Seth's Blog
Benign vs. normal
We evolved to be wary of change. Our attention is limited, new things can be a threat and the status...
11 months ago
We evolved to be wary of change. Our attention is limited, new things can be a threat and the status quo feels comfortable. As a result, we spend a lot of time and energy being afraid (and arguing about) the upcoming changes in our lives, but almost no time at all thinking about...
Open Culture
How Upside-Down Models Revolutionized Architecture, Making Possible St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sagrada...
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems...
a month ago
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems to be doing, as its ongoing construction realizes ever more fully a host of forms that look and feel not quite of this earth. It makes a kind of sense to learn that, in designing...
Seth's Blog
The Western Union trap
When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get...
6 months ago
When the telephone began to gain traction, the monopoly of the time, Western Union, decided to get even better at sending telegrams.
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...
a month 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
Sudare sette camicie
Sweating through seven shirts… That was the definition of work when work was the same thing as...
5 months ago
Sweating through seven shirts… That was the definition of work when work was the same thing as physical labor. For many of us, the physical labor is no longer the way we add value. And it’s tempting to imagine that we simply have to show up for the coffee. But it’s still called...
Seth's Blog
Giving up vs. quitting
Shrug your shoulders, care less, phone it in. One software company I used to depend on has sort of...
5 months ago
Shrug your shoulders, care less, phone it in. One software company I used to depend on has sort of given up. They have plenty of cash in the bank, but they simply stopped trying. You can feel it in their updates, their customer service, their approach to the future. Giving up is...
Seth's Blog
The shifting status of more data
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell....
a year ago
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell. Either the building falls down or it doesn’t. Either the car starts after you charge the battery or it’s still dead. We can ask easy questions about how long it took or how much it […]
Open Culture
The Olympics in the 2020s Versus 1912: See Side-by-Side Comparisons of the Athletes’ Performance...
The Olympic Games have their origins in antiquity, but their modern revival has also been going on...
4 months ago
The Olympic Games have their origins in antiquity, but their modern revival has also been going on longer than any of us has been here. Even the fifth Summer Olympics, which took place in Stockholm in 1912, has passed out of living memory. But thanks to the technology of the...
Open Culture
John Waters’ RISD Graduation Speech: Real Wealth Is Life Without A*Holes
John Waters’ rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some...
3 months ago
John Waters’ rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some good one-liners and a few pearls of wisdom, though phrased, quite naturally, in an irreverent way. Ready for some sage advice on what really counts as wealth? And what career choices...
On the Arts
Are wind turbines ugly? Could they be beautiful?
How to make ugly things appear less ugly – or appear like something else entirely.
a year ago
How to make ugly things appear less ugly – or appear like something else entirely.
Seth's Blog
The perfect conditions
Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or...
a year ago
Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or the most romantic sunset for a proposal. But it’s not right here and it’s not right now. Our success has a lot to do with how we dance with conditions that aren’t quite perfect.
escape the algorithm
Artisinal white noise
Shhhhhhhh
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
What’s a “techie”?
A friend’s email said, “I know many of my readers aren’t techies and you’re thinking of putting this...
a year ago
A friend’s email said, “I know many of my readers aren’t techies and you’re thinking of putting this newsletter aside…” We should get clear about what we’re talking about when we say “techie.” I’m going to argue that involves a combination of two things: But someone who says,...
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...
7 months 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
The network scam
Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a...
a year ago
Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a transaction. In the traditional fraud, the scammer tells a lie and the buyer, either with or without diligence, believes it and loses everything. You buy the magic beans, but they don’t...
On the Arts
The Meaning of Melancholy
An Interview with Hans Maes
a year ago
An Interview with Hans Maes
Seth's Blog
Noodling for professionals
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the...
7 months ago
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the recording studio. They created one of the bestselling and most important jazz albums of all time in less than a week. Of course, they’d been exploring for months. In clubs, in front of...
Marian's Blog
Raspberry Pi powered fishtank
My fishtank is now internet-connected. It is run by a Raspberry Pi that can do three things: Feed...
over a year ago
My fishtank is now internet-connected. It is run by a Raspberry Pi that can do three things: Feed the fish, switch the lights and take pictures.
To feed the fish, the Raspberry Pi sends commands to an automatic fishfeeder that I modified. It can empty any container in any order....
cabel.com
Firehouse Five and the Cinderella Surprise
My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of an incredible Dixieland jazz band made...
10 months ago
My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of an incredible Dixieland jazz band made up of mostly Disney employees, the Firehouse Five Plus Two. But along the way, I accidentally discovered an incredible lost song that was cut from Walt Disney’s Cinderella. And...
Seth's Blog
Pet quirks
Peeves make lousy pets. They undermine us and put us on edge. But quirks? Little eccentricities we...
7 months ago
Peeves make lousy pets. They undermine us and put us on edge. But quirks? Little eccentricities we see in the world that offer a cost-free smile. Habits or interactions that always make us a little lighter on our feet and open the door to better… They’re easy to find, not hard to...
Seth's Blog
Curation (vs the road to junk)
The independent bookstore down the street is carefully curated. Each book takes up the spot that a...
9 months ago
The independent bookstore down the street is carefully curated. Each book takes up the spot that a different book could inhabit, so the owner makes sure that there’s a great reason a title is included. Amazon, on the other hand, has no shelf space problem, and the Kindle...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding food waste confusion
Everybody eats That’s the biggest problem. While plenty of people drive or play pickleball, eating...
a year ago
Everybody eats That’s the biggest problem. While plenty of people drive or play pickleball, eating is particularly widespread. Seven billion people multiplies into a big number… Creating the food we eat has significant climate impact. Some of the factors, in unranked order: Even...
Prolost
Kino: My New Favorite iPhone Video App
The new Kino app recording ProRes Log with a custom preview LUT.
Yes we’re still talking about...
6 months ago
The new Kino app recording ProRes Log with a custom preview LUT.
Yes we’re still talking about shooting video on iPhones. But I also want to talk about digital cinema shooting in general, in a world where top camera makers are battling to give filmmakers everything we want in a...
escape the algorithm
Foreskin’s Comment
What a Billie Eilish Youtube comment diarist can teach us about forging meaningful online rituals
a year ago
What a Billie Eilish Youtube comment diarist can teach us about forging meaningful online rituals
Prolost
VFX Suite 1.5
Today Red Giant released the first major update to the VFX Suite we introduced last year.
Lens...
over a year ago
Today Red Giant released the first major update to the VFX Suite we introduced last year.
Lens Distortion Matcher
A brand-new effect, Lens Distortion Matcher makes it ridiculously easy to profile the distortion of any lens, and either remove it, or build a VFX workflow around it...
Seth's Blog
Are you pitching or are you asking?
There are two easy ways to tell: First, if you have a script or a highlighted goal in mind, you’re...
6 months ago
There are two easy ways to tell: First, if you have a script or a highlighted goal in mind, you’re pitching. You’re simply asking questions to create connection, tension or forward motion. Second, if you’re willing to learn and change your point of view as a result of the...
On the Arts
Winter as Reading Season
David Foster Wallace on the necessity of quiet time in order to read.
a year ago
David Foster Wallace on the necessity of quiet time in order to read.
On the Arts
What is the Demoscene?
An Interview with Filipe Cruz on the Influential but Obscure Art Form
a year ago
An Interview with Filipe Cruz on the Influential but Obscure Art Form
Handprinted - Blog
The Endless Possibilities of a Square Block Repeat
Using a simple square block can create a myriad of possibilities of pattern.
We have used Speedy...
a year ago
Using a simple square block can create a myriad of possibilities of pattern.
We have used Speedy Carve and Versafine inks for this project.
Cut a square from the Speedy Carve using a scalpel.
Draw a quarter circle curve on the block using a pencil. Above the curve draw some...
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing with Speedball Night Glo onto Fabric
As Halloween fast approaches, it’s time to get those costumes ready. We think it’s a perfect...
over a year ago
As Halloween fast approaches, it’s time to get those costumes ready. We think it’s a perfect opportunity to try out Speedball Night Glo Fabric Screen Printing Ink! Print glow in the dark Halloween messages, pictures, or even your kids’ spooky drawings onto their own...
Open Culture
The Steampunk Clocks of 19th-Century Paris: Discover the Ingenious System That Revolutionized...
A middle-class Parisian living around the turn of the twentieth century would have to budget for...
4 months ago
A middle-class Parisian living around the turn of the twentieth century would have to budget for services like not just water or gas, but also time. Though electric clocks had been demonstrated, they were still a high-tech rarity; installing one in the home would have been...
On the Arts
Do biographies need to start at the beginning?
Alternatives to the predictably linear narratives of most biographies.
a year ago
Alternatives to the predictably linear narratives of most biographies.
Seth's Blog
Unaware
If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak...
10 months ago
If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organize, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’. It’s tempting to imagine we have less power...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker - Rebecca Perdue
Hello! I'm Rebecca Perdue. I am a printmaker and artist based in a small garden studio in Wiltshire....
9 months ago
Hello! I'm Rebecca Perdue. I am a printmaker and artist based in a small garden studio in Wiltshire. I work primarily in linocut and monoprint, but also paint and make occasional silver jewellery pieces and textiles. I'm very interested in linking work across several...
Seth's Blog
Your own billboard
Large sections of Los Angeles are studded with billboards for minor TV shows. These billboards exist...
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
The two bicycle errors
Momentum activities like public speaking, board sports and leadership all share an attribute with...
5 months ago
Momentum activities like public speaking, board sports and leadership all share an attribute with riding a bicycle: It gets easier when you get good at it. The first error we often make is believing that someone (even us) will never be good at riding a bike, because riding a bike...
Seth's Blog
The challenge of nonprofit fundraising
When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise...
8 months ago
When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise funds and get it off the ground. After that, though, the purpose of the business is completely aligned with the idea of not running out of money. We run a business to make money, not...
Seth's Blog
No time to waste
Of course there isn’t. Time is all we’ve got. Time is all there is. We can’t waste time because it’s...
a year ago
Of course there isn’t. Time is all we’ve got. Time is all there is. We can’t waste time because it’s not ours to waste. It’s simply the way we keep track of everything else.
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...
a month 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
Buckminster Fuller’s Map of the World: The Innovation That Revolutionized Map Design (1943)
In 2017, we brought you news of a world map purportedly more accurate than any to date, designed by...
