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Handprinted - Blog
Glossary of Printmaking Terminology Scroll through the list below to find definitions and explanations of common printmaking...
a year ago
52
a year ago
Scroll through the list below to find definitions and explanations of common printmaking terms: Acid-free – refers to papers that are made with an alkaline pulp, usually with calcium carbonate added. Acids contribute to the deterioration of paper and therefore of prints. Aisuki –...
Open Culture
How 2001: A Space Odyssey Became “the Hardest Film Kubrick Ever Made” Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been praised in all manner of terms since it came out...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been praised in all manner of terms since it came out more than half a century ago. An early advertising campaign, tapping into the enthusiasm of the contemporary counterculture, called it “the ultimate trip”; in the equivalently trendy...
Seth's Blog
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
69
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...
Prolost
New Photography Shortcuts Using ToolBox Pro My love affair with Apple’s Shortcuts took a bit of a hit during the transition to iOS 13, but my...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
My love affair with Apple’s Shortcuts took a bit of a hit during the transition to iOS 13, but my fascination with this on-device development environment has been rekindled thanks to a new app called ToolBox Pro. ToolBox Pro is a free iOS/iPadOS app that adds powerful new actions...
Handprinted - Blog
Prepping your Plate for Etching For a successful etch, there is a little bit of care and attention you need to give to your metal...
a year ago
12
a year ago
For a successful etch, there is a little bit of care and attention you need to give to your metal plate first. There are surface impurities and grease pockets within the metal that will need to be removed before coating your plate with grounds. This blog is part of a series...
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Monday 23rd December A week off work, yay! Obviously that has not stopped me checking and replying to a few emails. My...
2 weeks ago
25
2 weeks ago
A week off work, yay! Obviously that has not stopped me checking and replying to a few emails. My team were also attempting to get me to help them cheat at the work Christmas quiz using WhatsApp. Shamefully, they didn’t even win. I had my first face to face physio session about...
Seth's Blog
The unwritten rules get written …when someone decides to selfishly push. There’s an assumption of civility and fairness in all of...
a year ago
47
a year ago
…when someone decides to selfishly push. There’s an assumption of civility and fairness in all of our interactions. When a harsh competitor unilaterally breaks unwritten rules (because it’s “not technically against the rules”) the community then writes down a new rule. The best...
On the Arts
Link List: 20 Articles + Websites About the Arts A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and...
a year ago
20
a year ago
A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and nifty CSS tools.
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
24
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
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
16
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...
Open Culture
13 Experimental Animations of Osamu Tezuka, “the Godfather of Manga” (1964–1987) If you enjoy modern Japanese animation, you can no doubt name several masterpieces of the form off...
4 months ago
18
4 months ago
If you enjoy modern Japanese animation, you can no doubt name several masterpieces of the form off the top of your head, whether acclaimed series like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop to the work of cinema auteurs like Satoshi Kon and Hayao Miyazaki. What may cross your...
Handprinted - Blog
Making a Multi-Block Linocut A multi-block linocut uses more than one piece of lino to create a layered image. Usually, each...
a year ago
52
a year ago
A multi-block linocut uses more than one piece of lino to create a layered image. Usually, each block is inked with a separate colour. Where the colours overlap, another colour can be achieved. Multi-block linocuts allow you to partially print an edition and create complete...
Seth's Blog
Graceful Long after people forget the details, they’ll remember your kindness. There are many forms of...
10 months ago
27
10 months ago
Long after people forget the details, they’ll remember your kindness. There are many forms of hospitality, but resilience, goodwill and gratitude are often the ones that matter. PS here’s a short ebook I published almost a decade ago.
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
59
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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Forecast Forecast is a long-form generative art project released on fxhash on 16th Feb 2023. This article...
a year ago
7
a year ago
Forecast is a long-form generative art project released on fxhash on 16th Feb 2023. This article contains info about techniques and some rambling about concepts and emotions.
The Last...
Still Alive WHERE DID YOU GO? I flatter myself by thinking you are asking this question.  I am writing a book of...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
WHERE DID YOU GO? I flatter myself by thinking you are asking this question.  I am writing a book of and about porn. IS IT ANY GOOD? Not sure.  I am trying my best.  It's a lot of work, complicated by relentless self-doubt.  The good news is I am drinking more. ALMOST...
Seth's Blog
Doing presentations virtually A few years ago, I posted about the hardware setup you can use to look better and feel better when...
a year ago
25
a year ago
A few years ago, I posted about the hardware setup you can use to look better and feel better when working in a distributed organization. Since then, I’ve tried many hacks for how to integrate Keynote presentations into this environment. I used some fancy software that was...
Seth's Blog
Pay what you want It’s a fascinating payment model. For digital goods and other transactions where the marginal cost...
a year ago
55
a year ago
It’s a fascinating payment model. For digital goods and other transactions where the marginal cost of one more sale approaches zero, “pay what you want” exposes how complicated the story we tell about money can be. When we add in the charity component, it becomes even more...
Seth's Blog
Transitions are difficult They’re risky (unknown territory leads to unforeseen outcomes) and a very recent phenomenon. A kid...
11 months ago
21
11 months ago
They’re risky (unknown territory leads to unforeseen outcomes) and a very recent phenomenon. A kid dropped off at pre-school, a new boss, a food you’re not familiar with. None of this was common for most of pre-history. When the transition occurs, we’re tempted to direct our...
cabel.com
Thank Goodness I’ve Written Some Ad Music This summer, a new video game came out that changed the way we think about comedy in games, becoming...
4 months ago
4
4 months ago
This summer, a new video game came out that changed the way we think about comedy in games, becoming an instant smash hit in the process. That’s right, I’m talking about Thank Goodness You’re Here! from Coal Supper. Ok, yeah, sure, I work for Panic and we published the game, so I...
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...
8 months ago
46
8 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
“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the... There are some words out there that are brilliantly evocative and at the same time impossible to...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
There are some words out there that are brilliantly evocative and at the same time impossible to fully translate. Yiddish has the word shlimazl, which basically means a perpetually unlucky person. German has the word Backpfeifengesicht, which roughly means a face that is badly in...
Seth's Blog
Bob Dobalina I considered myself someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a narrow range of mid-1960s TV and...
a year ago
54
a year ago
I considered myself someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a narrow range of mid-1960s TV and certain strains of pop music as well. I was stunned, then, to hear the song Zilch for the first time recently. Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina. It’s unforgettable. And it’s from the...
Seth's Blog
Incrementally better Massive leaps in utility and quality are extraordinary events. Going from ver 2.0 to 3.0 is a step...
7 months ago
63
7 months ago
Massive leaps in utility and quality are extraordinary events. Going from ver 2.0 to 3.0 is a step change. But that is almost never what improvement looks like. Instead, the persistent commitment to slightly better on a regular schedule inexorably makes a difference over time.
Seth's Blog
Replacing bad systems with bad systems A metaphor involving parking meters. Over the years, parking meters in town have evolved into a...
a year ago
58
a year ago
A metaphor involving parking meters. Over the years, parking meters in town have evolved into a cumbersome, awkward system. Coins are heavy and you need to have them handy, meters need to be reinforced against theft and breakage, town employees have to empty the coins and...
Handprinted - Blog
Creating Cyanotypes using the Speedball UV Lamp Cyanotypes are made using a light sensitive solution to create designs on fabric and paper. Prints...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Cyanotypes are made using a light sensitive solution to create designs on fabric and paper. Prints are typically created using direct sunlight. Unfortunately here in the UK, sunshine is often in short supply! But we have discovered a work around using the Speedball UV Lamp, a...
Seth's Blog
Are you weather? The thunderstorm doesn’t know we exist. Rain dances and wishes are ineffective at bringing or...
6 months ago
66
6 months ago
The thunderstorm doesn’t know we exist. Rain dances and wishes are ineffective at bringing or preventing a storm, because it isn’t caused by our actions. Metaphorical weather is tempting to mistake as a response. When someone cuts us off in traffic or doesn’t engage with us the...
Blog - Mac Pierce
XL Flex Arms, posable mounting for cameras and lighting. Making a few custom mounts for cameras and camera accessories.
over a year ago
cabel.com
My GDC ’24 Talk: The Playdate Story In January, I was invited to GDC, the Game Developers Conference, to give a talk about Playdate....
