Past Decade”: imagine that headline, and the contrarian culture piece practically writes itself. Not so long ago, Slate was notorious for publishing that kind of thing, but it seems they’ve now put that sensibility behind them...
Marian's Blog
3D Printed Mechanical Digital Clock This post is about building a 3D printed, mechanical digital clock, made out of seven-segment...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
This post is about building a 3D printed, mechanical digital clock, made out of seven-segment displays. The project was inspired by a video by Lukas Deem, who built a clock with seven-segment displays where the segments slide in and out when they change their state. In his...
Seth's Blog
A good business Just because it’s useful, needed or worthwhile doesn’t mean it’s a good business. E-bikes are...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
Just because it’s useful, needed or worthwhile doesn’t mean it’s a good business. E-bikes are transforming cities and offering mobility to those who previously couldn’t afford it. But they’re a commodity, and it’s difficult to make a significant profit producing them. A good...
Open Culture
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...
11 months ago
71
11 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...
Seth's Blog
“Not your best ever” In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top...
a year ago
85
a year ago
In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top everything that came before it. Progress is rarely smooth.
Seth's Blog
Taken for granted A poignant definition of civilization is all the conveniences, courtesies, standards, insulation and...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
A poignant definition of civilization is all the conveniences, courtesies, standards, insulation and tools that we hardly notice now but that we would miss if they were gone.
Open Culture
How Bob Dylan Kept Reinventing His Songwriting Process, Breathing New Life Into His Music On his 84th birthday this past Saturday, Bob Dylan played a show. That was in keeping with not only...
a month ago
24
a month ago
On his 84th birthday this past Saturday, Bob Dylan played a show. That was in keeping with not only his still-serious touring schedule, but also his apparently irrepressible instinct to work: on music, on writing, on painting, on sculpture. Even his occasional tweeting draws an...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Pretty much all I want in life… … is to make things and then have other people look at those things and be like “woah, cool”
over a year ago
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...
over a year ago
47
over 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 “no” is not an option… Then neither is “yes.” Enrollment requires choice. PS one of my all-time favorite encore episodes of...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Then neither is “yes.” Enrollment requires choice. PS one of my all-time favorite encore episodes of Akimbo is out this week: How to get into a famous college.
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
26
a year ago
We have more ways to offer instructions than ever before, but it’s not obvious that we’re getting better at it. Not just the operator’s manual, but every way we have to teach and offer instructions… Some (uncategorized) things to consider: The first manual I created, in 1983, was...
Seth's Blog
Clarity about the benefits Work on climate problems is actually about efficiency. It’s easier and cheaper to avoid sloppiness...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
Work on climate problems is actually about efficiency. It’s easier and cheaper to avoid sloppiness and side effects than it is to clean the mess up later. And energy sources that don’t burn become cheaper over time. The investment in getting started pays off in cost, health and...
Seth's Blog
Here to please Please who? If you’re on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
Please who? If you’re on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the owners of the tech stock or your personal goals? If you’re publishing a book, are you working for the book or is the book working for you? You might be able to get the folks in the...
Seth's Blog
It’s not easy to see time Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about...
8 months ago
73
8 months ago
Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about any frame of this graph. But when we pause for just a few seconds for it to load and render, we can see 150 years unfold and then the truth becomes apparent. The snapshot is a...
Seth's Blog
Actionable feedback “Do you want to know what I think?” The best answer might be, “no.” Because this person is not very...
over a year ago
30
over 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
Living in the future In a bad 1950s science fiction movie, you might see flying jetpacks, invisibility cloaks and ray...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
In a bad 1950s science fiction movie, you might see flying jetpacks, invisibility cloaks and ray guns. What we got instead is a device that fits in our pocket. It allows us to connect to more than a billion people. It knows where we are and where we’re going. It has all of our...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: X-ocracy Now The government is now run by Elon Musk's X
6 months ago
Open Culture
Patti Smith Reads Her Final Letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, Calling Him “the Most Beautiful Work of... If you go to hear Patti Smith in concert, you expect her to sing “Beneath the Southern Cross,”...
a year ago
68
a year ago
If you go to hear Patti Smith in concert, you expect her to sing “Beneath the Southern Cross,” “Because the Night,” and almost certainly “People Have the Power,” the hit single from Dream of Life. Like her 1975 debut Horses, that album had a cover photo by Robert...
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...
9 months ago
64
9 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...
Seth's Blog
The defensive arrogance of TL;DR Every since there has been high school, there has been the instinct to read the Cliffs Notes. The...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Every since there has been high school, there has been the instinct to read the Cliffs Notes. The internet took this idea, added a gratuitous semicolon and perfected Too Long; Didn’t Read. This is the mistakenly proud assertion that we are far too busy and too important to read...