4 months ago
In 2017, we brought you news of a world map purportedly more accurate than any to date, designed by Japanese architect and artist Hajime Narukawa. The map, called the AuthaGraph, updates a centuries-old method of turning the globe into a flat surface by first converting it to a...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of brittle
Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the...
2 months ago
Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the short-run, optimization works as long as the world stays the same. We can optimize a device to work at capacity. However, something working at capacity blows up if you step on the gas when...
On the Arts
The Vertical Beauty of Hong Kong
An Interview with Photographer Romain Jacquet Lagrèze
a year ago
An Interview with Photographer Romain Jacquet Lagrèze
Seth's Blog
Peak infrastructure
Community resources are easy to take for granted. Unevenly distributed, they’re the sort of thing we...
10 months ago
Community resources are easy to take for granted. Unevenly distributed, they’re the sort of thing we miss only when they’re gone. Invisible things are easy to ignore. I was stunned to see a sign in Connecticut that listed the names of dozens of highway workers who had been killed...
escape the algorithm
The Scan Artist
What it means to copy the world
10 months ago
What it means to copy the world
Open Culture
Explore an Online Archive of 2,100+ Rare Illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels
As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes...
2 weeks ago
As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes mainly, of course, to A Christmas Carol, and even more so to its many adaptations, most of which draw inspiration from not just its text but also its illustrations. That 1843 novella...
Anarchy Unfolds
Pride, noise, and fear
Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
3 months ago
Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
The Great Discontent...
Rick Garzon
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed to addressing systematic challenges in their communities through creativity and emerging ideologies. Buy Now Let’s start by talking a little bit about your origins. Where did you...
Seth's Blog
The four cohorts of the status quo
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around...
10 months ago
The first group cares about the policy. They benefit from it. They’ve organized themselves around it. The second group cares about stability. They have limited bandwidth, and they’re not particularly interested in reconsidering everything, all the time. The third group doesn’t...
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...
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...
Open Culture
Steven Spielberg Calls Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange “the First Punk Rock Movie Ever Made”
Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick are two of the first directors whose names young cinephiles get...
8 months ago
Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick are two of the first directors whose names young cinephiles get to know. They’re also names between which quite a few of those young cinephiles draw a battle line: you may have enjoyed films by both of these auteurs, but ultimately, you’re...
Stat Significant
The Rise and (Overstated) Fall of Radio. A Statistical Analysis
Examining radio's rapid adoption and surprising cultural endurance.
a week ago
Examining radio's rapid adoption and surprising cultural endurance.
Seth's Blog
Valuable contributions
We actually don’t really know. Netflix just released their first-ever detailed analysis of how many...
a year ago
We actually don’t really know. Netflix just released their first-ever detailed analysis of how many hours of engagement the top 15,000+ most watched shows on the network received over a six month period. Here’s the file. Who won? That question is actually the lesson here. The...
Seth's Blog
The slog, the hobby and the quest
Here’s a simple XY grid to help you think about your next project, freelance career or startup: All...
a year ago
Here’s a simple XY grid to help you think about your next project, freelance career or startup: All too common are ‘fun’ businesses where someone finds a hobby they like and tries to turn it into a gig. While the work may be fun, the uphill grind of this sort of project is...
Handprinted - Blog
Should I use Caligo Extender or Opaque White?
When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or...
a year ago
When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or Extender. Both of these give us different results so which should we choose?
We have performed a few experiments to show the difference between mixing with Opaque White and...
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
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
16th-Century Japanese Historians Describe the Oddness of Meeting the First Europeans They Ever Saw
Go to Japan today, and the country will present you with plenty of opportunities to buy pan, tabako,...
6 months ago
Go to Japan today, and the country will present you with plenty of opportunities to buy pan, tabako, and tempura. These products themselves — bread, cigarettes, and deep-fried seafood or vegetables — will be familiar enough. Even the words that refer to them may have a...
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...
2 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
How Kodak Invented the Snapshot in the 1800s, Making It Possible for Everyone to Be a Photographer
We still occasionally speak of “Kodak moments,” making conscious or unconscious reference to the...
2 months ago
We still occasionally speak of “Kodak moments,” making conscious or unconscious reference to the slogan of the Eastman Kodak Company in the nineteen-eighties. Even by that time, Kodak had already been a going concern for nearly a century, furnishing photographers around the world...
Seth's Blog
This time it’s personal
My new book is urgent and it’s personal. Some readers have told me that it’s also their favorite. It...
a year ago
My new book is urgent and it’s personal. Some readers have told me that it’s also their favorite. It opens the door to a better way to work and to find meaning in how we spend our days. I’ve done dozens of podcasts talking about it, but when I talk about it, it’s not nearly […]
Seth's Blog
By association
We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person...
9 months ago
We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person who worked at Google or Apple or Disney gets more of the benefit of the doubt. Even if all they did was bring coffee to someone. But, if that person was one of the hundreds laid off...
Seth's Blog
High fidelity
It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original...
a year ago
It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original recording. It might be the high fidelity of loyalty. No shopping around for a momentarily better deal. It might be the high fidelity of genre. This is just what you hoped it would...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Decreasing the F.Q. - A talk on Facial Recognition and the Opt Out Cap
Links to a talk I gave on the Opt-Out cap and the state of surveillance via
facial recognition.
over a year ago
Links to a talk I gave on the Opt-Out cap and the state of surveillance via
facial recognition.
Seth's Blog
Blame your tools
Blame the clients. And blame the conditions. But then, you’re on the hook to get better tools, find...
5 months ago
Blame the clients. And blame the conditions. But then, you’re on the hook to get better tools, find better clients and work in better conditions. It’s not convenient, but it’s possible. If it’s not worth the effort, we can simply accept what we’ve chosen and get back to work.
Seth's Blog
Are you doing what you said you wanted to do?
If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work. If you want to do improv,...
a year ago
If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work. If you want to do improv, start a troupe. Don’t wait to get picked. If you want to help animals, don’t wait for vet school. Volunteer at an animal shelter right now. If you want to write a screenplay, write […]
Seth's Blog
A next frontier for spam and scams
Please be on the alert for: Spam that includes your name, address, phone number and other personal...
3 months ago
Please be on the alert for: Spam that includes your name, address, phone number and other personal details. Phone calls that are from human-sounding bots that pretend to be from friends or trusted brands. Job offers. Video mashups that include AI-generated people that seem to be...
Open Culture
Join Us on Bluesky. We Will Have Fun Together
There’s an eXodus taking place, and millions are finding a new home on Bluesky. In recent days, the...
a month ago
There’s an eXodus taking place, and millions are finding a new home on Bluesky. In recent days, the decentralized social media platform has been gaining 10,000 new users every 10–15 minutes, or about 1 million new users per day. Open Culture is already there, sharing the cultural...
Seth's Blog
I’ve been doing it wrong all along
This is one of the great benefits of learning. It’s also a common challenge. When we get better at...
a year ago
This is one of the great benefits of learning. It’s also a common challenge. When we get better at something, it is preceded by a moment of incompetence. In that moment, we’re not exactly sure how to do it better, but we realize that the way we’d been doing it wasn’t nearly as...
The Last...
Product Review: Panasonic PT AX200U (Hipsters On Food Stamps Part 3)
but how will you afford a steak?
Part 2 here
Three questions, open book:
1. Did Hipster...
over a year ago
but how will you afford a steak?
Part 2 here
Three questions, open book:
1. Did Hipster Gerry get his money's worth from the University of Chicago, either $100k in future income or knowledge? No.
2. Did society get their money's worth in sending him, i.e. by...
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...
a month 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
Finding agency
The first few moves of a chess game give the player almost unlimited freedom. There are countless...
a year ago
The first few moves of a chess game give the player almost unlimited freedom. There are countless legal moves, and nothing to constrain the choices that a player makes among them. But as we add leverage to our culture and our organizations, the choices aren’t as easy. Jerry...
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing a Repeat Pattern
Printing a length of your own designed fabric is so exciting but most of us do not have the luxury...
a year ago
Printing a length of your own designed fabric is so exciting but most of us do not have the luxury of a fabric registration table. Here's an easy step by step guide to printing a repeat pattern on a length of fabric using an A4 43T screen.
Draw the design motifs onto...
Seth's Blog
When we get to where we’re going
…perhaps we should stop. Unless the going was the point.
a year ago
…perhaps we should stop. Unless the going was the point.
Seth's Blog
“I didn’t see you there”
Someone I’ve worked with over the years happened to be driving down my street. I called out and said...
a month ago
Someone I’ve worked with over the years happened to be driving down my street. I called out and said hello… They ignored me. So I repeated myself. “Oh,” they said, recognizing me. “It’s you.” We’re more likely to see, hear and care if the person over there is actually a person. A...
Seth's Blog
Little dents
Deciding to fix a big dent in a car isn’t perplexing. It’s an easy choice. There’s a huge dent, get...
2 months ago
Deciding to fix a big dent in a car isn’t perplexing. It’s an easy choice. There’s a huge dent, get it fixed. It’s the little dents that are a dilemma. But not fixing little dents means that pretty soon, we’re driving a car that we’re not happy with. Either that, or we define...
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...
5 months 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...
Handprinted - Blog
Using Schmincke Water-Based Inks to Create a Jigsaw Linocut
We love the range of colours that are available in Schmincke water-based inks. We’re creating a...
over a year ago
We love the range of colours that are available in Schmincke water-based inks. We’re creating a jigsaw linocut to allow us to use multiple colours of Schmincke ink in just one block!
We are using Easy Carve Blue as it’s soft to cut up with a scalpel, making it ideal for a jigsaw...
Open Culture
Behold The Drawings of Franz Kafka (1907–1917)
Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece...
7 months ago
Runner 1907–1908 UK-born, Chicago-based artist Philip Hartigan has posted a brief video piece about Franz Kafka’s drawings. Kafka, of course, wrote a body of work, mostly never published during his lifetime, that captured the absurdity and the loneliness of the newly emerging...
Open Culture
Stephen Fry Explains Why Artificial Intelligence Has a “70% Risk of Killing Us All”
Apart from his comedic, dramatic, and literary endeavors, Stephen Fry is widely known for his avowed...
4 months ago
Apart from his comedic, dramatic, and literary endeavors, Stephen Fry is widely known for his avowed technophilia. He once wrote a column on that theme, “Dork Talk,” for the Guardian, in whose inaugural dispatch he laid out his credentials by claiming to have been the owner of...
Seth's Blog
Books and more, winter 2024
They’re a gift that lasts forever, because your friend will remember what they learned and how they...