7 months ago
7
7 months ago
In January, I was invited to GDC, the Game Developers Conference, to give a talk about Playdate. That talk — “The Playdate Story: What Was it Like to Make Handheld Video Game System Hardware?” — has been made available free for all to view. Now, it’s been 10 years since my last...
Seth's Blog
Dreams and roadblocks The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to...
a year ago
51
a year ago
The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to figure out why they don’t have it yet. If you can help people get to where they seek to go, when they’re ready to get there, the stuff called marketing gets significantly easier.
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...
3 months ago
33
3 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
Falling behind We’re not in races very often. Usually, what we’re doing is more like a walkathon, or perhaps, a...
a year ago
38
a year ago
We’re not in races very often. Usually, what we’re doing is more like a walkathon, or perhaps, a hike. And yet, we’ve been pushed to believe that the only performance that matters is a scarcity-based victory. They close the parkway near my house on Sundays. As people pedal along,...
Open Culture
How Rasputin Inspired the “Fictitious Persons” Disclaimer Commonly Seen in Movies “This is a work of fiction,” declares the disclaimer we’ve all noticed during the end credits of...
a month ago
25
a month ago
“This is a work of fiction,” declares the disclaimer we’ve all noticed during the end credits of movies. “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” In most cases, this may seem so trivial that it hardly merits a mention, but the...
Seth's Blog
Patience It’s worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
She’s here! Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone...
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone notices she’s in the building, everyone can up their game. And some musicians wait eagerly for A&R person to be in the crowd. If they really kill it tonight, a record deal might...
Marian's Blog
3D printed model of my neighborhood I 3D printed a model of the street where I live. This post will explain how I prepared the data for...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
I 3D printed a model of the street where I live. This post will explain how I prepared the data for it. Update: I have now automated the entire process and published my code. You can find it here. I worked with aerial Lidar data that is provided by the state I live in to download...
Seth's Blog
Peak infrastructure Community resources are easy to take for granted. Unevenly distributed, they’re the sort of thing we...
10 months ago
61
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...
Open Culture
Édouard Manet Illustrates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edition Translated by Stephane... Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame during his lifetime after the publication of The...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame during his lifetime after the publication of The Raven (1845), but he never felt that he received the recognition he deserved. In some respects, he was right. He was, after all, paid only nine dollars for the poem, and he struggled...
Seth's Blog
Is it a skill? If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care...
a year ago
18
a year ago
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care of it. Coding is a skill. But it’s not clear that the person who knows how to code should be doing your design. Teaching is a skill. But simply because someone is good at […]
escape the algorithm
Foreskin’s Comment What a Billie Eilish Youtube comment diarist can teach us about forging meaningful online rituals
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Bitterness is consistent It will never let you down. Bitterness is never-ending, impenetrable and refuses to negotiate. If...
a year ago
35
a year ago
It will never let you down. Bitterness is never-ending, impenetrable and refuses to negotiate. If you give it a chance, it will persist. It lacks nuance or surprise. It’s simply a wall you can lean against, whenever you choose. Consistency is all it has to offer, actually.
Anarchy Unfolds
May '24 Myths & Recs Biden, Kurzgesagt, 90s Christian bands, and more
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
A treaty Successful treaties calm things down and let us get back to what’s really important. Sometimes, the...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Successful treaties calm things down and let us get back to what’s really important. Sometimes, the fight becomes the entire point. Not surprisingly, when we’re busy fighting a war in our head about a previous injustice or slight, we can effectively consummate a treaty without...
Seth's Blog
Design has a language And it changes over time. You and I know what to do when we see a revolving door, or to speak...
a year ago
58
a year ago
And it changes over time. You and I know what to do when we see a revolving door, or to speak quietly in a library. We have expectations of how the world works and what designers are saying with their work. Here’s a photo of a device with two controls. We’ve been taught our whole...
Seth's Blog
The 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
19
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...
Seth's Blog
The right marketing question The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?” The right...
a year ago
23
a year ago
The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?” The right question is a little more nuanced and far more important, “We’re seeking to make a change in part of the world. How do we find the right people and tell them the right (true) story that...
Seth's Blog
Early next week… It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so you can plan ahead… there are five more for the end of the week, but here we go: Linda Rottenberg is joining me on LinkedIn on Monday. She’s built an extraordinary organization...
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
53
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...
Open Culture
The Enchanting Opera Performances of Klaus Nomi After making one of the grandest entrances in music history on the stages of East Village clubs, the...
4 months ago
23
4 months ago
After making one of the grandest entrances in music history on the stages of East Village clubs, the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, and Saturday Night Live, theatrical German new wave space alien Klaus Nomi died alone in 1983, a victim of the “first beachhead of the AIDS...
Seth's Blog
Cheaper than that The race to the bottom has been won. Anything cheaper than what’s on offer is a waste of the...
a year ago
52
a year ago
The race to the bottom has been won. Anything cheaper than what’s on offer is a waste of the customer’s money, because it won’t get the job done. Once we’ve cut every corner, all that’s left is the brutality of less. One slogan is: You’ll pay less than you should have, and waste...
Seth's Blog
Create value If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for...
a year ago
20
a year ago
If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for the feeling of security. But real security lies in creating value. Creating value isn’t easy, but it’s resilient and generous and often profitable. “How do I create more value?” is...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Magic Wheelchair - a Frozen sled for Angelle Working on a Frozen themed costume for Angelle.
over a year ago
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets 2024 - Preliminary Rounds Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
4 weeks ago
Open Culture
The Long Game of Creativity: If You Haven’t Created a Masterpiece at 30, You’re Not a Failure Orson Welles directed the greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane, at age 25, with only a limited...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
Orson Welles directed the greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane, at age 25, with only a limited knowledge of the medium. When Paul McCartney was 25, he, along with his fellow Beatles, released the era-defining album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. By age 29, Pablo Picasso...
Seth's Blog
A long time is not the same as never It might feel like an endless slog now, but when the innovation appears, people won’t remember how...
a year ago
13
a year ago
It might feel like an endless slog now, but when the innovation appears, people won’t remember how long it took to get here. Often, we assume that today’s snapshot is actually the entire movie, but it rarely is.
Open Culture
Free: Download Over 33,000 Sounds from the BBC Sound Effects Archive There may be a few young people in Britain today who recognize the name Ludwig Koch, but in the...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
There may be a few young people in Britain today who recognize the name Ludwig Koch, but in the nineteen-forties, he constituted something of a cultural phenomenon unto himself. He “started recording sounds and voices in the 1880s when he was still a child” in his native Germany,...
Prolost
M1 Max MacBook Pro Long-term Report The 2021 MacBook Pro alongside the cable-management fail of my iMac Pro Back in October when I got a...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
The 2021 MacBook Pro alongside the cable-management fail of my iMac Pro Back in October when I got a chance to use a pre-release 14″ MacBook Pro with M1 Max processor, I openly questioned whether this laptop could replace my venerable iMac Pro. Four months later, I’m back with an...
Seth's Blog
The lens or the problem? We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around...
a year ago
54
a year ago
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around money, the activist might see an opportunity for social justice. The technologist figures that a computer and more data might help, and the bureaucrat is looking for a system to put...
Seth's Blog
Twenty questions Your next project might feel like a calling, but it’s a choice. A choice that will have an impact on...
3 months ago
20
3 months ago
Your next project might feel like a calling, but it’s a choice. A choice that will have an impact on each day you spend on it. There are no right answers here, but before you fall in love with a business or an organization, it may pay to think about these and other options that...
Seth's Blog
“Home is wherever my cello is” Ben Zander is bringing the Boston Philharmonic and Beethoven to New York in a few weeks. I’m excited...
a year ago
56
a year ago
Ben Zander is bringing the Boston Philharmonic and Beethoven to New York in a few weeks. I’m excited to seem them in person, but it’s also streaming live. I hope you’re able to come. While his impact on the musical canon is legendary, Ben’s ruckus extends far into how we lead,...