Marian's Blog
Android-Benachrichtigungen auf dem Schreibtisch Das Ziel dieses Projekts ist, Benachrichtigungen von meinem Android-Handy automatisch auf einem...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Das Ziel dieses Projekts ist, Benachrichtigungen von meinem Android-Handy automatisch auf einem LoL-Shield (Lots of LEDs) anzuzeigen. Dazu benutze ich einen Raspberry Pi, der sowieso schon auf meinem Schreibtisch steht, einen Arduino für das Schild und auf dem Handy Tasker, um...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Understanding the work - Thoughts on one day with three art events. A few thoughts on a few art events that happened around Boston Feb. 22nd.
over a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Hand-Painted Textiles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Painting on Fabric by Sarah Campbell Book... We have recently added some fantastic new books to the Handprinted shop and this one is no...
over a year ago
71
over a year ago
We have recently added some fantastic new books to the Handprinted shop and this one is no exception. Sarah Campbell's beautifully curated and inspirational book explores the art of painting and making patterns on fabric. Even just flicking through the pages of this book makes...
Seth's Blog
The shifting status of more data How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell....
a year ago
31
a year ago
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell. Either the building falls down or it doesn’t. Either the car starts after you charge the battery or it’s still dead. We can ask easy questions about how long it took or how much it […]
Anarchy Unfolds
Queer Folk Don't Need Orientation How decade-old discourse shows us a way out
9 months ago
Open Culture
Learn Data Analytics & AI with Google, and Fast-Track Your Career ?si=azZbGLEr_9EFWypL We’re living in the age of data and artificial intelligence (AI). Every second,...
8 months ago
48
8 months ago
?si=azZbGLEr_9EFWypL We’re living in the age of data and artificial intelligence (AI). Every second, vast amounts of data are being generated, processed, and analyzed. And increasingly AI plays a central role in how that data gets managed. For companies, governments, and...
Seth's Blog
Worthless noise isn’t information Data becomes information when at least one of two related things are true: If you’re not getting one...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Data becomes information when at least one of two related things are true: If you’re not getting one of these things, then the data is simply noise. A distraction that wastes our time and confuses us. Breaking news is up to the recipient.
The Last...
Don't Hate Her Because She's Successful the first thing you noticed is her great outfit and the first thing I noticed is she's covering her...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
the first thing you noticed is her great outfit and the first thing I noticed is she's covering her wedding ring  this is why you are anxious and I am Alone Today in the United States and the developed world, women are better off than ever before. But the...
Open Culture
Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Living Virtuously (1930) Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life...
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life concerned with big topics in logic, mathematics, politics, and society, but that didn’t keep him from thinking seriously about how to handle his own day-to-day relationships. That hardly...
Seth's Blog
Can you draw it on a graph? Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport...
a year ago
50
a year ago
Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport to explain something, but all they do is relabel it. If you truly understand something, you can use different modalities to help someone else understand it. The magic of a good...
Open Culture
The History of the World in One Beautiful, 5‑Foot-Long Chart (1931) In the image above, we see an impressive pre-internet macro-infographic called a “Histomap.” Its...
4 weeks ago
13
4 weeks ago
In the image above, we see an impressive pre-internet macro-infographic called a “Histomap.” Its creator John B. Sparks (who later created “histomaps” of religion and evolution) published the graphic in 1931 with Rand McNally. The five-foot-long chart—purportedly covering 4,000...
Open Culture
Enter a Huge Archive of Amazing Stories, the World’s First Science Fiction Magazine, Launched in... If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula,...
a year ago
58
a year ago
If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula, it’s the most prestigious of science fiction prizes, bringing together in its ranks of winners such venerable authors as Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Neil...
Seth's Blog
Big scale, big impact The Beatles changed music. Starbucks changed coffee. Perhaps your project is aiming to reach a large...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
The Beatles changed music. Starbucks changed coffee. Perhaps your project is aiming to reach a large audience. Consultants call it market share. What percentage of the available market have you reached with your idea? No one hits everyone, but many organizations seek to be a...
Infinite Scroll
Is a Progressive Joe Rogan Impossible? Why the online environment has broken sharply to the right
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Pleasant We often use words like “beautiful” or “stunning” or “perfect” when we actually mean “popular” or...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
We often use words like “beautiful” or “stunning” or “perfect” when we actually mean “popular” or “pleasant.” Every day is beautiful in its own way. But the weather yesterday was pleasant. Hit songs are hits. But they’re rarely perfect. I’m a big fan of pleasant. And I often like...