3 weeks ago
They’re a gift that lasts forever, because your friend will remember what they learned and how they felt… and they can keep it on their bookshelf or hard drive as a reminder in case they forget… Amazon chose This is Strategy for a Kindle deal today. It’s only $4. Also, the...
Open Culture
The World’s First Medieval Electronic Instrument: The EP-1320 Lets You Play the Sounds of...
At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Gotland puts on Medeltidsveckan, or “Medieval Week,”...
4 months ago
At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Gotland puts on Medeltidsveckan, or “Medieval Week,” the country’s largest historical festival. According to its official About page, it offers its visitors the chance to “watch knights on horseback, drink something cold, take a...
Seth's Blog
Spines out
I lost a cookbook the other day. After twenty more minutes of searching, there it was, right on the...
a year ago
I lost a cookbook the other day. After twenty more minutes of searching, there it was, right on the cookbook shelf. But the spine was much more subtle than the cover, and it hadn’t been what I was looking for or expecting. We spend a lot of time on our (metaphorical) book covers....
Handprinted - Blog
Monotype with Natural Materials
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut...
a month ago
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut block or plate. For this project we're using this simple technique to produce beautifully delicate prints using natural materials and found objects. You can also combine this with...
The Great Discontent...
Tony Whlgn®
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed to addressing systematic challenges in their communities through creativity and emerging ideologies. Buy Now Let’s start at the beginning—back to the environment where you grew up....
Open Culture
David Bowie Songs Reimagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers: Space Oddity, Heroes, Life on Mars & More
In the last year, screenwriter Todd Alcott’s hobby has blown up into a legit side career. This Etsy...
3 months ago
In the last year, screenwriter Todd Alcott’s hobby has blown up into a legit side career. This Etsy seller isn’t peddling kombucha SCOBYs, letter pressing new baby announcements, or repurposing old barns for use as cutting boards. No, Alcott’s crafty fortunes fall squarely at the...
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets 2024 - Preliminary Rounds
Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
a week ago
Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
Seth's Blog
The paradox of lottery thinking
Tim Brownson points us to this recent poll of people in Great Britain. About one out of four people...
4 months ago
Tim Brownson points us to this recent poll of people in Great Britain. About one out of four people surveyed (of all ages) believe that they could qualify for the Olympics if they trained for the next four years. This is absurd. It’s the very absurdity of it that makes it common....
Seth's Blog
Conversations, an early review… (and the free class)
“I have trained companies to treat people better, and SONG is the guidebook I wished I had when...
a year ago
“I have trained companies to treat people better, and SONG is the guidebook I wished I had when doing this work. Now, I will now give it to the enlightened and brutes alike, with a recommendation to take immediate action. Seth Godin has been carefully documenting the end of the...
Seth's Blog
Complaints are a gift
It’s easy to see a complaint as simple whining, the narcissistic impatience of someone who has...
7 months ago
It’s easy to see a complaint as simple whining, the narcissistic impatience of someone who has enough insulation from the real world that they can share their dissatisfaction over just about anything. But a complaint unheard gives us no way to improve. In our current medical...
Seth's Blog
Generational shifts in punditry
In 1970, when Walter Cronkite was narrating current events for the United States, he was 54 years...
8 months ago
In 1970, when Walter Cronkite was narrating current events for the United States, he was 54 years old. Hitchcock made his last film when he was 77. When there’s a limited number of slots for narrators to fill, they can stick around for a long time. One of the overlooked cultural...
Open Culture
Buckminster Fuller Tells the World “Everything He Knows” in a 42-Hour Lecture Series (1975)
History seems to have settled Buckminster Fuller’s reputation as a man ahead of his time. He...
5 months ago
History seems to have settled Buckminster Fuller’s reputation as a man ahead of his time. He inspires short, witty popular videos like YouTuber Joe Scott’s “The Man Who Saw The Future,” and the ongoing legacy of the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI), who note that “Fuller’s...
Seth's Blog
The hubris of creativity
Where’s your permit? Who said you could try to solve this problem? I don’t get it… That’s too...
6 months ago
Where’s your permit? Who said you could try to solve this problem? I don’t get it… That’s too original. It’s not original enough. You missed a comma. That’s not funny. That’s been done before. That’s never been done before. It’s not your best work. None of us are authorized to...
Seth's Blog
Snowballs and avalanches
Residents leave a town because of a lack of services, which cuts the tax base, which leads to more...
2 months ago
Residents leave a town because of a lack of services, which cuts the tax base, which leads to more services lost, which leads to more residents leaving… A hip new brand attracts a few opinion leaders, who flash the logo, which attracts more hipsters, who then establish a status...
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
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...
Seth's Blog
Quietly change it
When we think about altering a policy, a setting or even the outfit we usually wear, it’s easy to...
a year ago
When we think about altering a policy, a setting or even the outfit we usually wear, it’s easy to imagine that everyone is going to notice. In fact, almost no one will. That’s because no one cares about the noise in our head (or the actions we take) nearly as much as we do. You...
Open Culture
Behold the First American Board Game, Travellers’ Tour Through the United States (1822)
Asked to name a classic American board game, most of us would first think of Monopoly, whose imagery...
3 months ago
Asked to name a classic American board game, most of us would first think of Monopoly, whose imagery and verbiage — Park Place, Rich Uncle Pennybags, “Do not pass go” — has worked its way deep into the culture since Parker Brothers brought it to market in 1935. Despite that, it...
Open Culture
Revisit Episodes of Liquid Television, MTV’s 90s Showcase of Funny, Irreverent & Bizarre Animation
MTV stands for Music Television, and when the network launched in 1981, its almost entirely music...
2 months ago
MTV stands for Music Television, and when the network launched in 1981, its almost entirely music video-based programming was true to its name. Within a decade, however, its mandate had widened to the point that it had become the natural home for practically any exciting...
Seth's Blog
Leprechauns
Is there a rainbow underneath your pot of gold? Sometimes, we get it backwards.
6 months ago
Is there a rainbow underneath your pot of gold? Sometimes, we get it backwards.
Open Culture
The Story of Fascism: Rick Steves’ Documentary Helps Us Learn from the Painful Lessons of the 20th...
From Rick Steves comes a thought-provoking documentary that revisits the rise of fascism in Europe,...
a month ago
From Rick Steves comes a thought-provoking documentary that revisits the rise of fascism in Europe, reminding us of how charismatic figures like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler came to power by promising to create a better future for their frustrated, economically depressed...
Seth's Blog
What are you thinking about?
A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making...
4 months ago
A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making assertions, testing theories, understanding how others are thinking about it as well. But this exercise shouldn’t be reserved for academics. What are you working on? When will you change...
The Great Discontent...
Rafael Espinal
Rafael Espinal was just 26 when he became an elected official. For the next 10 years, he worked...
2 months ago
Rafael Espinal was just 26 when he became an elected official. For the next 10 years, he worked within the halls of government, first as a New York State Assemblymember and then as a New York City Councilmember, advocating for artists, independent workers, and underserved...
Seth's Blog
Spire confusion
When architects show off their work, or propose a bold new building complex or even ask for a zoning...
10 months ago
When architects show off their work, or propose a bold new building complex or even ask for a zoning variance, the public sees the external photos. The tall spire, the innovative use of glass, the weird hole in the center of the building. And when a car company shows off a new...
Seth's Blog
Unforced errors
In hospitality and customer service, perfect is elusive. Someone is going to miss a shift, have a...
a month ago
In hospitality and customer service, perfect is elusive. Someone is going to miss a shift, have a bad day, or fail to understand a situation. But there’s a second kind of error, the one that’s far more common. When management makes bad choices, or underinvests in systems,...
Seth's Blog
Avert your eyes
There are things we avoid looking at too closely. If we looked, really saw what was happening, we’d...
a year ago
There are things we avoid looking at too closely. If we looked, really saw what was happening, we’d have to change our minds, admit we were mistaken, refactor our priorities or take action. It’s so frightening that we even hesitate to make a list of the things we don’t want to...
Infinite Scroll
On Consumption vs Production
How to improve yourself and be happier, online or offline
a month ago
How to improve yourself and be happier, online or offline
Stat Significant
Is Music Stardom in Decline? A Statistical Analysis
Is music stardom dying?
a month ago
Open Culture
Free: 356 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy...
a month ago
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it–including an early version of his masterpiece Fahrenheit 451–as did Robert A....
Seth's Blog
The unaware snoop
Here’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen somewhere: A GPT that reads every email that anyone in...
a year ago
Here’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen somewhere: A GPT that reads every email that anyone in your organization has ever sent and makes it easy to ask it questions about what the entire organization knows. A person could probably not find the time, bandwidth or privacy...
Seth's Blog
True/useful
Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in...
a year ago
Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in something that’s useful but not true, it can serve a helpful purpose. The tooth fairy, perhaps. When we act on something that’s useful and also true, we’ve found a resilient path...
On the Arts
Gore Vidal Was Everywhere and Now He Is Nowhere
The literary afterlife of "...an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and...
a year ago
The literary afterlife of "...an Augustan figure who believed himself to be the last of a breed, and he was probably right."
Seth's Blog
Launching GOODBIDS
Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty...
8 months ago
Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty team has been working on this for a year. I want to share the highlights along with some of the critical design choices we made along the way Each year, charities in the US raise...
Open Culture
Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell saw the history of civilization as...
a month ago
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell saw the history of civilization as being shaped by an unfortunate oscillation between two opposing evils: tyranny and anarchy, each of which contains the seed of the other. The best course for steering clear of...
Seth's Blog
The distribution of character
Along the way, we have been taught to associate character skills like honesty, rationality,...
5 months ago
Along the way, we have been taught to associate character skills like honesty, rationality, agreeableness, grit and care with surface metrics like wealth or power. That’s almost certainly incorrect. And if we make assumptions based on vague measures of class, we’re going to get...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: 2023 Round Up!
What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put...
a year ago
What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put together a round up for you with all of the wonderful advice our makers have given for creatives at any stage of their creative practice.
Pop your feet up, grab yourself a nice...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Jenny Stringer
I am Jenny Stringer, and I have been block printing fabrics (and sometimes papers) for the last...
4 months ago
I am Jenny Stringer, and I have been block printing fabrics (and sometimes papers) for the last thirty years; as and when possible.
How did you start your creative career?
I was an archaeological illustrator after a brief museum career, and worked with a team of...
Seth's Blog
The challenge of N + 1
“Just a little more,” might be a useful way to self motivate, until it isn’t. N + 1 pushes us to win...