Handprinted - Blog
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
62
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
The paradox of points Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your scorekeeping wisely. Too much focus on the score can bend us or break us, pushing us to engage with too much focus and without regard for balance. And our attachment to obvious points...
Seth's Blog
The Coney Island problem Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so...
6 months ago
30
6 months ago
Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so much. Coney Island is dozens of small honky tonk vendors and attractions, an ecosystem, not a corporation. Independent local stores got hammered by the more organized stores in the...
Open Culture
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
25
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,...
Seth's Blog
Find the others New years bring resolutions, but those resolutions rarely stick. Creating change is difficult, and...
a week ago
22
a week ago
New years bring resolutions, but those resolutions rarely stick. Creating change is difficult, and it’s hard to do it alone. New years remind us that we might need a better strategy. A philosophy of becoming, a clear vision on where we’re going (and why). Here’s an invitation to...
Seth's Blog
Hungry (vs. not full) If consumption is the point (the engine of the economy, the focus of our marketing, the driver of...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
If consumption is the point (the engine of the economy, the focus of our marketing, the driver of our status) then it’s easy to get confused about the difference between something that’s nearly empty (and must be refilled to ensure we keep going) and something that’s not quite...
Seth's Blog
The hard part first If you’re trying to reduce risk, do the hard part first. That way, if it fails, you’ll have...
a year ago
63
a year ago
If you’re trying to reduce risk, do the hard part first. That way, if it fails, you’ll have minimized your time and effort. On the other hand, if you’re looking for buy-in and commitment so you can through the hard part, do it last. People are terrible at ignoring sunk costs, and...
Open Culture
Behold Gustave Doré’s Dramatic Illustrations of the Bible (1866) One occasionally hears it said that, thanks to the internet, all the books truly worth reading are...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
One occasionally hears it said that, thanks to the internet, all the books truly worth reading are free: Shakespeare, Don Quixote, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the Divine Comedy, the Bible. Can it be a coincidence that all of these works inspired illustrations by Gustave Doré?...
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...
11 months ago
5
11 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
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
46
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...
Open Culture
Watch Patti Smith Read from Virginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Surviving Recording of Woolf’s Voice In the video above, poet, artist, National Book Award winner, and “godmother of punk” Patti Smith...
6 months ago
44
6 months ago
In the video above, poet, artist, National Book Award winner, and “godmother of punk” Patti Smith reads a selection from Virginia Woolf’s 1931 experimental novel The Waves, accompanied on piano and guitar by her daughter Jesse and son Jackson. The “reading” marked the opening of...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Robin Mackenzie I am Robin Mackenzie, a Wood Engraver and Lino Cutter based in Dorset.  I create limited edition...
a year ago
50
a year ago
I am Robin Mackenzie, a Wood Engraver and Lino Cutter based in Dorset.  I create limited edition relief prints using a combination of hand printing and an Albion printing press.  My work explores the British coast and countryside.  Beginning with walks and research trips I seek...
Open Culture
RIP David Sanborn: See Him Play Alongside Miles Davis, Randy Newman, Sun Ra, Leonard Cohen and... It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the...
7 months ago
73
7 months ago
It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the saxophonist David Sanborn appears onscreen, instrument in hand, introducing the eclectic blues icon Taj Mahal, who in turn declares his intent to play a number with “rural humor” and...
Seth's Blog
Your audiobook Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project is about to launch, when a meeting has been successful, when the sun is shining… take your phone and go for a walk. Hit record on an audio app and make a twenty-minute audiobook....
Open Culture
Artist Draws 9 Portraits on LSD During 1950s Research Experiment During the 1950s, a researcher gave an artist two 50-microgram doses of LSD (each dose separated by...
8 months ago
36
8 months ago
During the 1950s, a researcher gave an artist two 50-microgram doses of LSD (each dose separated by about an hour), and then the artist was encouraged to draw pictures of the doctor who administered the drugs. Nine portraits were drawn over the space of eight hours. We still...
Seth's Blog
The social media lottery Someone is going to end up with 10,000,000 followers. Someone is going to post the next viral...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Someone is going to end up with 10,000,000 followers. Someone is going to post the next viral TikTok. Someone is going to build a meme that spreads around the world. But it probably won’t be me and it probably won’t be you. Buying lottery tickets might be fun, but they’re a lousy...
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...
7 months ago
41
7 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...
Open Culture
How Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon Became the First Sci-Fi Film & Changed Cinema Forever (1902) If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès...
a month ago
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a month ago
If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès located inside it. Dedicated to la Magie du cinéma, it contains artifacts from throughout the history of film-as-spectacle, which includes such pictures as 2001: A Space Odyssey...
Seth's Blog
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
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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
What are you thinking about? A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making assertions, testing theories, understanding how others are thinking about it as well. But this exercise shouldn’t be reserved for academics. What are you working on? When will you change...
Seth's Blog
The nuanced challenge of “The Regular Kind” In a breakthrough study by Alex Berke at MIT, she and her team showed that labeling a menu item as...
a year ago
13
a year ago
In a breakthrough study by Alex Berke at MIT, she and her team showed that labeling a menu item as vegan significantly decreased how many people would order it. In similar conditions, it turns out that more people choose exactly the same item if it doesn’t carry that label. One...
Seth's Blog
Choosing your pacemaker Roger Bannister ran a four-minute mile by having a relay race of pace runners next to him. If he...
a year ago
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a year ago
Roger Bannister ran a four-minute mile by having a relay race of pace runners next to him. If he could keep up with his pacer, he’d finish the run in record time. If you work in an office where people are regularly shipping breakthrough work, it’s likely your work will ship as...
Infinite Scroll
A User's Guide to Building a Subculture How communities form online
2 weeks ago
Open Culture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic works. Even better, the museum has placed the vast majority of these images into the public domain, meaning they can be downloaded directly from the museum’s website for...
The Last...
Don't Hate Her Because She's Successful the first thing you noticed is her great outfit and the first thing I noticed is she's covering her...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
the first thing you noticed is her great outfit and the first thing I noticed is she's covering her wedding ring  this is why you are anxious and I am Alone Today in the United States and the developed world, women are better off than ever before. But the...
escape the algorithm
Befriending neighbors and beneighboring friends The Casement Window Theory of community building
5 months ago
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
15
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...
Seth's Blog
New decisions based on new information More than ever, we’re pushed to have certainty. Strong opinions, tightly held and loudly proclaimed....
a year ago
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a year ago
More than ever, we’re pushed to have certainty. Strong opinions, tightly held and loudly proclaimed. And then, when reality intervenes, it can be stressful. The software stack, business model, career, candidate, policy, or even the social network habits that we had as part of our...
On the Arts
On the Arts: A Three Month Review And a Thank You to Subscribers
a year ago
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
10
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...
Marian's Blog
Faster Than Life – Global Game Jam 2019 Project Like in the previous year, I took part in the Global Game Jam. I joined a team of six programmers,...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
Like in the previous year, I took part in the Global Game Jam. I joined a team of six programmers, unfortunately there was a shortage of artists this year. During the 48 hour jam, we made a space game that is inspired by Faster Than Light. You travel through...
Neocha – Culture &...
Peace, Love, & Ass
a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker - Angela Hall My name is Angela Hall, I’m an artist and silkscreen printer based in North Yorkshire, and I have...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
My name is Angela Hall, I’m an artist and silkscreen printer based in North Yorkshire, and I have been making and selling my limited-edition prints for the last 5 years from my studio, specialised print events and regional galleries.   My creative journey started with a degree in...
Open Culture
Do All Roads Lead to Philosophy on Wikipedia?: They Do About 97.3% of the Time Pull up the Wikipedia page for Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love,” the 1984 single now known for...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Pull up the Wikipedia page for Mariya Takeuchi’s “Plastic Love,” the 1984 single now known for re-popularizing the genre of Japanese “city pop.” Then click the first of its links (not related to the language of the article itself), which leads to Takeuchi’s own page. If you keep...
Seth's Blog
Eight marketing maxims
a year ago
Seth's Blog
The prevailing conditions It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’re not going to change the direction of the wind. That...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’re not going to change the direction of the wind. That doesn’t mean you can’t get good at sailing, though. And yes, if we do try, we can change the conditions in our household, community or workplace. It might feel like wind, but it’s...