Stat Significant
What Are the Greatest Karaoke Songs of All Time? A Statistical Analysis Which songs dominate karaoke night?
2 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing with Permaset Puff Paste Puff Paste is a great way to add a little something extra to your fabric prints! It adds depth and...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
Puff Paste is a great way to add a little something extra to your fabric prints! It adds depth and texture and is so much fun to use. In this project, we have exposed a screen and used it to print with Puff Paste onto a tote bag: Half-fill the coating trough with photo emulsion....
Seth's Blog
The house painter and the architect We don’t design a book until after it’s written. Or cast the movie until the screenplay is complete....
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
We don’t design a book until after it’s written. Or cast the movie until the screenplay is complete. The house painter has an important job, but it makes no sense to plan for the painting before the house is designed. This makes a lot of sense because some parts of a project have...
Seth's Blog
PW1: Two hats for productivity Welcome to 2024. Back to work, here we go. So it’s Productivity Week on the blog. Productivity is...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Welcome to 2024. Back to work, here we go. So it’s Productivity Week on the blog. Productivity is the measure of the output (value) we get for the time or money we spend. Two hats for productivity: When I’m clearing my inbox, responding to comments in a doc, cooking lunch–these...
Seth's Blog
Good-boss friendly Workers have rarely gotten the long end of the stick. The seduction of “do what you’re told and...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
Workers have rarely gotten the long end of the stick. The seduction of “do what you’re told and you’ll win valuable prizes” often doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, and so it’s not surprising that many people are skeptical about delivering something extra–work is called work for a...
Open Culture
Watch The Cure Perform a Three-Hour Concert in London, Celebrating the Release of Their New Album httpv://www.youtube.com/live/_aWDlaxvEZo Last Friday, The Cure celebrated the release of their new...
8 months ago
53
8 months ago
httpv://www.youtube.com/live/_aWDlaxvEZo Last Friday, The Cure celebrated the release of their new album, Songs of a Lost World, with a three-hour set at the Troxy in London. The band kicked off the show by performing all eight tracks from the album, before then playing another...
Seth's Blog
Your own billboard Large sections of Los Angeles are studded with billboards for minor TV shows. These billboards exist...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
Large sections of Los Angeles are studded with billboards for minor TV shows. These billboards exist nowhere else, even though there are televisions globally. Obviously, there’s ego at work here, but it’s sort of productive. First, there’s the ego of the producers/networks. They...
Seth's Blog
But where are the secret recipes? Over the years, I’ve been sharing recipes as pages here on the blog, but never posting about them…...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
Over the years, I’ve been sharing recipes as pages here on the blog, but never posting about them… you only got the link if I sent it to you. Well, your wait is over. For those seeking non-obvious but delicious and light-on-their-feet recipes, here you go: (two new ones added,...
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...
a year ago
80
a year ago
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the probable inspiration for Isak Dinesen’s poem “Ex Africa,” itself the probable inspiration for her memoir Out of Africa, which in turn was loosely adapted into Sydney Pollack’s...
Seth's Blog
Seeking yoyu 余裕 There are two ways of thinking about doing more than is necessary. It can become a really useful...
2 months ago
14
2 months ago
There are two ways of thinking about doing more than is necessary. It can become a really useful marketing tactic. When you deliver more than people expect, your overdelivery creates connection. The surprise and delight is remarkable. People talk about it, seek you out and come...
Anarchy Unfolds
May all roads lead to solarpunk Letters to an anarchist - Part 8
7 months ago
Open Culture
The Brilliant Engineering That Made Venice: How a City Was Built on Water Many of us have put off a visit to Venice for fear of the hordes of tourists who roam its streets...
11 months ago
42
11 months ago
Many of us have put off a visit to Venice for fear of the hordes of tourists who roam its streets and boat down its canals day in and day out. To judge by the most visible of its economic activity, the once-mighty city-state now exists almost solely as an Instagramming...
Seth's Blog
Significant work is a vote When we show up to bring humanity to work, we’re making a choice. It involves risk and effort and...
a year ago
20
a year ago
When we show up to bring humanity to work, we’re making a choice. It involves risk and effort and emotional labor. We’re here to make a change happen, and we’re giving something to make that happen. So it’s a vote. A vote for the customer we seek to serve. A vote for the boss and...
Seth's Blog
The braid out of balance There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the appearance of status) Safety (survival and peace of mind) Meaning (hope and the path forward) The changes in our media structure, public health and economy have pushed some people to...
Open Culture
Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television...