7 months ago
“Just a little more,” might be a useful way to self motivate, until it isn’t. N + 1 pushes us to win every race, every argument, every bank balance competition. Sometimes this is simply a self challenge, not designed to hurt others, but the problem with never being satisfied is...
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Arrives in London in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clapton Away:...
Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues...
4 months ago
Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues guitarist to pieces the instant they saw him play. As vocalist Terry Reid tells it, when Hendrix played his first showcase at the Bag O’Nails, arranged by Animals’ bassist Chas...
Open Culture
Watch Fantasmagorie, the World’s First Animated Cartoon (1908)
Trying to describe the plot of Fantasmagorie, the world’s first animated cartoon, is a folly akin to...
3 months ago
Trying to describe the plot of Fantasmagorie, the world’s first animated cartoon, is a folly akin to putting last night’s dream into words: I was dressed as a clown and then I was in a theater, except I was also hiding under this lady’s hat, and the guy behind us was plucking out...
Seth's Blog
To be well published
Sooner or later, we benefit from being well-published. Publishing has nothing to do with printing....
10 months ago
Sooner or later, we benefit from being well-published. Publishing has nothing to do with printing. It’s the act of taking risks to bring a new idea to people who want to embrace it. It’s the head of the lab who works behind the scenes to be sure the talented scientist gets a gig...
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,...
6 months 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...
Seth's Blog
Informed consent (rarely is)
Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice...
a year ago
Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice cream we prefer, or what career to choose. We’re good at knowing what we want. In practice, this works really well for certain kinds of decisions. But when we add the network effect,...
Open Culture
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,...
2 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
Choosing your problems
Perhaps you only acknowledge and focus on problems where you know and are comfortable with the...
a year ago
Perhaps you only acknowledge and focus on problems where you know and are comfortable with the appropriate response. Denying the existence of the other ones is easier than dealing with them. Or it might be that you only choose to see the problems that are actually situations,...
Open Culture
Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television...
3 months ago
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective? Sadly, no, but he had the makings of a great one, at least as cut together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. Some 35 years after...
Seth's Blog
Adjacent but not relevant
There’s a sale on band saw blades, including a really good deal on one that fits the saw you owned...
4 months ago
There’s a sale on band saw blades, including a really good deal on one that fits the saw you owned years ago. The folks who live next door to the house you used to live in are having a raucous party. A guy with a name just like yours wins the lottery… These adjacencies can […]
Seth's Blog
A possible AI future
Persistent, connected and kind. Most visions of the internet in 1995 were about individuals...
3 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
The intentional stance
Dan Dennett explained that it began as a survival mechanism. It’s important to predict how someone...
6 months 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
“What should I do now?”
We’ve forgotten how often society had an answer for that question. Perhaps our shift away from a...
a month ago
We’ve forgotten how often society had an answer for that question. Perhaps our shift away from a dictated answer not only gives us freedom, it also creates ennui and fear. The culture of a generation or two ago told you where to study, what to study, how to cut your hair, what to...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding technology
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric...
11 months ago
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric typewriter. There are two reasons to avoid learning a proven new technology: You know what it can do and how it will change your life and you don’t want it. You don’t know what it can...
Open Culture
Archaeologists Discover an Ancient Roman Sandal with Nails Used for Tread
A recreation of the military sandals. (Photo: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation)...
4 months ago
A recreation of the military sandals. (Photo: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation) Whether you’re putting together a stage play, a film, or a television series, if the story is set in ancient Rome, you know you’re going to have to get a lot of sandals on order. This...
Seth's Blog
Product and process
What do we get in exchange for our work? There’s pay, of course, and the satisfaction of a job well...
a year ago
What do we get in exchange for our work? There’s pay, of course, and the satisfaction of a job well done. There’s stress and human interaction, learning and physical exertion. We get the drama of what might happen next and the delight of actually pulling it off. And mostly we get...
Seth's Blog
Pavlonian coincidence
There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the...
a year ago
There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the make-believe magic of two things occurring that we didn’t expect to occur. When you and your long-lost college roommate end up randomly sharing adjacent bowling lanes when you’re...
Seth's Blog
Later or now?
When we feel like doing something selfish, indulgent, hurtful or short-term, we can simply decide to...
9 months ago
When we feel like doing something selfish, indulgent, hurtful or short-term, we can simply decide to do it later. And when it occurs to us that we might be able to make a useful contribution or do something important, perhaps we could do it now.
Infinite Scroll
Why You Should Read Web Fiction
A beginner's guide to an underappreciated format
3 weeks ago
A beginner's guide to an underappreciated format
Seth's Blog
The Pinocchio protocol
He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did. Gas-powered leaf blowers...
5 months 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
For customers vs to customers
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for...
a year ago
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your customers, to squeeze out extra income? This doesn’t mean that the only path is to keep...
Stat Significant
Who's the Worst Actor in Movie History? A Statistical Analysis
Who's the worst actor of all time, and why?
3 months ago
Who's the worst actor of all time, and why?
Seth's Blog
Surprise and uncertainty
Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic. Two...
8 months ago
Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic. Two reasons that are worth considering: Eliminate surprise and explain the circumstances and panic starts to fade.
Seth's Blog
Which team?
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a...
a year ago
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a whole bunch of time gets saved, and fear is reduced as well. The labeling goes beyond which team, cadre, tribe or village someone is part of. It extends to the ways we demonstrate...
escape the algorithm
howdidyoufind.me
a website about how people found this website
2 months ago
a website about how people found this website
Seth's Blog
In defense of the hard parts
Yesterday’s post was a little glib. Without a doubt, we add more value when we focus on the...
4 months ago
Yesterday’s post was a little glib. Without a doubt, we add more value when we focus on the emotional labor of important work, leaving others the chance to create commodities. But the repetitive, difficult nature of leaning into commodity production can give us insight, humility...
Seth's Blog
Jevons paradox is not surprising
When a resource can be used more efficiently, we end up using more of the thing, not less. So, when...
8 months ago
When a resource can be used more efficiently, we end up using more of the thing, not less. So, when cars get better gas mileage, people drive more, and consumption can actually go up. When AI learns to write computer code, the demand for programmers goes up, because more...
Open Culture
Eno: The New “Generative Documentary” on Brian Eno That’s Never the Same Movie Twice
Brian Eno once wrote that “it’s possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say,...
5 months ago
Brian Eno once wrote that “it’s possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say, ‘You mean you used to listen to to exactly the same thing over and over again?’ ” That speculation comes from an essay on what he calls “generative music,” which is automatically...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Sending a signal - DOGMAS, a project because of the RP2040
How and why I built the DOGMAS project, a self contained Morse code reader
in the form of a...
over a year ago
How and why I built the DOGMAS project, a self contained Morse code reader
in the form of a candle.
cabel.com
The Forged Apple Employee Badge
Here’s a quick and cautionary tale. This eBay auction, spotted by Eric Vitiello, immediately caught...
7 months ago
Here’s a quick and cautionary tale. This eBay auction, spotted by Eric Vitiello, immediately caught my eye: Wow. Someone was selling Apple Employee #10’s employee badge?! What an incredible piece of Apple history! Sure, it’s not Steve Jobs’ badge (despite the auction title), but...
Open Culture
How Man Ray Reinvented Himself & Created One of the Most Iconic Works of Surrealist Photography
It would surprise none of us to encounter a young artist looking to cast off his past and make his...
2 months ago
It would surprise none of us to encounter a young artist looking to cast off his past and make his mark on the culture in a place like Williamsburg. But in the case of Man Ray, Williamsburg was his past. One must remember that the Brooklyn of today bears little resemblance to the...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rosanna Morris
I am an illustrator and printmaker, working mainly with relief. I work from my large studio on the...
8 months ago
I am an illustrator and printmaker, working mainly with relief. I work from my large studio on the top floor of an creative warehouse in east Bristol. I also run a courses, workshops and printmaking events.
Describe your printmaking process.
I usually start with a pencil...
Seth's Blog
Project management
A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of...
a year ago
A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of value. Showing up on time for a meeting is a project (airlines! traffic! weather!) and so is building a skyscraper. That next podcast you’re going to publish is a project, and so is...
On the Arts
How to Start Learning About Aesthetics
Three ways to improve your knowledge about aesthetics, art theory, and the philosophy of art.
a year ago
Three ways to improve your knowledge about aesthetics, art theory, and the philosophy of art.
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
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...
Seth's Blog
The reluctant spammer
“I don’t want to send this pitch to a list of every single podcaster in the world, but we have to...
a year ago
“I don’t want to send this pitch to a list of every single podcaster in the world, but we have to get the word out.” “I don’t want to send an email to every one of our previous donors every three days until they unsubscribe, but our work is so important, it has to be […]
Seth's Blog
Yes, but how does it work?
I worked with Arthur C. Clarke at the very beginning of my career. He’s most famous for saying, “Any...
2 months ago
I worked with Arthur C. Clarke at the very beginning of my career. He’s most famous for saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Magic isn’t such a bad thing. And we certainly have plenty of advanced technology around. Advanced in the sense...
Seth's Blog
Holding on for dear life
That’s a cliche from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip...
9 months ago
That’s a cliche from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip can save the hero. In our modern world, we often end up holding on to ideas, to grievances or to our view of the world. Ironically, the harder we hold on to the things we’re hiding...
Open Culture
Pink Floyd Plays in Venice on a Massive Floating Stage in 1989; Forces the Mayor & City Council to...
When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd after 1983’s The Final Cut, the remaining members had good reason...
8 months ago
When Roger Waters left Pink Floyd after 1983’s The Final Cut, the remaining members had good reason to assume the band was truly, as Waters proclaimed, “a spent force.” After releasing solo projects in the next few years, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright soon...
Seth's Blog
“It seems…”
What a simple verb. A five-letter modifier that opens the door to discussion. If we state something...
4 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?
Seth's Blog
Fingerprints
If a jacket is made by Patagonia or a piece of hardware is made by Teenage Engineering, you can...
7 months ago
If a jacket is made by Patagonia or a piece of hardware is made by Teenage Engineering, you can probably tell who made it the first time you see it, even without a logo. A painting by Sonia Delaunay doesn’t need to be signed to know who it’s by. On the other hand, AppleTV streams...
Open Culture
The BBC Creates Step-by-Step Instructions for Knitting the Iconic Dr. Who Scarf: A Document from the...
When Jon Pertwee reincarnated into Tom Baker in 1974, the Fourth Doctor of the popular sci-fi show...