Seth's Blog
Leverage is brittle Debt is a financial miracle. If you buy a property for 20% down, with the bank financing the rest,...
a year ago
35
a year ago
Debt is a financial miracle. If you buy a property for 20% down, with the bank financing the rest, and it goes up in value by just 10%, your profit is 50%. (I’ll wait while you do the math.) If you have a factory and can buy a machine that increases productivity, the money you...
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...
9 months ago
33
9 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...
escape the algorithm
Should this be a map or 500 maps? 500 priests, cartographic n00bism, and the limits of scale
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
“Ready” vs. “Done” Ready means that time is up, spec is met and the user can engage. Done might mean that you believe...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
Ready means that time is up, spec is met and the user can engage. Done might mean that you believe it’s perfect and cannot be improved. We’ll settle for ready. In fact, meeting spec means we’re not settling. It’s just what you promised.
Seth's Blog
When the committee decides They’re almost always conservative. Whether it’s a governmental body, the strategy group at a big...
a year ago
12
a year ago
They’re almost always conservative. Whether it’s a governmental body, the strategy group at a big company or the membership panel at the local country club, we can learn a lot by seeing what they approve and when they stall. Of course, each of us know a lot about our offering,...
Seth's Blog
Broken (and not worth fixing) In one corner of the parking garage near my office, car satellite radio doesn’t work. This is...
a month ago
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a month ago
In one corner of the parking garage near my office, car satellite radio doesn’t work. This is clearly broken, but it’s also not a problem. Certainly not a problem worth anyone’s attention when there are so many other problems to be addressed. Problems, by definition, can be...
Seth's Blog
No thank you Failing to acknowledge a favor or a courtesy is a triple mistake, and it’s becoming more common....
a year ago
12
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
Better pockets Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a universal area for improvement. When in doubt, make the pockets better. The interesting work is in realizing that you might offer a product or service where there are non-universal...
Seth's Blog
Consequences Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi....
a year ago
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a year ago
Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi. One hundred years later, it’s more relevant and more urgent than ever. Wealth without work.Pleasure without conscience.Knowledge without character.Commerce without morality.Science...
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...
2 months ago
12
2 months 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...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Suckered Yet Again Influencer boxing, BlueSky winning, and incredible calendar confessions
a month ago
Open Culture
Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization... I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term...
a month ago
25
a month ago
I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term of dread for the many government and corporate agencies that have an inordinate amount of power over our permanent records, and that seem as inscrutable and chillingly absurd as...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “stoically facing the end times” edition 1. When is AI coding not AI coding? You might have heard something about how Google now creates a...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
1. When is AI coding not AI coding? You might have heard something about how Google now creates a quarter of its code using AI. But as with most things concerning everyone’s favourite hot tech, the devil is in the details. And the details, according to this poster on Hacker News,...
Open Culture
The Longest Drivable Distance in the World: Discover the Ultimate Road Trip No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road...
3 months ago
44
3 months ago
No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road trip, considering a variety of the infinitely many possible routes. The most obvious would be driving between Los Angeles and New York, a distance of 2,800 miles that would take a bit...
Handprinted - Blog
Using Pearl Ex Metallic Pigments to Enhance Linocuts Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are metallic pigments that can be mixed into printing inks, acrylics,...
10 months ago
62
10 months ago
Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are metallic pigments that can be mixed into printing inks, acrylics, oils, encaustics and loads more. As printmakers we were keen to see how they could be used in various printmaking applications, starting with linocut.    We began by mixing Apple...
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
escape the algorithm
ETA's Best links of 2024 Relinking some Links links
2 weeks ago
Seth's Blog
The absence of proof Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and build community. Our personal taste and our preferences belong to us as well, helping us believe in ourselves. For millennia, belief thrived in most parts of our lives. We didn’t...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Early Computer Art in the 50’s & 60’s A deep dive on the early days of creative computing coming to life. Punch cards, plotters, light...
a year ago
Anarchy Unfolds
Genshin Impact & the appeal of open-world games I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact lately.
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Confronting consciousness Everyone knows what it is to be conscious, and we imagine that other people are also aware. That we...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Everyone knows what it is to be conscious, and we imagine that other people are also aware. That we have a voice in our heads, apparent agency and free will, a little person inside who is commenting, making decisions and in charge. We’re not sure if dogs have this, and we’re...
Seth's Blog
Some simple rules for source control Collaborating on documents and projects has never been easier, which is why we screw it up so often....
2 months ago
38
2 months ago
Collaborating on documents and projects has never been easier, which is why we screw it up so often. Sharing and interacting with intent will save you heartache and wasted time. Some things to consider: Naming: Begin by naming your file with a digit and concept and a date....
Open Culture
Every Frame a Painting Returns to YouTube & Explores Why the Sustained Two-Shot Vanished from Movies Video essayists don’t normally retire; in most cases, they just drift into inactivity. Hence the...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
Video essayists don’t normally retire; in most cases, they just drift into inactivity. Hence the surprise and even dismay of the internet’s cinephiles when Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos declared the end of their respected channel Every Frame a Painting in 2016. We here at Open...
Seth's Blog
Leverage It’s almost impossible to remove a screw with your bare hands, but easy with a screwdriver. The...
a year ago
21
a year ago
It’s almost impossible to remove a screw with your bare hands, but easy with a screwdriver. The handle might only add a little torque, but it’s more than enough. If someone is succeeding at something you find difficult, it might be because they realized they needed a screwdriver....
Open Culture
Oh My God! Winston Churchill Received the First Ever Letter Containing “O.M.G.” (1917) Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the middle of every major event. Even before, as Prime Minister, he steeled the resolve of his people and faced down the Third Reich juggernaut; even before he loudly warned of the...
Seth's Blog
Ice sculpture There are very few activities that are fully reversible. Ice sculpture might be one of them. Once...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
There are very few activities that are fully reversible. Ice sculpture might be one of them. Once the ice melts, all the effort and information is lost, and refreezing lets you begin again with a new, fresh block of ice. Of course, it’s not completely gone. The thing you made...
Seth's Blog
Getting the word out “How do you get the word out?” I’ve heard this from presidential candidates, from small business...
9 months ago
19
9 months ago
“How do you get the word out?” I’ve heard this from presidential candidates, from small business leaders and nonprofits as well. It’s easy to believe that the goal of marketing is to shout, hype, hustle and otherwise promote. It’s tempting to focus on your story as the top of the...
Seth's Blog
The problem with ‘very’ It’s a lazy amplifier. “Very” can modify almost any adjective, but it might not deliver our intended...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
It’s a lazy amplifier. “Very” can modify almost any adjective, but it might not deliver our intended message. Putting it in front of a positive like “charming” or “kind” or “generous” can make it clear that we mean what we said, but more so. But, placed in front of a description...
Seth's Blog
Long-term selfish Everyone is selfish. We do things that increase our chances of survival, help us achieve our goals...
4 months ago
58
4 months ago
Everyone is selfish. We do things that increase our chances of survival, help us achieve our goals and give us a story we can tell ourselves about our role in the community. But short-term selfish is something we try to grow out of. Short-term selfish runs a red light because...
Seth's Blog
“How can I help?” If you have a series of tasks to do, it’s easier to ignore this question and simply get back to...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
If you have a series of tasks to do, it’s easier to ignore this question and simply get back to work. Doing the tasks is more efficient than coordinating the help. But if your work is a project, a bigger mission that involves making a change happen, it’s much more productive to...
Seth's Blog
Reality as reassurance Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an invisible burden, until it’s not. Ignoring the changes in our climate makes our days easier, but not our years. We can avoid the bank balance, not work on the annual budget and ignore...
Open Culture
Behold the Kräuterbuch, a Lavishly Illustrated Guide to Plants and Herbs from 1462 When Konrad von Megenberg published his Buch der Natur in the mid-fourteenth century, he won the...
5 months ago
24
5 months ago
When Konrad von Megenberg published his Buch der Natur in the mid-fourteenth century, he won the distinction of having assembled the very first natural history in German. More than half a millennium later, the book still fascinates — not least for its depictions of cats,...