9 months ago
82
9 months ago
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective? Sadly, no, but he had the makings of a great one, at least as cut together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. Some 35 years after...
Open Culture
The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse: Rick Beato Explains Earlier this month, a North Carolina man was charged with generating songs using an...
9 months ago
48
9 months ago
Earlier this month, a North Carolina man was charged with generating songs using an artificial-intelligence system and configuring bots to stream them automatically, thus racking up some $10 million in illegal royalties. Though that amount no doubt startles many of us, in this...
Seth's Blog
On the way to professionalism Professionals make choices. Including: Don’t exploit friends and family. Surgeons shouldn’t do...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
Professionals make choices. Including: Don’t exploit friends and family. Surgeons shouldn’t do surgery on their kids, and investment advisors shouldn’t manage their dad’s retirement fund. It doesn’t matter if you’re sure you’re the best in the world. Swap with the person who’s...
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
20
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
The inevitable meeting When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for...
9 months ago
53
9 months ago
When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak? This is something we must work on right now, and tomorrow, and every single day until the meeting happens.
Seth's Blog
The seduction of compliance We can tell from the words. “I’m just doing my job.” “Will this be on the test?” “Don’t blame me.”...
over a year ago
91
over a year ago
We can tell from the words. “I’m just doing my job.” “Will this be on the test?” “Don’t blame me.” “It’s what everyone else is wearing.” Keep your head down, do what you’re told, don’t stick your neck out, and most of all, pay attention to what everyone else is doing. All of this...
Infinite Scroll
Should We Ban Gambling on Smartphones? A conversation between two parts of my brain
3 months ago
escape the algorithm
Close reading the trees How competitive Google Street Viewing makes the world feel seen
a year ago
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
32
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?...
Anarchy Unfolds
3 Pieces for Rethinking Identity Politics Mental health, neurodivergence, orientation, and the path ahead
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Maybe it’s in how you tell it The plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey is pretty simple. You could write out a summary in three...
3 months ago
23
3 months ago
The plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey is pretty simple. You could write out a summary in three paragraphs. That’s not what made it one of the most revered movies of all time, and also one of the most difficult to make. Blurting out the plot of what we’re offering seems like the...
Seth's Blog
The tooth fairy Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were...
11 months ago
62
11 months ago
Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were sure of, but now, with the passage of time and the benefit of experience, you know to be incorrect or incomplete. Of course, it’s not just mythical creatures beloved by children....
Open Culture
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Explained in One of the Earliest Science Films Ever Made (1923) Albert Einstein developed his theory of special relativity in 1905, and then mentally mapped out his...
a year ago
88
a year ago
Albert Einstein developed his theory of special relativity in 1905, and then mentally mapped out his theory of general relativity between 1907 and 1915. For years to come, the rest of the world would try to catch up with Einstein, trying to understand the gist, let alone the full...
Seth's Blog
Celebrating the thousand with a special package [Lots of links in this post… US offer is here, international is here.] Ideas travel horizontally....
10 months ago
81
10 months ago
[Lots of links in this post… US offer is here, international is here.] Ideas travel horizontally. Not from the creator to the audience as much as from one person to another. It’s easy to misunderstand the insight of Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans. Decades ago he argued that the...
Seth's Blog
The problem with the movie version There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit. Happily ever...
8 months ago
47
8 months ago
There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit. Happily ever after, a climax at just the right moment, perfect heroes, tension, resolution and a swelling soundtrack. Every element is amplified and things happen right on schedule. Consume...
Seth's Blog
Better at being better In most competitive markets, when an organization offers a new benefit, others will quickly move to...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
In most competitive markets, when an organization offers a new benefit, others will quickly move to match it. This means that it’s hard to justify the hard work of creating something better, because it’s just going to become a new standard. It doesn’t pay for a credit card...
Seth's Blog
Hallucinations are not the same as errors I asked my AI about some obsolete card games, and it wrote a 1,000 word essay about Lansquenet. It...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
I asked my AI about some obsolete card games, and it wrote a 1,000 word essay about Lansquenet. It made up the rules, the strategies, the betting techniques, all of it. Saying that it was raining on July 14th last year is an error. Inventing an entirely new set of rules is an...
Seth's Blog
Squeaky wheels One strategy is to spend time finding the one wheel and address it. The better approach is to...
a month ago
12
a month ago
One strategy is to spend time finding the one wheel and address it. The better approach is to realize that if there’s one wheel that’s squeaking, it’s likely that all the wheels need lubrication.
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...
11 months ago
40
11 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...