2 weeks ago
When Jon Pertwee reincarnated into Tom Baker in 1974, the Fourth Doctor of the popular sci-fi show Doctor Who ditched the foppish look of velvet jackets and frilly shirts, and went for the “Romantic adventurer” style, with floppy felt hat, long overcoats and, most iconically, his...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Curved Line Jellyfish
I had pictured something quite bold, graphical and geometric but I ended
with gradients and...
over a year ago
I had pictured something quite bold, graphical and geometric but I ended
with gradients and floatiness.
Handprinted - Blog
Inking Methods for Etching
Once you've made an etching plate, you may be ready to print an edition - or you might want to proof...
a month ago
Once you've made an etching plate, you may be ready to print an edition - or you might want to proof it to decide on further edits. Taking a print is the only way you’ll be able to see how your plate is progressing.
This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques to...
Seth's Blog
The marketing department
That’s the first part of the confusion. It’s a group of people who can’t decide what the thing they...
8 months ago
That’s the first part of the confusion. It’s a group of people who can’t decide what the thing they do is supposed to be. Is it: Advertising Publicity Increasing retail distribution Direct and measured response SEO Making the logo pretty Wholesale and trade relationships...
Seth's Blog
Dumbing it down
There’s a lot of pressure to make things dumber. Better to make it dumb than to have someone simply...
a month ago
There’s a lot of pressure to make things dumber. Better to make it dumb than to have someone simply walk away, apparently. With so much to consume, and an unlimited amount to learn, there’s a race to make knowledge into a checklist item. Freon gas! Large language model!...
Seth's Blog
Rituals
The things we do each day, every day, often arrive without intent. By the time we realize that...
a year ago
The things we do each day, every day, often arrive without intent. By the time we realize that they’re now habits, these random behaviors have already become part of how we define ourselves and the time we spend. Bringing intent to our rituals gives us the chance to rewire our...
Open Culture
Watch a Japanese Artisan Hand-Craft a Cello in 6 Months
Cellists unwilling to settle for any but the finest instrument must, sooner or later, make a...
5 months ago
Cellists unwilling to settle for any but the finest instrument must, sooner or later, make a pilgrimage to Cremona — or rather, to the Cremonas. One is, of course, the city in Lombardy that was home to numerous pioneering master luthiers, up to and including Antonio Stradivari....
On the Arts
The Sea Has Always Looked the Same
A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
a year ago
A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
Open Culture
Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Hamburger Recipe
Image via Wikimedia Commons In 2013, the food writer Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan stumbled across an article...
5 months ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons In 2013, the food writer Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan stumbled across an article in the Boston Globe describing a trove of digitized documents from Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba that had been recently donated to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and...
Seth's Blog
Thoughts on audiobooks
I’m listening more than reading these days, and I find that a good audiobook can make a real impact...
2 months ago
I’m listening more than reading these days, and I find that a good audiobook can make a real impact on the way I absorb and learn from a book. It’s a once in a century sort of shift in this medium. My new book is now available in audio. It’s not on Audible, at least […]
Seth's Blog
Non-fatal errors
Most of our errors are in this category. Yesterday, The New York Times sent this newsletter to a...
8 months ago
Most of our errors are in this category. Yesterday, The New York Times sent this newsletter to a million people or so: I’m sure it wasn’t the best part of the day (or the week) for whoever messed up, but I also know that it had little impact on anything that matters. Being...
Open Culture
The “Nonsense” Botanical Illustrations of Victorian Artist-Poet Edward Lear (1871–77)
Since the Victorian era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for generation upon...
5 months ago
Since the Victorian era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for generation upon generation in the English-speaking world, the kind of poem that one simply knows, whether one remembers actually having read it or not. As with most such works that seep so...
Seth's Blog
Decoding ‘story’
Marketers like to talk about the story we tell. And non-marketers imagine that we’re referring to...
11 months ago
Marketers like to talk about the story we tell. And non-marketers imagine that we’re referring to Goldilocks and other ‘once upon a time’ moments. Because stories are the basic building block of culture, it’s difficult to see the nuance in this simple word. But one or two...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “ignoring the election” edition
1. UK university fees going up (but not by enough to make the system work) For those of you not in...
a month ago
1. UK university fees going up (but not by enough to make the system work) For those of you not in the UK, the British system of university funding is a weird mash-mash of different stuff, cobbled together from the mistakes made by successive governments. When I was young, the...
Seth's Blog
Productivity week: Bonus
In an economy built on skill, knowledge, and attitude, the single most powerful way to improve your...
11 months ago
In an economy built on skill, knowledge, and attitude, the single most powerful way to improve your productivity is to learn something. You put in the effort once and it pays off for decades. There are more ways for an adult to learn now than at any time in our history, and all...
Infinite Scroll
How Gay Marriage Ruined Democratic Activism
The end of Moral Triumphalism
2 weeks ago
The end of Moral Triumphalism
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Evelyn Polk
I'm a full time abstract artist who primarily uses a range of printmaking techniques to make art and...
a year ago
I'm a full time abstract artist who primarily uses a range of printmaking techniques to make art and sometimes I mix it up a bit by adding paint or collage to my prints. I teach printmaking classes from my studio at home in Suffolk.
Describe your printmaking process.
I love to...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Lorenzo Davitti
Originally from Florence, Italy, I'm a printmaker and tutor now based in London for the past 10...
7 months ago
Originally from Florence, Italy, I'm a printmaker and tutor now based in London for the past 10 years. I work mainly on abstract art, and I am especially interested in the possibilities that printmaking offers when experimenting with colour, shapes and textures.
Describe your...
Seth's Blog
Better at being better
In most competitive markets, when an organization offers a new benefit, others will quickly move to...
a week ago
In most competitive markets, when an organization offers a new benefit, others will quickly move to match it. This means that it’s hard to justify the hard work of creating something better, because it’s just going to become a new standard. It doesn’t pay for a credit card...
Seth's Blog
Digital prepwork
It’s so tempting to simply begin painting a wall. After all, it’s pretty easy to lay down paint. But...
a year ago
It’s so tempting to simply begin painting a wall. After all, it’s pretty easy to lay down paint. But it turns out that masking and dropcloths, painstakingly put into place, save many hours compared to cleaning up a mess afterward. The same is true for what happens when we have a...
Seth's Blog
The search tax
Amazon took in more than $30 billion in ad revenue last year, money spent to elevate some products...
a year ago
Amazon took in more than $30 billion in ad revenue last year, money spent to elevate some products over others in the hierarchy of attention. It’s probably true that someone shopping on Amazon is going to either buy something or not… the purpose of the “ads” isn’t to amplify...
Open Culture
An Introduction to the Astonishing Book of Kells, the Iconic Illuminated Manuscript
Whatever set of religious or cultural traditions you come from, you’ve probably seen a Celtic cross...
a month ago
Whatever set of religious or cultural traditions you come from, you’ve probably seen a Celtic cross before. Unlike a conventional cross, it has a circular ring, or “nimbus,” where its arms and stem intersect. The sole addition of that element gives it a highly distinctive look,...
Open Culture
Medieval Cats Behaving Badly: Kitties That Left Paw Prints … and Peed … on 15th Century Manuscripts
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When...
7 months ago
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When Emir O. Filipovic, a medievalist at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited the State Archives of Dubrovnik, he stumbled upon something that will hardly surprise...
Seth's Blog
The natural size
No matter how many people come over for dinner, you’re only going to be able to engage with a few....
a year ago
No matter how many people come over for dinner, you’re only going to be able to engage with a few. And no matter how big the crowd in the arena, the musicians can only see the faces of a few hundred. An investor can only be engaged and smart about a very small number of […]
Anarchy Unfolds
Met Gala meets Hunger Games
#Blockout and beyond
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
No thank you
Failing to acknowledge a favor or a courtesy is a triple mistake, and it’s becoming more common....
a year ago
Failing to acknowledge a favor or a courtesy is a triple mistake, and it’s becoming more common. ChatGPT is now promoting the idea that it can write a thank you note for you, and a text is a lot easier than a handwritten note, and yet, the level of ‘thank you’ seems to be...
Seth's Blog
Invite: Behind-the-scenes webinar for the new book
In two weeks, I’ll be hosting a live webinar about my new book, answering questions and connecting...
a year ago
In two weeks, I’ll be hosting a live webinar about my new book, answering questions and connecting people to get serious in discussing the new way of work. The details are here. I hope you can make it. It’s possible that I’ve now written more bestselling business titles than any...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: FamousAdolf
My name is Adolf, like the famous one. I was born in Barcelona 37 years ago and I spent my childhood...
over a year ago
My name is Adolf, like the famous one. I was born in Barcelona 37 years ago and I spent my childhood watching TV and eating lots of bread and chocolate. When I got older I got a degree in Advertising and Public Relations that I never really used. I worked as a Graphic Designer in...
Seth's Blog
Living in the future
In a bad 1950s science fiction movie, you might see flying jetpacks, invisibility cloaks and ray...
4 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...
Marian's Blog
Raspberry Pi Wetterstation
Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich...
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
How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur...
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in...
7 months ago
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in 1863. Today, we might assume that the controversy surrounding the painting had to do with its containing a nude woman. But, in fact, it does not contain a nude woman — at least...
Seth's Blog
A good idea, well executed
Why isn’t this enough? There are plenty of good ideas, easy to learn from and copy. There are...
11 months ago
Why isn’t this enough? There are plenty of good ideas, easy to learn from and copy. There are countless projects, well executed, with the steps on display. Any entrepreneur could find a local business and bring a version of it from over here to over there. And a social change...
Seth's Blog
The empathy of magic
Magicians know where the trapdoors are, what’s up their sleeves and how to hide the ball. And yet,...
a year ago
Magicians know where the trapdoors are, what’s up their sleeves and how to hide the ball. And yet, mechanical skill is just the first step in being actually good at magic. The real skill is in finding the empathy to imagine that someone else might believe. To do the trick for...
Seth's Blog
The seduction of compliance
We can tell from the words. “I’m just doing my job.” “Will this be on the test?” “Don’t blame me.”...
a year ago
We can tell from the words. “I’m just doing my job.” “Will this be on the test?” “Don’t blame me.” “It’s what everyone else is wearing.” Keep your head down, do what you’re told, don’t stick your neck out, and most of all, pay attention to what everyone else is doing. All of this...
Seth's Blog
And then that happened
The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what...
a year ago
The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what happened and then decide to do something with that insight. Thirty years ago, AOL was my company’s biggest client. They charged users $3 an hour to use their precursor to the internet,...