Seth's Blog
The conspiracy of mediocrity Solo mediocrity is rampant, of course. We know that toasting the bread before making the sandwich...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
Solo mediocrity is rampant, of course. We know that toasting the bread before making the sandwich makes it more delicious, but in service of convenience and speed, we skip a step. It becomes a conspiracy when more than one of us is involved. The freelancer who offers cheap and...
Seth's Blog
The coming ubiquity The fuss about AI might be mis-focused. It’s easy to point to a computer-created essay, song or...
a year ago
40
a year ago
The fuss about AI might be mis-focused. It’s easy to point to a computer-created essay, song or illustration and find the defects or errors. Given hard work by 1,000 trained people, it’s likely that a human could make something more useful or inspired than a computer could. But...
Open Culture
Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost Board Game Is Finally for Sale Kurt Vonnegut’s life was not without its ironies. Fighting in World War II, that descendant of a...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Kurt Vonnegut’s life was not without its ironies. Fighting in World War II, that descendant of a long line of German immigrants in the United States found himself imprisoned in Dresden just when it was devastated by Allied firebombing. To understand the relevance of this...
Open Culture
James Earl Jones (RIP) Reads Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” Note: With the sad passing of James Earl Jones, at age 93, we’re bringing back a post from our...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
Note: With the sad passing of James Earl Jones, at age 93, we’re bringing back a post from our archive–one featuring Jones reading two great American poets, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. These readings first appeared on our site in 2014. For all its many flaws the original...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Chris Long My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music...
over a year ago
60
over a year ago
My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music at the University of Liverpool, a Masters in musical composition at Newcastle University and I completed my PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. I have recently returned to...
The Great Discontent...
Demar Matthews Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
53
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 How do you explain your work?   I am specifically interested in...
Seth's Blog
Analyzing the last move When the deal falls apart, or the team loses the game, or a partnership hits the rocks, it’s easy to...
9 months ago
23
9 months ago
When the deal falls apart, or the team loses the game, or a partnership hits the rocks, it’s easy to focus our energy on what just happened. “What if they had called a different play?” This overlooks the real issue. It’s the first move, or the fifth, that led to this problem, not...
The Last...
Who Bullies The Bullies? but they're welcome to buy an iphone Pacific Standard. Get it? It's like The Atlantic,...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
but they're welcome to buy an iphone Pacific Standard. Get it? It's like The Atlantic, but it's Pacific. Totally different. So unlike The Atlantic, it will "attack the conventional wisdom from a west coast perspective." That's a quote. "But didn't the editors come from...
Seth's Blog
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
54
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
The commonweal Thanks to everyone who has read, talked about and taken action around my new book, The Song of...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Thanks to everyone who has read, talked about and taken action around my new book, The Song of Signficance. If you have a chance to post a review, that would be great. And you can find the podcasts here. The first step in making things better is talking about it.
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Using ChatGPT to implement Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings Sol LeWitt‘s Wall Drawings aren’t actually drawings but, rather, instructions for drawings. I...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Sol LeWitt‘s Wall Drawings aren’t actually drawings but, rather, instructions for drawings. I asked ChatGPT to implement them in p5js
Seth's Blog
Foibles Our habits, preferences and idiosyncrasies make perfect sense. We each know that we have great...
a year ago
68
a year ago
Our habits, preferences and idiosyncrasies make perfect sense. We each know that we have great reasons to embrace our ways and stick with them. Other people’s habits, though, show that they are simply picky, weird or too sensitive. The difference between a preference and a foible...
Seth's Blog
The swag is here To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and...
a year ago
25
a year ago
To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and independent craftspeople. You can find them all at seths.store. I went to Brooklyn and worked with Dan at the Arm to create a set of five handmade letterpress posters. They’re 12...
The Great Discontent...
Sofía Gallisá Muriente Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed to addressing systematic challenges in their communities through creativity and emerging ideologies. Buy Now ¿Puedes compartir un poco sobre dónde y cómo creciste y qué influencia...
Seth's Blog
Big science To win a Nobel prize a hundred years ago, you might only need a legal pad and a few pencils. Today,...
a year ago
16
a year ago
To win a Nobel prize a hundred years ago, you might only need a legal pad and a few pencils. Today, it takes millions of dollars, scores of people and many years of effort. That’s because the most straightforward problems have been solved. One side effect of this inevitable shift...
Seth's Blog
The problem with the movie version There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit. Happily ever...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
There are lights, camera and action, but mostly there’s the unreality of making it fit. Happily ever after, a climax at just the right moment, perfect heroes, tension, resolution and a swelling soundtrack. Every element is amplified and things happen right on schedule. Consume...
Handprinted - Blog
Using Pearl Ex Metallic Pigments to Enhance Screen Prints Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are metallic pigments that can be mixed into printing inks, acrylics,...
7 months ago
70
7 months ago
Pearl Ex Powdered Pigments are metallic pigments that can be mixed into printing inks, acrylics, oils, encaustics and loads more. As printmakers we were keen to see how they could be used in various printmaking applications. We've tested them for relief printing and had some...
Seth's Blog
The Mississippi River paradox There’s no water in that river that was there ten years ago. The boundaries have shifted in that...
5 months ago
30
5 months ago
There’s no water in that river that was there ten years ago. The boundaries have shifted in that time as well, there’s no riverbank that’s exactly where it was. And the silt and the fish have all moved too. So, what’s “the Mississippi River”? It’s a label, a placeholder, and a...
Seth's Blog
Everything costs But not all costs are the same. There are three kinds of costs that people get confused about, but...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
But not all costs are the same. There are three kinds of costs that people get confused about, but understanding them, really understanding them–in your bones–unlocks opportunity. Opportunity cost: If you eat the cupcakes, you can’t also eat the brownies. Every time we choose to...
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
33
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
How Car Chase Scenes Have Evolved Over 100 Years: The Technology Behind Bullitt, The French... For many a classic action-movie enthusiast, no car chase will ever top the one in Bullitt. The...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
For many a classic action-movie enthusiast, no car chase will ever top the one in Bullitt. The narrator of the Insider video above describes it as “the scene that set the standard for all modern car chases,” one made “iconic partly because of the characters, but also because of...
Seth's Blog
Software done well There are a few tools I use regularly that make me smile, because the craftspeople who made them...
6 months ago
33
6 months ago
There are a few tools I use regularly that make me smile, because the craftspeople who made them decided to build something with extra magic and care. By using and paying for well crafted software, we often get far more than we pay for… Ecamm is the tool I use for all my online...
Seth's Blog
Multiple choice “None of the above” is often the best option. We’re regularly confronted with multiple-choice...
4 months ago
59
4 months ago
“None of the above” is often the best option. We’re regularly confronted with multiple-choice questions. The foundation is already established, the options are already limited, do you want this or that? But the real questions lie in the assumptions that happened before you were...
Open Culture
Isaac Asimov Predicts the Future of Online Education in 1988–and It’s Now Coming True “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Though that line probably originated...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Though that line probably originated with  a Canadian novelist called Grant Allen, it’s long been popularly attributed to his more colorful nineteenth-century contemporary Mark Twain. It isn’t hard to understand why it...
Seth's Blog
How, why and hyperbole There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The...
6 months ago
40
6 months ago
There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The first two: Headlines with “why” for articles that don’t actually explain why. Headlines with “how” that don’t really teach you how. Explaining why is difficult, which is where the...
Seth's Blog
My Big Fat Greek Wedding Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return...
a year ago
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a year ago
Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return on investment. And among all Hollywood movies in the top 1,500 at the box office, Paranormal Activity is far and away the highest return, outperforming almost any investment the...
Open Culture
When the Grateful Dead Played at the Egyptian Pyramids, in the Shadow of the Sphinx (1978) In September of 1978, the Grateful Dead traveled to Egypt and played three shows at the Great...
5 months ago
54
5 months ago
In September of 1978, the Grateful Dead traveled to Egypt and played three shows at the Great Pyramid of Giza, with the Great Sphinx looking over their shoulders. It wasn’t the first time a rock band played in an ancient setting. Pink Floyd performed songs in the middle of the...