Prolost
Apple’s “EDR” Brings High Dynamic Range to Non-HDR Displays Was it worth buying a Pro Display XDR just for this joke? Yes. Apple caused quite a stir with the...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Was it worth buying a Pro Display XDR just for this joke? Yes. Apple caused quite a stir with the announcement of their Pro Display XDR, a High Dynamic Range display that occupies a convoluted space in the market. It seeks to be both a Very Nice Computer Display, and a reference...
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...
9 months ago
59
9 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
The thing about Hobson People talk about Hobson’s choice as if it’s always a bad thing. A liveryman in pre-industrial...
a year ago
37
a year ago
People talk about Hobson’s choice as if it’s always a bad thing. A liveryman in pre-industrial London, he rented horses. And every customer was allowed to take the horse closest to the door. Hobson’s choice is no choice at all. Of course, this system meant that the horses were...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: The Ban Cometh TikTok banned, RedNote reversal, TrumpCoin and Gjörfbunkle
5 months ago
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Vance Memes Plus: Media Literacy (gone) and Production (still here)
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Boundaries and limits They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it...
a year ago
89
a year ago
They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it without risk. The electrified third rail, on the other hand, is a limit. If you touch it, you’re done. Boundaries can give us room to innovate and thrive. Budgets, schedules and...
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...
over a year ago
87
over 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...
Open Culture
Download Issues of “Weird Tales” (1923–1954): The Pioneering Pulp Horror Magazine Features Original... We live in an era of genre. Browse through TV shows of the last decade to see what I mean: Horror,...
a year ago
75
a year ago
We live in an era of genre. Browse through TV shows of the last decade to see what I mean: Horror, sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, futuristic dystopias…. Take a casual glance at the burgeoning global film franchises or merchandising empires. Where in earlier decades, horror and...
Open Culture
The “Nonsense” Botanical Illustrations of Victorian Artist-Poet Edward Lear (1871–77) Since the Victorian era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for generation upon...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
Since the Victorian era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for generation upon generation in the English-speaking world, the kind of poem that one simply knows, whether one remembers actually having read it or not. As with most such works that seep so...
Seth's Blog
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...
11 months ago
62
11 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, […]
Open Culture
The Fake Buildings of New York: What Happens Inside Their Mysterious Walls You can’t go on a walk with a serious enthusiast of New York history without hearing the stories...
8 months ago
55
8 months ago
You can’t go on a walk with a serious enthusiast of New York history without hearing the stories behind at least a few notable, beautiful, or downright strange buildings. Yet most longtime New Yorkers, famed for tuning out their surroundings to better strive for their goals of...
Infinite Scroll
Podcast: Abundance ft. Derek Thompson My other job besides writing here at Infinite Scroll is hosting The New Liberal Podcast, and this...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
My other job besides writing here at Infinite Scroll is hosting The New Liberal Podcast, and this week I’m sharing an episode I recorded with Derek Thompson of The Atlantic.
Seth's Blog
“I changed my mind” Who is “I” and how does that “I” have the power to change the mind in question? What actually...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
Who is “I” and how does that “I” have the power to change the mind in question? What actually happens is this: If you are brave enough to have your mind changed, experience can do that. But it’s rarely as conscious an intentional act as we give ourselves credit for.
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...
a year ago
66
a year 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
Situational spending Money is a story. But money is also an exchangeable commodity, valued by different people in...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
Money is a story. But money is also an exchangeable commodity, valued by different people in different ways. And time is the wildcard. Situational spending is a trap that seduces us into forgetting that time passes and debt (or assets) remain. A couple about to wed might not...
Seth's Blog
Wild Hope Now: The power of books for causes Non-profits and charities depend on the emotional and financial support of their backers. And that...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Non-profits and charities depend on the emotional and financial support of their backers. And that support is always based on a story. A story of possibility, of justice, of community. They serve to right wrongs, to fix problems, to shine a light and to make things better. I’ve...
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...
11 months ago
72
11 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
Bottom of the funnel It’s easy to get focused on the public-facing mouth of the funnel. More followers. More impressions....
a year ago
103
a year ago
It’s easy to get focused on the public-facing mouth of the funnel. More followers. More impressions. More buzz, hype, promotion. Get the word out. Just about all the time people who call themselves “marketers” spend is on this. Don’t worry about what happens later, just pour more...
Seth's Blog
Full circle with myopia In 1983, an old article from the Harvard Business Review changed my life. In 1960, Ted Levitt, a...
8 months ago
58
8 months ago
In 1983, an old article from the Harvard Business Review changed my life. In 1960, Ted Levitt, a professor at HBS, wrote the most popular article in the Review’s history. Called Marketing Myopia, it described a different way of thinking about change and marketing. I was a (very)...