Marian's Blog
LED Matrix Materials Guide
I built an LED matrix out of 256 WS2812 LEDs. This post will describe which materials I used and...
over a year ago
I built an LED matrix out of 256 WS2812 LEDs. This post will describe which materials I used and which I tried with no success so you don’t have to.
Case
For the case, I used a custom made photo frame. The main purpose of the case is to look good, which is...
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
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....
Open Culture
How a Bach Canon Works. Brilliant.
Brilliant. This moving manuscript depicts a single musical sequence played front to back and then...
6 months ago
Brilliant. This moving manuscript depicts a single musical sequence played front to back and then back to front. Give the video a little time to unfold and enjoy.
Open Culture
Hear the Song Written on a Sinner’s Buttock in Hieronymus Bosch’s Painting The Garden of Earthly...
There’s something unusually exciting about finding a hidden or discreetly placed element in a...
7 months ago
There’s something unusually exciting about finding a hidden or discreetly placed element in a well-known painting. I can only imagine the thrill of the physician who first noticed the curious presence of a human brain in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam: God, his retinue of...
Seth's Blog
Complex or complicated?
Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the...
a year ago
Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the complicated portions into smaller pieces. And complicated problems often have an emotional component, because there are parts of the problem we don’t want to look at closely, or deal with...
Prolost
Virtual NAB at C4DLive
TLDR;
Hi!
C4DLive is happening this week! Already!
Watch my talk at noon PDT on Thursday, April...
over a year ago
TLDR;
Hi!
C4DLive is happening this week! Already!
Watch my talk at noon PDT on Thursday, April 23! Ask questions!
Buy Cinema 4D, Get Red Giant Complete for 50% Off
Red Giant Complete is free for students and teachers
TGNTR;
If it weren’t for COVID-19, the newly-combined...
Seth's Blog
The sad compromise of “sponsored results”
Google made a fortune and honed sponsored search results into an art form. The theory is that people...
4 months ago
Google made a fortune and honed sponsored search results into an art form. The theory is that people who want the traffic the most will pay for the clicks, and of course, if the advertisers don’t have something you ultimately want, they’ll just waste their money. Let the market...
Seth's Blog
Just looking
Lots of people go to the beach but very few get in the water. 3,000 students go to the football game...
a year ago
Lots of people go to the beach but very few get in the water. 3,000 students go to the football game to watch 20 of their peers play. And we go to a conference to meet people and connect, and then spend most of our time hoping someone else will see us and care enough […]
Seth's Blog
Signal and noise
If the signal is very weak and the noise is large, it’s easy to imagine that there’s no signal at...
a year ago
If the signal is very weak and the noise is large, it’s easy to imagine that there’s no signal at all. AI and computers can be used as lenses now, which means we can strip away the noise and see things that we certainly didn’t expect. Dina Katabi at MIT can point a radio antenna...
Open Culture
The Amazing Recording History of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”
The most streamed Beatles song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It...
2 months ago
The most streamed Beatles song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It isn’t even “Yesterday.” If you were about to guess “Something,” you’re on the right track, at least as far as the source album and songwriter. In fact, it’s George Harrison’s other...
Open Culture
When Samuel Beckett Drove Young André the Giant to School
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort...
4 months ago
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort of conversation that might transpire in a pickup truck belonging to Samuel Beckett, say, were the Irish playwright to chauffeur the child André Rene Roussimoff—aka pro wrestler...
Open Culture
The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973–2023)
Hip-hop was once a subculture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unquestionably dominant...
3 weeks ago
Hip-hop was once a subculture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unquestionably dominant forms of popular music — not just in America, and not just among young people. There are, of course, still a fair few hip-hop holdouts, but even they’ve come to know a thing or two...
Open Culture
Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa Now Appears on Japanese Banknotes
If you’ve lived or traveled in Japan, you know full well how much of daily life in that...
5 months ago
If you’ve lived or traveled in Japan, you know full well how much of daily life in that cash-intensive society involves the use of thousand-yen bills. Once considered the equivalent of the American ten-spot, the yen’s lately having fallen to its lowest value in decades means that...
Seth's Blog
“But what if I’m wrong?
If we’re going to come together and invest the time in conversation, in research or in analysis, we...
8 months ago
If we’re going to come together and invest the time in conversation, in research or in analysis, we should begin by understanding what would be required for you or I to change our minds. If you’re not willing to consider that you’re wrong, then, in the words of a Dan Dennett,...
Seth's Blog
Naming is part of marketing
A name is a hook for us to hang a story on. We need to begin with empathy and a useful story… useful...
9 months ago
A name is a hook for us to hang a story on. We need to begin with empathy and a useful story… useful to the people who want to believe it, spread it, and use it to accomplish their goals. But then, the story needs firm footing and a way to stick with us. Patagonia […]
Seth's Blog
Easy/lazy tech journalism
Choose either one: When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance...
10 months ago
Choose either one: When a new technology comes out, review it breathlessly. Explain without nuance or caution how it will instantly change the world. Go into the details of this first instantiation of it and assume it will never change, it’s done, here we go. When a new...
Seth's Blog
Survivor bias and the mistake of stability
An asteroid has never destroyed the Earth, therefore an asteroid never will. This brand has been...
a year ago
An asteroid has never destroyed the Earth, therefore an asteroid never will. This brand has been involved in scandals before, and it has always come back stronger, so there’s nothing to worry about. There have been technology changes before, but we’ve always managed to find...
Seth's Blog
With the sound off
If you’re watching a YouTube clip or a talking head, you can probably tell whether or not you...
a year ago
If you’re watching a YouTube clip or a talking head, you can probably tell whether or not you disagree with someone even with the sound off. And we judge a book or an article on the layout and appearance long before we’ve read all the words. Human beings invented symbolic logic...
Seth's Blog
Which agenda?
Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda....
11 months ago
Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda. It’s easy to become so focused on checking the boxes that we forget that there are people involved. Peers, colleagues and friends that with something human to offer, if we only...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Generating The Alphabet
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser...
9 months ago
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser based art work, using a “web safe” font could produce inconsistent results, while including a font file would mean a large file size. Additionally, I don’t want a visual element of...
Seth's Blog
The new way of work
Amazon is the last one. They are probably the last huge company where hundreds of thousands of...
a year ago
Amazon is the last one. They are probably the last huge company where hundreds of thousands of people will be surveilled, measured and ordered to follow the rule book. The pandemic didn’t create distributed work, the laptop did. Human interaction is critical, but the office isn’t...
Seth's Blog
Spam 3.0
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out...
6 months ago
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out the good ones. The new normal: Someone finds a database of every residential property, then another of cell phones. An AI is trained to call every homeowner, every day, asking if...
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...
7 months 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
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...
3 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;...
Seth's Blog
Generosity and gratitude
A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility and energy. And the magic...
a year ago
A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility and energy. And the magic of gratitude is that it improves everything it touches, especially the person who offered it in the first place. So, what holds us back? Fear. Fear of connection, of change, of...
Seth's Blog
In search of chatoyancy
A cat’s eye is smooth but doesn’t seem to be… there’s a mystery of depth. That illusion is called...
a year ago
A cat’s eye is smooth but doesn’t seem to be… there’s a mystery of depth. That illusion is called chatoyancy. The same is true for some sorts of woods (cedar is an exception). The digital age makes it more and more likely we’re experiencing things through a flat screen, and as a...
Seth's Blog
Portfolio theory
One show can make Netflix’s year. One stock can make the numbers for an investor. One player can...
a year ago
One show can make Netflix’s year. One stock can make the numbers for an investor. One player can drive a team to victory. The key is, “I’m not sure which one it’s going to be, but it’s going to be one of these.” The challenge with falling in love with the potential of just one...
Seth's Blog
If they know, they should tell us
Asymmetrical information creates real problems. And fixing the flow of useful proxies benefits both...
5 days ago
Asymmetrical information creates real problems. And fixing the flow of useful proxies benefits both sides. Cigarette companies knew a great deal about the addictions they were causing and the illnesses that resulted. If the public had known, they would have made different...
Seth's Blog
The Jenga situation
When an organization first sets out to have an impact, it discovers that it has no customers, no...
a year ago
When an organization first sets out to have an impact, it discovers that it has no customers, no clients, no constituents. So it shows up, it makes an offer and it listens. The early days are exciting. Customers are seen and heard and served. Variations are created and value is...
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Unplugged: Two Great Recordings of Hendrix Playing Acoustic Guitar
As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed...
5 months ago
As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed I’d attain even a fraction of his skill. But what attracted me to him was his near-total lack of formality—he didn’t read music, wasn’t trained in any classical sense, played an...
Anarchy Unfolds
Paths to peace
Letters to an anarchist - Part 4
a month ago
Letters to an anarchist - Part 4
Seth's Blog
The near future (and summer reads)
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can...
6 months ago
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can think hard about the tomorrow we’re about to live in. Summer reads are supposed to be a bit lighter. Technological change is making our near future a bit harder to dance with, and...
Seth's Blog
The Beatles and Taylor Swift
When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too....
a year ago
When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too. That’s part of the magic of a cultural swirl–it’s our friends, our work, our world. Most of these moments are actually tiny pockets. An episode of the much-talked-about TV show...
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...
a month 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...
Marian's Blog
Designing a Lego orrery
I've always been a fan of the Lego Technic series, especially those models that have gears and...
6 months ago
I've always been a fan of the Lego Technic series, especially those models that have gears and cranks and moving parts.
But it seems that Lego is shifting the focus of the Technic series away from functional models, so I had to take matters into my own hands.
I think an orrery is...
Seth's Blog
Dancing for the early adopters
The traveling circus didn’t have to appeal to everyone. They rode into town with the elephants, the...
a year ago
The traveling circus didn’t have to appeal to everyone. They rode into town with the elephants, the bearded lady and the Tasmanian Devil, and the people who came, came. Once the folks who wanted excitement were exhausted, the circus left. The problem kicks in when the circus...
Blog - Mac Pierce
p5.js on Squarespace - The Basics
A quick guide on how to get p5.js guides working on Squarespace.
over a year ago
A quick guide on how to get p5.js guides working on Squarespace.
Seth's Blog
The art of estimation
If you’re a freelancer or a contractor of any kind, it’s typical to be asked for an estimate or a...
a year ago
If you’re a freelancer or a contractor of any kind, it’s typical to be asked for an estimate or a quote. And if you’ve been doing business for a while, it’s likely that you’ve heard about price more than just about any other factor in losing an opportunity. So the pressure is on...