Marian's Blog
Lego Part Designer I made a web app that lets you design your own Lego Technic parts and save them as printable STL...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I made a web app that lets you design your own Lego Technic parts and save them as printable STL files. You can check it out here. I got the idea for this project when I was building with Lego parts and wondered how many of the common parts can be described with a simple rule...
Seth's Blog
Knowing your customers In the very small business, the freelancer knows each customer. By name, by volume, by preferences....
4 months ago
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4 months ago
In the very small business, the freelancer knows each customer. By name, by volume, by preferences. And in the huge business, expensive software, data analysts and relentless margin seeking pushes organizations to increase their yield. But most businesses (and non-profits and...
Seth's Blog
Revisiting stamps for email I started agitating for this in 1997 and wrote about it in 2006. The problem with the magical medium...
a year ago
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a year ago
I started agitating for this in 1997 and wrote about it in 2006. The problem with the magical medium of email is that it’s an open API. Anyone with a computer can plug into it, without anyone’s consent. This creates an asymmetric attention problem. The selfish,...
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...
2 months ago
17
2 months 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
Allocating scarcity If we’re lucky, we invent something that’s going to be in high demand. Reservations at a hot...
a year ago
55
a year ago
If we’re lucky, we invent something that’s going to be in high demand. Reservations at a hot restaurant. Limited edition trading cards. Concert tickets… How to decide who gets them? One attractive option is “first-come-first-served.” It feels fair, after all. The theory is that...
Seth's Blog
The Cliffs Notes paradox For a decade, Cliffs Notes were the bestselling section of the bookstore. They were a simple way for...
a year ago
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a year ago
For a decade, Cliffs Notes were the bestselling section of the bookstore. They were a simple way for any high school student to get insight, examples and answers about the books they were assigned and read (or didn’t read). When Cliffs published a list of their thirty bestselling...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Makers 2022 We've featured some fantastic makers on our Meet the Maker blog this year! Thank you to all that...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
We've featured some fantastic makers on our Meet the Maker blog this year! Thank you to all that have been involved and those that are yet to come in 2023! We love reading about your printmaking practices and hearing your beautiful words of advice. Grab yourself a drink, pop...
Seth's Blog
Practical philosophy Engineering is the powerful practice of being able to deliver artifacts that do what they’re...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Engineering is the powerful practice of being able to deliver artifacts that do what they’re supposed to. Bridges that don’t fall down, software that runs, IV leads that don’t get infected. But if we want to create something, it helps to know what it’s for. That simple question,...
Anarchy Unfolds
The big picture, AI, chemophobia, rocket mass heaters Green Gatherings #1
3 months ago
Open Culture
Watch an Enthusiast Drive the First Car Ever Made, the 1885 Mercedes Benz In 1885, Karl Benz built what’s now considered the first modern automobile. According to the...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
In 1885, Karl Benz built what’s now considered the first modern automobile. According to the Mercedes Benz website, the car featured a “compact high-speed single-cylinder four-stroke engine installed horizontally at the rear, a tubular steel frame … and three wire-spoked wheels....
Open Culture
Inside the Beautiful Home Frank Lloyd Wright Designed for His Son (1952) Being Frank Lloyd Wright’s son surely came with its downsides. But one of the upsides — assuming you...
8 months ago
33
8 months ago
Being Frank Lloyd Wright’s son surely came with its downsides. But one of the upsides — assuming you could stay in the mercurial master’s good graces — was the possibility of his designing a house for you. Such was the fortune of his fourth child David Samuel Wright, a Phoenix...
Open Culture
Download 131,000 Historic Maps from the Huge David Rumsey Map Collection The world has changed dramatically over the past 500 years, albeit not quite as dramatically as how...
8 months ago
31
8 months ago
The world has changed dramatically over the past 500 years, albeit not quite as dramatically as how we see the world. That’s just what’s on display at the David Rumsey Map Collection, whose more than 131,000 historical maps and related images are available to browse (or download)...
Open Culture
Destino: The Salvador Dalí — Disney Collaboration 57 Years in the Making In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a project that began 57 years earlier. The story of Destino goes way back to 1946 when two very different cultural icons, Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, decided to work together on a...
Prolost
Red Giant & Maxon, Sitting in a Tree Red Giant, where I’ve been Chief Creative Officer for a couple of years now, but making filmmaking...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Red Giant, where I’ve been Chief Creative Officer for a couple of years now, but making filmmaking tools for you for 17 years, is merging with Maxon, makers of Cinema 4D. From the Red Giant blog: Hi folks — by now you’ve probably heard the news that Maxon and Red Giant are...
Open Culture
Stanley Kubrick’s Annotated Copy of Stephen King’s The Shining The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s...
a month ago
24
a month ago
The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. The book is filled with highlighted passages and largely illegible notes in the margin—tantalizing clues to Kubrick’s intentions for the movie. The site...
Seth's Blog
Why tell the others? Every internet success works because the network effect kicked in. There’s no other way for an idea...
9 months ago
30
9 months ago
Every internet success works because the network effect kicked in. There’s no other way for an idea to reliably and economically reach a big enough audience to be sustained. That’s why Super Bowl ads make so little sense in 2024. Ideas that spread win. I wrote a bestseller about...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of brittle Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the...
3 months ago
34
3 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...
Open Culture
Why Medieval Bologna Was Full of Tall Towers, and What Happened to Them Image by Toni Pecoraro, via Wikimedia Commons Go to practically any major city today, and you’ll...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
Image by Toni Pecoraro, via Wikimedia Commons Go to practically any major city today, and you’ll notice that the buildings in certain areas are much taller than in others. That may sound trivially true, but what’s less obvious is that the height of those buildings tends to...
Seth's Blog
Comfort and convenience For the last thirty years, the easiest shortcut has been convenience. If a marketer or a politician...
8 months ago
50
8 months ago
For the last thirty years, the easiest shortcut has been convenience. If a marketer or a politician or an institution wants to gain acceptance, make it convenient. Tim Wu has pointed out that we’ll trade almost anything to save a few moments of hassle or thought. But that doesn’t...
Seth's Blog
Good businesses solve real problems But not all real problems lead to good businesses. There are problems all around us. People need...
a year ago
10
a year ago
But not all real problems lead to good businesses. There are problems all around us. People need housing, health care and food. They want delight, belonging and status. When a company shows up in the marketplace with a product or service that people eagerly choose to buy, it’s...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Playing dice: Randomness, determinism and the quantum world What’s the difference between unexpected, random and chaotic? Does the universe contain any truly...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
What’s the difference between unexpected, random and chaotic? Does the universe contain any truly random events, or is it operating like clockwork, ticking from one event to the next?
Seth's Blog
But it’s included… Perhaps your wedding package includes a cake. It’s paid for, better eat it. Even if you’re allergic...
a year ago
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a year ago
Perhaps your wedding package includes a cake. It’s paid for, better eat it. Even if you’re allergic to wheat. Perhaps the amusement park includes as many rides as you like, even if you’re feeling sick or have had quite enough for today. The thing about included is that it’s free....
Stat Significant
Is Music Stardom in Decline? A Statistical Analysis Is music stardom dying?
2 months ago
Open Culture
Bukowski Reads Bukowski: Watch a 1975 Documentary Featuring Charles Bukowski at the Height of His... In 1973, Richard Davies directed Bukowski, a documentary that TV Guide described as a “cinema-verite...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
In 1973, Richard Davies directed Bukowski, a documentary that TV Guide described as a “cinema-verite portrait of Los Angeles poet Charles Bukowski.” The film finds Bukowski, then 53 years old, “enjoying his first major success,” and “the camera captures his reminiscences … as he...
Seth's Blog
Freedom of attitude There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating...
a year ago
11
a year ago
There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating and is reliably busy. The other has an astonishingly low 1.5 out of 5 rating. The physical plant is virtually identical, and the marketing and promo are the same. The only difference...
Seth's Blog
Direct questions worth answering For everyone on the team… Do you care enough to do great work? Can we agree on what great work looks...