Seth's Blog
The commonweal Thanks to everyone who has read, talked about and taken action around my new book, The Song of...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
Thanks to everyone who has read, talked about and taken action around my new book, The Song of Signficance. If you have a chance to post a review, that would be great. And you can find the podcasts here. The first step in making things better is talking about it.
Anarchy Unfolds
May '24 Myths & Recs Biden, Kurzgesagt, 90s Christian bands, and more
a year ago
Open Culture
When Kris Kristofferson (RIP) Stood by Sinéad O’Connor at the Height of Her Controversy One would have imagined Sinéad O’Connor impervious to any reaction from a hostile audience, no...
9 months ago
69
9 months ago
One would have imagined Sinéad O’Connor impervious to any reaction from a hostile audience, no matter how vitriolic. But even for a public figure as outspoken and unapologetic as her, it could all get to be a bit much at times. Take the 1992 concert Columbia Records put on for...
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Unplugged: Two Great Recordings of Hendrix Playing Acoustic Guitar As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed...
12 months ago
74
12 months ago
As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed I’d attain even a fraction of his skill. But what attracted me to him was his near-total lack of formality—he didn’t read music, wasn’t trained in any classical sense, played an...
Open Culture
eanuts Creator Charles Schulz Shares with a 10-Year-Old Kid the True Meaning of Good Citizenship In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Linton asked Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, “What do you...
8 months ago
69
8 months ago
In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Linton asked Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, “What do you think makes a good citizen?” Schulz sent the youngster a short but pithy reply: Dear Joel: I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever...
Open Culture
A Short Visual History of America, According to the Irreverent Comic Artist R. Crumb As a founder of the “underground comix” movement in the 1960s, R. Crumb is either revered as a...
8 months ago
55
8 months ago
As a founder of the “underground comix” movement in the 1960s, R. Crumb is either revered as a pioneering satirist of American culture and its excesses or reviled as a juvenile purveyor of painfully outmoded sexist and racist stereotypes. Crumb doesn’t apologize. He keeps...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Loading, please wait... Starting the 1A2A3D project. Starting out on a project looking at the first amendment, second amendment, and 3-D printing.
over a year ago
Open Culture
Maurice Sendak’s First Published Illustrations: Discover His Drawings for a 1947 Popular Science... McGraw-Hill/public domain; copy from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives Once upon a time, long before...
10 months ago
41
10 months ago
McGraw-Hill/public domain; copy from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives Once upon a time, long before Maurice Sendak illustrated Where The Wild Things Are (1963), he published, notes Ars Technica, “his first professional illustrations in a 1947 popular science book about nuclear...
Open Culture
Watch 70+ Classic Literary Films Free Online: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Gulliver’s Travels, Jane... The term gaslight has gained so much traction in popular discourse so recently that you’d swear it...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
The term gaslight has gained so much traction in popular discourse so recently that you’d swear it was coined around 2010. In fact, that particular usage goes at least as far back as 1938, when British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton wrote a stage thriller about a...
Open Culture
“The Virtues of Coffee” Explained in 1690 Ad: The Cure for Lethargy, Scurvy, Dropsy, Gout & More According to many historians, the English Enlightenment may never have happened were it not for...
a year ago
52
a year ago
According to many historians, the English Enlightenment may never have happened were it not for coffeehouses, the public sphere where poets, critics, philosophers, legal minds, and other intellectual gadflies regularly met to chatter about the pressing concerns of the day. And...
Open Culture
Take a 3D Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel & Explore Michelangelo’s Masterpieces Up Close Today, 133 cardinals from around the world enter the conclave to determine the next pope, during...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
Today, 133 cardinals from around the world enter the conclave to determine the next pope, during which they’ll cast their votes in the Sistine Chapel. Despite being one of the most famous tourist attractions in Europe, the Sistine Chapel still serves as a venue for such important...
Seth's Blog
Fooled Now it’s a business model. People are regularly fooled by crypto scams, NFT hype, opioid felons,...
over a year ago
96
over a year ago
Now it’s a business model. People are regularly fooled by crypto scams, NFT hype, opioid felons, algorithmic spam at scale, health claims, illogical political arguments, fundraising pitches, overnight shortcuts on the road to riches or happiness and MLM hustle. Your account has...
Open Culture
Enter an Archive of 10,000+ Historical Children’s Books, All Digitized & Free to Read Online We can learn much about how a historical period viewed the abilities of its children by studying its...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
We can learn much about how a historical period viewed the abilities of its children by studying its children’s literature. Occupying a space somewhere between the purely didactic and the nonsensical, most children’s books published in the past few hundred years have attempted to...