Open Culture
Behold a Digital Restoration of 655 Plates of Roses & Lilies by Pierre-Joseph Redouté: The Greatest...
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a...
a month ago
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a meticulousness that exceeds all bounds of normality. He published his three-volume collection Les Roses and his eight-volume collection Les Liliacées between 1802 and 1824, and a glance...
Seth's Blog
Further vs. faster
Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is...
4 weeks ago
Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is different, and so is the technique. Which one are you signing up for? What about the thing you sell? Are we trying to get there faster, or do we promise to go further?
Seth's Blog
Fooling ourselves
It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker....
a year ago
It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker. Other folks might be easily duped by a spammer or a hustler, but not us. And yet, no one fools you more than you. When you look in the mirror, do you see what others see, […]
Open Culture
Behold James Sowerby’s Strikingly Illustrated New Elucidation of Colours (1809)
James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was...
5 months ago
James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was also enormously interested in color, especially given the era in which he lived. Born in 1757, he made his professional start as a painter of flowers: a viable career path in...
Seth's Blog
The first nine minutes
Mixing up a batch of homemade vegan marshmallow Fluff® is an exercise in patience. For the first...
a year ago
Mixing up a batch of homemade vegan marshmallow Fluff® is an exercise in patience. For the first nine minutes of the ten minutes it takes in the mixer, not much happens. And then, it transforms into something fluffy and delightful. Without the recipe, it’s unlikely that most...
Seth's Blog
Now in Spanish
The Carbon Almanac is now available in Spanish. For free. Free to download, free to share and free...
a year ago
The Carbon Almanac is now available in Spanish. For free. Free to download, free to share and free to print a copy at home. While the book has been traditionally published around the world (in Italian, Czech, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Dutch), no Spanish-language publisher was...
The Great Discontent...
Taekyeom Lee
Taekyeom Lee is a graphic designer with an artist’s sensibility. As a researcher, educator, and...
a year ago
Taekyeom Lee is a graphic designer with an artist’s sensibility. As a researcher, educator, and maker — born and raised in South Korea, now living and teaching in Madison, Wisconsin he works in the space where tactility and technology meet, combining ancient materials and...
Seth's Blog
The long walk
Before buying a house, it makes sense to spend a day on foot, walking around the neighborhood....
3 weeks ago
Before buying a house, it makes sense to spend a day on foot, walking around the neighborhood. You’ll notice things you might have missed in a car. Before starting a business, spend a few shifts working the cash register at a similar establishment. And before going into...
Open Culture
Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Cover for On the Road (1952)
This falls under the category, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” In 1950,...
4 months ago
This falls under the category, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” In 1950, when Jack Kerouac released his first novel, The Town and the City, he was less than impressed by the book cover produced by his publisher, Harcourt Brace. (Click here to see why.) So,...
Seth's Blog
The question book
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that...
9 months ago
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that an employee could anonymously submit a suggestion to make things better is a first step in engagement. Some companies took this much further and paid employees for suggestions that...
Open Culture
Unlock AI’s Potential in Your Work and Daily Life: Take a Popular Course from Google
Generative AI is rapidly becoming an essential tool for streamlining work and solving complex...
2 weeks ago
Generative AI is rapidly becoming an essential tool for streamlining work and solving complex challenges. However, knowing how to use GenAI effectively isn’t always obvious. That’s where Google Prompting Essentials comes in. This course will teach you to write clear and specific...
Seth's Blog
Which sort of sinecure?
Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That...
a year ago
Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That sort of foundation can give us peace of mind and open the door to possibility. But, it’s possible that we can turn it into a trap as well. A situation so perfectly created that...
Anarchy Unfolds
April '24 Myths & Recs
Sexual orientation, Cowboy Carter, mental health recovery, and more
7 months ago
Sexual orientation, Cowboy Carter, mental health recovery, and more
Handprinted - Blog
How to Design and Print a Half Drop Repeating Pattern
A half drop is a great way of creating a repeating pattern where the repeat is slightly obscured. It...
a year ago
A half drop is a great way of creating a repeating pattern where the repeat is slightly obscured. It can make for a less gridded-looking structure and add complexity to your design. Here's a simple, analogue way to make one.
Start by drawing around your block. We are...
Seth's Blog
Time, consquences and opportunities
Dreams have consequences Hisham Matar Time passes, decisions are made, we face the consequences or...
11 months ago
Dreams have consequences Hisham Matar Time passes, decisions are made, we face the consequences or enjoy the benefits. A few books for this moment, about navigating our days, and the possibility of light. It bends toward justice. The Return, by Hisham Matar. A beautiful and...
Seth's Blog
Twelve days until the first worldwide strategy meetup
There are now 280 cities being organized. You can find the list and all the details by clicking...
2 months ago
There are now 280 cities being organized. You can find the list and all the details by clicking here. It’s free, and it works better when you become a part of it. Find the others. Connect, inspire and lead. It’s a great excuse to organize some friends and colleagues and have a...
Seth's Blog
Working with problems
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a...
a year ago
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a problem or a situation? Problems, by definition, have solutions. You might not like the cost of the solution, the trade-offs it leads to, or the time and effort it takes, but...
Anarchy Unfolds
Food Waste is Bad Actually
How we frame the problem makes all the difference
2 weeks ago
How we frame the problem makes all the difference
Seth's Blog
If it’s all in bold
Then none of it is in bold.
a year ago
Then none of it is in bold.
Seth's Blog
The empathy device
It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human...
a year ago
It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human beings spend a lot of time considering our own appearance and our own feelings and most of all, our own needs. The market produces a shift. When it’s a fair and open exchange, the...
Seth's Blog
Comfortable with the fuzziness
Atmospheric conditions on Earth limit visibility on a perfect day to less than 200 miles. Time works...
4 weeks ago
Atmospheric conditions on Earth limit visibility on a perfect day to less than 200 miles. Time works the same way. When we’re doing the same thing, in the same way, our perception of what will happen next can feel crystal clear. Plant some apple seeds in your backyard, and you’re...
Seth's Blog
When in doubt, look for the fear
When someone acts in a surprising way, we can begin to understand by wondering what they might be...
a year ago
When someone acts in a surprising way, we can begin to understand by wondering what they might be afraid of.
Seth's Blog
The answer to every question
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If,...
a year ago
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If, regardless of the problem, the answer is crypto, homeopathy, or the internet, or perhaps GPT, essential oils or decarbonization, it’s possible we’re taking an easy way out. A new...
Open Culture
The Evolution of Hokusai’s Great Wave: A Study of 113 Known Copies of the Iconic Woodblock Print
The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai,...
6 months ago
The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai, 神奈川沖浪裏, is usually translated into English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa. That version of the title reflects the iconic scene depicted in the image well enough, though I can’t help but...
Open Culture
How the Hugely Acclaimed Shōgun TV Series Makes Translation Interesting
Many of us grew up seeing hardback copies of Shōgun on various domestic bookshelves. Whether their...
3 months ago
Many of us grew up seeing hardback copies of Shōgun on various domestic bookshelves. Whether their owners ever actually got through James Clavell’s famously hefty novel of seventeenth-century Japan is open to question, but they may well have seen the first television adaptation,...
Open Culture
World Religions Explained with Useful Charts: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity &...
It doesn’t take an expert in the field to know that, around the world, there is much disagreement on...
6 months ago
It doesn’t take an expert in the field to know that, around the world, there is much disagreement on the subject of religion. But as explained in the UsefulCharts video above by Matt Baker, whose PhD in Religious Studies makes him an expert in the field, every source does agree...
Marian's Blog
Work in progress: Location based online game
This is a game prototype I’m currently working on. The game is played online, on a real world map...
over a year ago
This is a game prototype I’m currently working on. The game is played online, on a real world map and the location of the player is also the location ingame, just like in Ingress.
I know that making an online game like this is an ambitious goal and it will probably never be...
Stat Significant
The Rise of Nicole Kidman, Pop Culture Folk Hero: A Statistical Analysis
Charting Nicole Kidman's recent career renaissance and rejection of industry norms.
a month ago
Charting Nicole Kidman's recent career renaissance and rejection of industry norms.
Seth's Blog
Elites (vs. elitism)
Tom Brady is an elite athlete. Few have even approached the stats he had playing football. And...
2 weeks ago
Tom Brady is an elite athlete. Few have even approached the stats he had playing football. And Catherine Walker, NSTA Science Teacher of the Year, is an elite, because her pedagogy and understanding give her the ability to create better outcomes for her students. There’s a...
Seth's Blog
Normalizing selfishness
Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly...
10 months ago
Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly steal stuff, because speaking up about it won’t help their cause. Sometimes, though, some people seek to change the culture in a way that celebrates taking. “I own this jetski and I...
Seth's Blog
Confused about good
How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your...
2 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...
Open Culture
Marcus Aurelius’ 9 Rules for Living a Stoic Life: Presented by Ryan Holiday
This week, the Guardian’s Zoe Williams profiled Ryan Holiday, a one-time public-relations whiz-kid...
a month ago
This week, the Guardian’s Zoe Williams profiled Ryan Holiday, a one-time public-relations whiz-kid who’s reinvented himself over the past decade as a speaker for the dead: specifically Epictetus, Seneca, and above all Marcus Aurelius, the figureheads of the ancient school of...
Seth's Blog
Fooled
Now it’s a business model. People are regularly fooled by crypto scams, NFT hype, opioid felons,...
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...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Suckered Yet Again
Influencer boxing, BlueSky winning, and incredible calendar confessions
a month ago
Influencer boxing, BlueSky winning, and incredible calendar confessions
Seth's Blog
It just barely works
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers...
2 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
The paradigm flip
Paradigm shifts are appealing but rarely well executed. A paradigm is our mental model of the world....
a year ago
Paradigm shifts are appealing but rarely well executed. A paradigm is our mental model of the world. We’re surrounded by people who share a similar model, and as long as the model is working, we live our lives without thinking much about it. If you lived in a space station, the...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rachael Haggerty
Hello, I’m Rachael and I am a printmaker based in Bath, UK. I generally work with linocut and mainly...
a year ago
Hello, I’m Rachael and I am a printmaker based in Bath, UK. I generally work with linocut and mainly print in monochrome or bright primary colours. My work celebrates family life, nature and the local area.
Describe your printmaking process.
I normally sketch out a composition...
Seth's Blog
Mediocre tools
Lousy tools are dangerous. They endanger our safety (physical or emotional) and undermine our work....