11 months ago
21
11 months ago
For everyone on the team… Do you care enough to do great work? Can we agree on what great work looks like? When the world changes, do we have a process to redefine great work? Do you have the tools you need to reach your goals? How could we create a system where great work […]
escape the algorithm
The perfect pecan pie will never exi— Cutting a slice of longing
a month ago
Seth's Blog
Two kinds of salad A useful metaphor for freelancers and small businesses. Every good restaurant should have two...
a year ago
58
a year ago
A useful metaphor for freelancers and small businesses. Every good restaurant should have two different salads on the menu. The boring salad is the regular kind. It’s there for people who know that they want a reliable, repeatable, unremarkable salad. It’s the safe part of a safe...
Seth's Blog
Boundaries and limits They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it...
6 months ago
61
6 months ago
They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it without risk. The electrified third rail, on the other hand, is a limit. If you touch it, you’re done. Boundaries can give us room to innovate and thrive. Budgets, schedules and...
Open Culture
What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Hit a Major City Today: A Visualization of the Destruction One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, placed prominently in a shot of George C. Scott in the war room, is a binder with a spine labeled “WORLD TARGETS IN MEGADEATHS.” A megadeath, writes Eric...
Seth's Blog
Three sheet metaphors Here’s a large blue bedsheet, queen sized. If we’re going to pull it taut, it will take the...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Here’s a large blue bedsheet, queen sized. If we’re going to pull it taut, it will take the coordinated effort of eight people, each pulling just the right amount, from each corner and edge. If we’re going to billow it up and down, like a parachute, we’re going to need those...
Seth's Blog
Plasticity It’s pretty easy for some kids to switch gears. They can go from sad to ebullient in seconds, and...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
It’s pretty easy for some kids to switch gears. They can go from sad to ebullient in seconds, and switch contexts without much fuss. Others have more trouble. As we get older, our natural ability to thrive in a new situation can decrease. But, like a muscle or a skill, it...
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,...
7 months ago
33
7 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...
Open Culture
Mark Twain & Helen Keller’s Special Friendship: He Treated Me Not as a Freak, But as a Person... Sometimes it can seem as though the more we think we know a historical figure, the less we actually...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
Sometimes it can seem as though the more we think we know a historical figure, the less we actually do. Helen Keller? We’ve all seen (or think we’ve seen) some version of The Miracle Worker, right?—even if we haven’t actually read Keller’s autobiography. And Mark Twain? He can...
Anarchy Unfolds
Pride, noise, and fear Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
4 months ago
Open Culture
The First “Selfie” In History Taken by Robert Cornelius, a Philadelphia Chemist, in 1839 In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that “selfie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The...
5 months ago
31
5 months ago
In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that “selfie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The term, whose first recorded use as an Instagram hashtag occurred on January 27, 2011, was actually invented in 2002, when an Australian chap posted a picture of himself on an...
Open Culture
Jerry Seinfeld Delivers Commencement Address at Duke University: You Will Need Humor to Get Through... This weekend, Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech at Duke University and offered the...
8 months ago
68
8 months ago
This weekend, Jerry Seinfeld gave the commencement speech at Duke University and offered the graduates his three keys to life: 1. bust your ass, 2. pay attention, and 3. fall in love. Then, 10 minutes later, he added essentially a fourth key to life: “Do not lose your sense of...
On the Arts
What does Wabi-Sabi really mean? Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Aerodynamic figureheads That’s sort of an oxymoron. The original figureheads were carved into the bow of a ship. They exist...
6 months ago
45
6 months ago
That’s sort of an oxymoron. The original figureheads were carved into the bow of a ship. They exist to express the spirit of the boat and to demonstrate its power and resilience. Here’s an AI recreation of the most famous one: The sailors were wise enough to understand that the...
Open Culture
Behold the Codex Gigas (aka “Devil’s Bible”), the Largest Medieval Manuscript in the World Bargain with the devil and you may wind up with a golden fiddle, supernatural guitar-playing...
7 months ago
72
7 months ago
Bargain with the devil and you may wind up with a golden fiddle, supernatural guitar-playing ability, or a room full of gleaming alchemized straw. Whoops, we misattributed that last one. It’s actually Rumpelstiltskin’s doing, but the by-morning-or-else deadline that drives the...
Open Culture
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Creative Process: A Look Inside the Books & Techniques That Allowed His Art... The story of Jean-Michel Basquiat has its unfortunate aspects: not just his premature death, but...
a month ago
21
a month ago
The story of Jean-Michel Basquiat has its unfortunate aspects: not just his premature death, but also the aggressive marketing of his work and persona in the years leading up to it. He became a vogue artist of the eighties in part because he could be taken as an unfiltered voice...
The Last...
Funeral do you have a better system? The funeral is attended by 30 people. It's a military...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
do you have a better system? The funeral is attended by 30 people. It's a military funeral because he was in Korea, and in the front chairs are his wife and two grown children, and they are quietly crying. When it ends, people disperse hesitatingly, after all, they...
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
34
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...
Ian Betteridge
20241202 Ten Blue Links, the late late late show edition! Technically this is eight blue links, because I spent the weekend in Bristol and we’re getting...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Technically this is eight blue links, because I spent the weekend in Bristol and we’re getting towards Christmas. Next week: five blue links and a bag of wine gums. 1. RIP ChromeOS (sort of) Odd as it sounds today, when I talk a lot about user privacy and avoiding cloud services,...
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
29
6 months ago
The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai, 神奈川沖浪裏, is usually translated into English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa. That version of the title reflects the iconic scene depicted in the image well enough, though I can’t help but...
Seth's Blog
“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
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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...
Open Culture
Fritz Lang First Depicted Artificial Intelligence on Film in Metropolis (1927), and It Frightened... Artificial intelligence seems to have become, as Michael Lewis labeled a previous chapter in the...
7 months ago
23
7 months ago
Artificial intelligence seems to have become, as Michael Lewis labeled a previous chapter in the recent history of technology, the new new thing. But human anxieties about it are, if not an old old thing, then at least part of a tradition longer than we may expect. For vivid...
Seth's Blog
Two ways to defend the status quo Neither is true, helpful or generous. Both happen all the time. Call it out when you see it.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Unintended consequences …are still consequences. We’re all participants in the systems around us, and complicit in their...
3 months ago
42
3 months ago
…are still consequences. We’re all participants in the systems around us, and complicit in their consequences even if we didn’t intend them. First, we need to see the systems, and then we have the opportunity to work to change them.
Seth's Blog
Childish or childlike? Childlike involves wonder. It’s the ability to see the world with fresh eyes and create magic....
a year ago
18
a year ago
Childlike involves wonder. It’s the ability to see the world with fresh eyes and create magic. Childish, on the other hand, is living as if there are no consequences. Over time, we’ve gotten very good at meauring the long and short-term consequences of our actions. And good at...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Creating art out of a weapon. Using the Stuxnet Virus. How and why I made Portrait of a Digital Weapon, a piece of electronic art made from the Stuxnet...
over a year ago
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
43
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...
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
Open Culture
The Hand: An Anti-Totalitarian Animation, Banned for Two Decades & Now Considered One of the... For obvious reasons, most art produced under oppressive regimes comes off as painstakingly...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
For obvious reasons, most art produced under oppressive regimes comes off as painstakingly inoffensive. For equally obvious reasons, the rare works that criticize the regime tend to do so rather obliquely. This wasn’t so much the case with The Hand, the most famous short by Czech...
Seth's Blog
Retreat! We’ve managed to lionize, celebrate and elevate the mindset of “CHARGE!” Even when better judgment...
5 months ago
29
5 months ago
We’ve managed to lionize, celebrate and elevate the mindset of “CHARGE!” Even when better judgment and experience would indicate that we’re often more likely to succeed with a strategic re-evaluation of the situation. Making a new decision based on new information isn’t weakness....
Marian's Blog
Aquarium Innensicht mit Gopro Wegen meinem Quadrocopter habe ich eine Gopro, die ja auch wasserfest ist. Da war es naheliegend,...
over a year ago
4
over a year ago
Wegen meinem Quadrocopter habe ich eine Gopro, die ja auch wasserfest ist. Da war es naheliegend, die mal im Aquarium auszuprobieren. Bei dem Aquarium stand einiges an Arbeit an, da das Glasbecken undicht war, und alles komplett ausgeräumt werden muss, um das Becken...