Haterade
Tiny Hot Dogs for the Modern Man Introducing: Smoke Sheaths
over a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Courtney Arnold Hello! I’m Courtney, a printmaker specialising in linocut. I live in a little town on the edge of...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
Hello! I’m Courtney, a printmaker specialising in linocut. I live in a little town on the edge of Dartmoor, nestled between moorland, farmland and the exquisite River Dart. The wonderful flora and fauna of these rugged and beautiful surroundings is my main inspiration. However,...
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...
8 months ago
54
8 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
Public.Work: A Smoothly Searchable Archive of 100,000+ “Copyright-Free” Images We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our...
11 months ago
57
11 months ago
We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our imagination. These days, this notion tends to refer to artificial intelligence-powered systems that generate visual material from text prompts, like DALL‑E and the many others that...
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...
a year ago
85
a year 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,...
Seth's Blog
At the speed of judgment Getting to the conference in Santa Fe isn’t difficult. Someone will drive/fly you there. The hard...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
Getting to the conference in Santa Fe isn’t difficult. Someone will drive/fly you there. The hard part is deciding to go. And yet, it might take 8 hours to arrive. If they invented teleportation and offered it for free, it would be very clear that where we went would simply...
Open Culture
How Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon Became the First Sci-Fi Film & Changed Cinema Forever (1902) If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès...
7 months ago
56
7 months ago
If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès located inside it. Dedicated to la Magie du cinéma, it contains artifacts from throughout the history of film-as-spectacle, which includes such pictures as 2001: A Space Odyssey...
Seth's Blog
Purchase decisions All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later… But it’s helpful to realize...
a year ago
43
a year ago
All purchases involve a decision. Yes or no, this or that, now or later… But it’s helpful to realize that all decisions involve a purchase. When we decide to spend time or take a risk or make a commitment, our brains act in a way very similar to how we choose to make a purchase....
Seth's Blog
Working with problems They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a...
a year ago
25
a year ago
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a problem or a situation? Problems, by definition, have solutions. You might not like the cost of the solution, the trade-offs it leads to, or the time and effort it takes, but...
Open Culture
Simone de Beauvoir Explains “Why I’m a Feminist” in a Rare TV Interview (1975) In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his childhood friend Marcel’s reaction to the word “revolution”: It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not meddle...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Fort Emplacements and FDM: making Castle Doctrine How I made Castle Doctrine, a 1:1 scale fully 3D-Printed American Revolutionary War era cannon.
over a year ago
Open Culture
Behold a Digital Restoration of 655 Plates of Roses & Lilies by Pierre-Joseph Redouté: The Greatest... Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a meticulousness that exceeds all bounds of normality. He published his three-volume collection Les Roses and his eight-volume collection Les Liliacées between 1802 and 1824, and a glance...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Olesya Dzhurayeva I am Olesya Dzhurayeva, Ukrainian artist. I was born in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, but I...
a year ago
92
a year 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,...
John Reynolds -...
2024.04.11-13 2024.04.11-13
2 months ago
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...
11 months ago
64
11 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...
Stat Significant
The Fall and Rise of Nicolas Cage: A Statistical Analysis Nicolas Cage: A Data Story
10 months ago
Seth's Blog
Designed, Designy or Well-designed? If we create something with purpose, we’ve designed it. It’s not an accident. An axe handle is...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
If we create something with purpose, we’ve designed it. It’s not an accident. An axe handle is designed, and so is a symphony. Some things, though are designy. The designer’s fingerprints are all over it. The typefaces, knurled edges, needless heat sinks and homage to Dieter Rams...
Seth's Blog
“This time will be different” Why is that? The new diet. The fundraising after a natural disaster. The relationship. The hype...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Why is that? The new diet. The fundraising after a natural disaster. The relationship. The hype cycle of a new technology or the media frenzy around a hot new fad or candidate… It always feels like it will be different this time. It rarely is. If it’s going to be different, the...
Seth's Blog
Choose your fuel wisely If worrying about paying the mortgage gets you motivated to lean hard into the next project, don’t...
8 months ago
49
8 months ago
If worrying about paying the mortgage gets you motivated to lean hard into the next project, don’t be surprised if that sort of fear arises every time you have hard work to do. If your goal is to teach the naysayers a lesson, remember that you’ll need to find people who you want...
Seth's Blog
Professionals are consistent Authenticity is for amateurs. We want the surgeon, the broadcaster or the musician to show up fully,...