23 hours ago
Lousy tools are dangerous. They endanger our safety (physical or emotional) and undermine our work. Lousy tools are pretty easy to avoid, because they reveal themselves whenever we use them. Great tools are magical. They multiply our effort, amplify the quality of our work and...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Nick Morley (with giveaway!)
Nick Morley, aka Linocutboy, is an artist, illustrator, author and educator specialising in linocut....
a year ago
Nick Morley, aka Linocutboy, is an artist, illustrator, author and educator specialising in linocut. His prints have been bought by people all over the world and his illustrations have appeared on book covers and in magazines. Nick teaches regular linocut workshops at Hello Print...
Seth's Blog
A labor of love
That’s magical. To have the resources to expend labor on something that fills us with joy. If you’re...
3 months ago
That’s magical. To have the resources to expend labor on something that fills us with joy. If you’re lucky enough to encounter this, perhaps it makes sense not to confuse the issue by also trying to turn it into labor for maximum profit. When we focus on one, we often decrease...
Seth's Blog
The second mistake
That’s the avoidable one and the one that usually causes the real trouble. When the first mistake...
a year ago
That’s the avoidable one and the one that usually causes the real trouble. When the first mistake flusters us, breaks our rhythm or messes with our confidence, we’re far more likely to make the second one. It’s almost impossible to avoid making a mistake. But avoiding the second...
Seth's Blog
Study groups
If I had to choose one metric that would determine how well someone would do in law school, it...
a year ago
If I had to choose one metric that would determine how well someone would do in law school, it wouldn’t be the LSAT or another test. It would be whether or not they formed a study group, and who else was in it. Of course, the same is true for your project, or any sort […]
Seth's Blog
What are the defaults?
Perhaps they were chosen a very long time ago. Or with very little thought. It could be that the...
a year ago
Perhaps they were chosen a very long time ago. Or with very little thought. It could be that the constraints that led to the default are long gone. They might be perpetuating bad choices, injustice or sub-optimal outputs. The best way to fix something is to look at what we assume...
The Great Discontent...
Schessa Garbutt
Schessa Garbutt is the founder of the Inglewood–based design studio, Firebrand. An educator,...
5 months ago
Schessa Garbutt is the founder of the Inglewood–based design studio, Firebrand. An educator, lecturer, and published essayist (see The Black Experience in Design anthology, a must-read). Garbutt works at the intersection of co-design practices and making huge, mind-bending ideas...
Seth's Blog
Getting better at bucket management
If you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. Pour a...
a year ago
If you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. Pour a bucketful of sake into one of those little glasses and you’ll waste most of it and ruin the table setting. And try to use a bucket to refill a dried-out lake and not much will happen. […]
Handprinted - Blog
Drypoint - Which plate is right for my project?
Drypoint is a fantastic intaglio technique as it requires limited equipment to create a plate. It's...
7 months ago
Drypoint is a fantastic intaglio technique as it requires limited equipment to create a plate. It's a great way of creating a printed drawing and is one of the printmaking techniques where the positive mark is the one that prints (unlike relief printing for example). There are...
Anarchy Unfolds
March '24 Myths & Recs
Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
9 months ago
Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
Seth's Blog
Fidelity, compression and culture
The alphabet is a miracle, one that is compounded by books. And the lessons we learn from this...
a year ago
The alphabet is a miracle, one that is compounded by books. And the lessons we learn from this cornerstone of modern culture apply to organizations, meetings, tech, politics and almost everything we do together. Your copy of To Kill a Mockingbird contains every single word that...
Seth's Blog
Don’t rush
…but hurry. The words matter. Rushing has a built-in excuse. Rushing pushes us to skip steps or ship...
7 months ago
…but hurry. The words matter. Rushing has a built-in excuse. Rushing pushes us to skip steps or ship junk. But hurrying acknowledges how precious this moment in time is. It honors our good fortune to be in this place, able to contribute something generous.
The Great Discontent...
Brad Montague
Brad Montague is an illustrator, speaker, picture book author, video creator, and all-around maker....
3 months ago
Brad Montague is an illustrator, speaker, picture book author, video creator, and all-around maker. He’s a self-proclaimed dreamer and doer. Above all, he’s a storyteller, “working to create a better world for kids with kids” through Montague Workshop, the creative studio he runs...
Seth's Blog
“Let’s face it”
In 1959, three years after Columbia Records spent a fortune rolling out stereo recording, a senior...
12 months ago
In 1959, three years after Columbia Records spent a fortune rolling out stereo recording, a senior A&R executive named Ward Botsman told the New York Times, “Let’s face it, the craze for stereo has not been as intense as expected,” writing off the format that would end up...
Seth's Blog
When the sun is shining
Our job as professionals is to show up and do the work. Not simply respond to incoming or do the...
a year ago
Our job as professionals is to show up and do the work. Not simply respond to incoming or do the chores, but to create and innovate. And yet, some days feel more conducive than others. There are moments when it simply flows. When the surf’s up, cancel everything else. Don’t waste...
Open Culture
Carl Jung Psychoanalyzes Hitler: “He’s the Unconscious of 78 Million Germans.” “Without the German...
Were you to google “Carl Jung and Nazism”—and I’m not suggesting that you do—you would find yourself...
a month ago
Were you to google “Carl Jung and Nazism”—and I’m not suggesting that you do—you would find yourself hip-deep in the charges that Jung was an anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer. Many sites condemn or exonerate him; many others celebrate him as a blood and soil Aryan hero. It can...
Seth's Blog
“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
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...
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...
6 months ago
In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top everything that came before it. Progress is rarely smooth.
Open Culture
When the CIA Studied Psychic Techniques to Alter Human Consciousness & Unlock Time Travel: Discover...
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of...
6 months ago
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of experiments involving LSD and other psychoactive drugs called MKUltra from the nineteen-fifties to the seventies. As one might suspect, that wasn’t the only research project into the...
Open Culture
Hannah Arendt Explains the Rise of Totalitarian Regimes–and the Strategies Needed to Combat Them
“Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity,” wrote the political philosopher Hannah...
7 months ago
“Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity,” wrote the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, describing the scene leading up to the prominent Holocaust-organizer’s execution. After drinking half a bottle of wine, turning down the offer of religious assistance, and even...
Seth's Blog
Hiring for stuck
Once an organization figures out a successful model, it begins to grow. And when it grows, it needs...
2 months ago
Once an organization figures out a successful model, it begins to grow. And when it grows, it needs more staff. And they often hire for specific tasks and the skills that go with them. They need a person who will reliably and obediently deliver what they need right now. And...
Handprinted - Blog
Spooktacular Screen Printing Projects!
Get into the spooky spirit with a Halloween screen printing project! Create t-shirts, tote bags, and...
2 months ago
Get into the spooky spirit with a Halloween screen printing project! Create t-shirts, tote bags, and poster prints that’re hauntingly fun and frightfully easy!
Party Prints - Speedball Night Glo Acrylic Ink on Paper!
If you’re a Halloween lover this project is for you! Using...
Stat Significant
Why Do People Like True Crime? A Statistical Analysis
Exploring the appeal of true crime podcasts and docuseries.
4 months ago
Exploring the appeal of true crime podcasts and docuseries.
Seth's Blog
On building a cathedral
If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks...
9 months ago
If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks to meet, a cathedral is probably way more than you need. It’s far more expensive to build and maintain and not optimal in delivering what’s required. But what if this building...
Seth's Blog
Game design and strategy (Bongo part 3)
What’s it for? Making something fun is a good place to start if you’re building a casual word game...
4 weeks ago
What’s it for? Making something fun is a good place to start if you’re building a casual word game like Bongo. But it’s not enough. Lots of things are fun, for a while, but that doesn’t meant that they’re worth the investment of time and money it takes to build them. From the...
Handprinted - Blog
Testing your Copper Sulphate Solution
When you’ve mixed a fresh batch of copper sulphate mordant, or if you have an old batch that you...
a year ago
When you’ve mixed a fresh batch of copper sulphate mordant, or if you have an old batch that you haven’t used for a few months, it’s good practice to test the strength of your solution.
By creating some test strips for both line and tones, you’ll create yourself a reference point...
Seth's Blog
Finding the others
Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer...
a year ago
Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer support, brainstorming, community workshops, coaching, dailies and more. Distributed work doesn’t have to be disconnected work. Freelancing, creating, and leading can feel solitary,...
Seth's Blog
The audacity of the crowd anthem
There’s little doubt that We Are the Champions is one of the great crowd anthems of our time. Just...
a year ago
There’s little doubt that We Are the Champions is one of the great crowd anthems of our time. Just about any group can be stirred into a frenzy just by playing a few bars: The same goes Rapper’s Delight. And yet… Can you imagine how frightening it must have been to play it live...
Open Culture
Andy Warhol’s One Minute of Professional Wrestling Fame (1985)
Andy Warhol did for art what the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) did for wrestling. He made it a...
2 months ago
Andy Warhol did for art what the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) did for wrestling. He made it a spectacle. He made it something the “everyman” could enjoy. He infused it with celebrity. And, some would say, he cheapened it too. Looking back, it makes perfect sense that Warhol...
Seth's Blog
If it were really important…
Could we change our minds? When was the last time new information caused you to walk away from an...
a year ago
Could we change our minds? When was the last time new information caused you to walk away from an idea you were confident in? It gets harder and harder to do, and more and more important.
Seth's Blog
Default to surrender
AI chatbots highight a challenge that is worth understanding. It applies to customer service,...
9 months ago
AI chatbots highight a challenge that is worth understanding. It applies to customer service, bureaucracies and teachers as well… If you ask an AI a question and it’s not confident in the answer, it should say, “I’m not sure.” That could be followed up with, “do you want me to...
Open Culture
Discover Hannah Arendt’s Syllabus for Her 1974 Course on “Thinking”
If you’ve read one work of Hannah Arendt’s, it’s probably Eichmann in Jerusalem, her account of the...
2 weeks ago
If you’ve read one work of Hannah Arendt’s, it’s probably Eichmann in Jerusalem, her account of the trial of the eponymous Nazi official — and the source of her much-quoted phrase “the banality of evil.” That book came out in 1963, at which time Arendt still had a dozen...
Open Culture
How Filmmakers Make Cameras Disappear: Mirrors in Movies
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges...
2 months ago
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges are the creation of effects-laden spectacles: starships duking it out in space, monsters stomping through major cities, animals speaking and dancing like Broadway stars, that sort...
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