9 months ago
54
9 months ago
Authenticity is for amateurs. We want the surgeon, the broadcaster or the musician to show up fully, as the best version of themselves. We know you might be tired from an overnight shift, and authentically feel like phoning it in, but hey, this is the only aorta I’ve got, and I’d...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Meta Swallows the Slop Plus: Elon's alter ego and Autistic Stew
6 months ago
Open Culture
Watch an Enthusiast Drive the First Car Ever Made, the 1885 Mercedes Benz In 1885, Karl Benz built what’s now considered the first modern automobile. According to the...
a year ago
84
a year ago
In 1885, Karl Benz built what’s now considered the first modern automobile. According to the Mercedes Benz website, the car featured a “compact high-speed single-cylinder four-stroke engine installed horizontally at the rear, a tubular steel frame … and three wire-spoked wheels....
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...
9 months ago
62
9 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
Daydream fatigue Spend enough time inventing possible futures in your head and you won’t have any time to build the...
a week ago
8
a week ago
Spend enough time inventing possible futures in your head and you won’t have any time to build the future we will all share. Time to get to work.
Open Culture
Face to Face with Carl Jung: ‘Man Cannot Stand a Meaningless Life’ (1959) Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was...
11 months ago
53
11 months ago
Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was born on July 26, 1875 in the village of Kesswil, in the Thurgau canton of Switzerland. Above, we present a fascinating 39-minute interview of Jung by John Freeman for the BBC program...
Open Culture
Hear the Very First Adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 in a Radio Play Starring David Niven (1949) Since George Orwell published his landmark political fable 1984, each generation has found ample...
10 months ago
65
10 months ago
Since George Orwell published his landmark political fable 1984, each generation has found ample reason to make reference to the grim near-future envisioned by the novel. Whether Orwell had some prophetic vision or was simply a very astute reader of the institutions of his...
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
20
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
The Pinocchio protocol He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did. Gas-powered leaf blowers...
a year ago
53
a year ago
He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did. Gas-powered leaf blowers would disappear if the smoke they belched out was black instead of invisible. And few people would start smoking if the deposits on their lungs ended up on their face instead. We’re...
Seth's Blog
Silence vs noise When a group comes together, noise is easy. Just a few people have to make a commotion for noise to...
11 months ago
58
11 months ago
When a group comes together, noise is easy. Just a few people have to make a commotion for noise to happen. But silence requires everyone to be in sync.
Seth's Blog
Confused about good How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your...
8 months ago
50
8 months ago
How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your work doesn’t catch on, does that mean it wasn’t good? In almost every field, people with insight, taste and experience admire and emulate good things that aren’t popular, and are...
Seth's Blog
Cheaper than that The race to the bottom has been won. Anything cheaper than what’s on offer is a waste of the...
over a year ago
72
over a year ago
The race to the bottom has been won. Anything cheaper than what’s on offer is a waste of the customer’s money, because it won’t get the job done. Once we’ve cut every corner, all that’s left is the brutality of less. One slogan is: You’ll pay less than you should have, and waste...
Seth's Blog
The interaction cascade Walk into an office, and the person behind the desk begins an interaction. You respond (or react)....
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Walk into an office, and the person behind the desk begins an interaction. You respond (or react). They respond (or react) in turn. Answer the phone. Caller ID tells you who it is–are you smiling? How much enthusiasm or disdain or annoyance or delight comes through? The caller...
Seth's Blog
Did you see it in the theater? We’re in the middle of a huge and unusual shift. The magazine publisher acted like the best sales...
a year ago
86
a year ago
We’re in the middle of a huge and unusual shift. The magazine publisher acted like the best sales were newsstand sales, even though the profit came from subscriptions and most people simply visited the website. Book publishers and editors seem to focus on selling copies on paper,...
Open Culture
Carl Jung Offers an Introduction to His Psychological Thought in a 3‑Hour Interview (1957) In the 1950s, it was fashionable to drop Freud’s name — often as not in pseudo-intellectual sex...
11 months ago
70
11 months ago
In the 1950s, it was fashionable to drop Freud’s name — often as not in pseudo-intellectual sex jokes. Freud’s preoccupations had as much to do with his fame as the actual practice of psychotherapy, and it was assumed — and still is to a great degree — that Freud had “won” the...
The Great Discontent...
Britt Reilly Britt Reilly's work lives at the intersection of immersive visual arts, historic architecture and...
7 months ago
12
7 months ago
Britt Reilly's work lives at the intersection of immersive visual arts, historic architecture and preservation, and modernist design. Britt is the executive director and collections curator at the Irving & Aaronel deRoy Gruber Foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and when we...