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
7
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...
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Sunday 10th November 2024 It’s been a while since I wrote a weeknote, although I’ve kept up with the other kinds of writing...
2 months ago
12
2 months ago
It’s been a while since I wrote a weeknote, although I’ve kept up with the other kinds of writing that I do. But: I work now. I’m working at a small B2B publisher helping them sort out a few things. This was originally going to be an in-and-out job which would take nine months,...
The Last...
Who Can Know How Much Randi Zuckerberg Is Worth? cue hatred Part 1 here IV. Off topic: Randi strongly believes Facebook has a legitimate place in...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
cue hatred Part 1 here IV. Off topic: Randi strongly believes Facebook has a legitimate place in the business world, and this makes me think Facebook is finished.  I realize this is a speculative trade to make.  The usual anxiety about Facebook's future is that teenagers aren't...
Open Culture
The Evolution of Cinema: Watch Nearly 140 Years of Film History Unfold in 80 Minutes The video above from YouTuber Alex Day includes clips from about 500 movies, and you’ve almost...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
The video above from YouTuber Alex Day includes clips from about 500 movies, and you’ve almost certainly seen more than a few of them. Battleship Potemkin, Dumbo, Rear Window, Dr. No, The Godfather, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Top Gun, Braveheart, Gladiator, Inception: we’re not...
Seth's Blog
The opportunity for AI formbots Forms are a convenient way for bureaucracies to collect information. They’re convenient because they...
3 weeks ago
27
3 weeks ago
Forms are a convenient way for bureaucracies to collect information. They’re convenient because they offload the work to the patient/customer/taxpayer. The shift in labor led to an explosion of self-serve forms, but the built-in inefficiencies punish everyone. The fundamental...
Seth's Blog
Get/Want/Have To Get to, want to and have to are an endless braid. How much of our time do we spend on each? Have to...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Get to, want to and have to are an endless braid. How much of our time do we spend on each? Have to is often up to someone else. The things we’re required to do by the system or the people in it. Get to is a matter of perspective. Trust and health and leverage […]
Seth's Blog
Ideas shared are exponential If everyone visits a factory and takes a sample, it goes out of business. But if everyone in the...
a year ago
61
a year ago
If everyone visits a factory and takes a sample, it goes out of business. But if everyone in the community takes an idea, that idea goes up in value. The best marketing advice I have for someone writing a book is simple: Write a book that people want to share with others. And...
Open Culture
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Is Now a Retro Video Game The Rocky Horror Picture Show–it started first as a musical stage production in 1973, then became a...
3 months ago
19
3 months ago
The Rocky Horror Picture Show–it started first as a musical stage production in 1973, then became a cult classic film in 1975. Now, a half-century later, it gets reborn as a retro video game. Scheduled to be released by Halloween, the game features “8‑bit chiptune renditions of...
Open Culture
Artificial Intelligence & Drones Uncover 303 New Nazca Lines in Peru If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu Picchu. If you visit another, it’ll probably be the Nazca Desert, home to many large-scale geoglyphs made by pre-Inca peoples between 500 BC and 500 AD. Many of these “Nazca lines”...
Seth's Blog
Self restaint vs systemic restraint It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the...
a year ago
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a year ago
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the restaurant to limit the number of trips that people take so that the restaurant can become sustainable. It’s possible to argue for systemic changes to cultural systems while also...
Seth's Blog
Willfully uninformed Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and...
9 months ago
24
9 months ago
Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and time at the microfilm reader was booked in advance. Today, if there’s something I don’t know, it’s almost certainly because I haven’t cared enough to find out. I don’t understand...
Open Culture
J. G. Ballard Demystifies Surrealist Paintings by Dalí, Magritte, de Chirico & More Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard published three apocalyptic novels, The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World. Each of those books offers a different vision of large-scale environmental disaster, and...
Open Culture
Michio Kaku Demystifies the God Equation: The Key to Understanding Everything It speaks to the importance of discoveries in physics over the past few generations that even the...
4 months ago
38
4 months ago
It speaks to the importance of discoveries in physics over the past few generations that even the disinterested layman has heard of the field’s central challenge. In brief, there exist two separate systems: general relativity, which describes the physics of space, time, and...
escape the algorithm
A complete guide to pretending you saw the total solar eclipse I cannot relate to you
9 months ago
Open Culture
How Las Vegas’ Sphere Actually Works: A Looks Inside the New $2.3 Billion Arena If the United States of America is the Roman empire of our time, surely it must have an equivalent...
7 months ago
42
7 months ago
If the United States of America is the Roman empire of our time, surely it must have an equivalent of the Colosseum. A year ago, you could’ve heard a wide variety of speculations as to what structure that could possibly be. Today, many of us would simply respond with “the...
Seth's Blog
The color-coded wires Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was...
9 months ago
27
9 months ago
Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was like? Neither have I. The Beatles recorded some of their best work there, and I have no idea if it was a rat’s nest of tangled wires, or if each wire was labeled, coded and perfectly...
The Great Discontent...
Brian Eno From pioneering ambient music and ever-evolving light paintings to innovating production styles,...
a year ago
84
a year ago
From pioneering ambient music and ever-evolving light paintings to innovating production styles, installations, and strategies of surrender, Brian Eno’s work occupies a rare space in this world with an imprint as deep as it is wide. For the Roxy Music founder, art is the kind of...
Seth's Blog
The rear view mirror It’s almost impossible to safely drive a car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Only seeing...
a year ago
105
a year ago
It’s almost impossible to safely drive a car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Only seeing where you’ve been is a terrible way to figure out where to go. But it’s really unsafe to go forward with no idea of what came before. AI plods along into the future, using machine...
Open Culture
Take The Near Impossible Literacy Test Louisiana Used to Suppress the Black Vote (1964) In William Faulkner’s 1938 novel The Unvanquished, the implacable Colonel Sartoris takes drastic...
2 months ago
33
2 months ago
In William Faulkner’s 1938 novel The Unvanquished, the implacable Colonel Sartoris takes drastic action to stop the election of a black Republican candidate to office after the Civil War, destroying the ballots of black voters and shooting two Northern carpetbaggers. While such...
Seth's Blog
Kinds of power There’s the James Bond villian sort of power, based on division, dominance and destruction. This is...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
There’s the James Bond villian sort of power, based on division, dominance and destruction. This is the short-term power of bullies, trauma and mobs. And then there’s a more resilient form of power. This is power based on connection, discussion and metrics. A power based in...
Anarchy Unfolds
The Weariness of Work Why I've been away; why I'm anti-work as well as pro-labor
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Useful assumptions for teachers Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment....
a year ago
56
a year ago
Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment. Either someone is committed to learning or they’re not. While many situations place people into a spot where they are compelled to show up (exhibit A: learning arithmetic in grade...
Open Culture
An Introduction to The Babylonian Map of the World–the Oldest Known Map of the World Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it...
5 months ago
26
5 months ago
Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it is. But then again, few of us are anything like the British Museum Middle East department curator Irving Finkel, whose vast knowledge (and ability to share it compellingly) have...
On the Arts
Istanbul's Blue Tile Paradise The Hidden Mosque of Rüstem Pasha
a year ago
Open Culture
See Albert Camus’ Historic Lecture, “The Human Crisis,” Performed by Actor Viggo Mortensen Back in 2016, New York City staged a month-long festival celebrating Albert Camus’ historic visit to...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
Back in 2016, New York City staged a month-long festival celebrating Albert Camus’ historic visit to NYC in 1946. One event in the festival featured actor Viggo Mortensen giving a reading of Camus’ lecture,“La Crise de l’homme” (“The Human Crisis”) at Columbia University–the very...
Neocha – Culture &...
The Photography of Shin Noguchi
a year ago
Seth's Blog
An overlooked and powerful editing tool Consider building a word cloud of your writing. It might be all the text on your website, or the...
7 months ago
28
7 months ago
Consider building a word cloud of your writing. It might be all the text on your website, or the last 50 emails you sent. It might be your new book or the speech you’re going to give at Rice University. It only takes a few minutes. I use wordclouds.com because it’s easy and free....
Open Culture
Isaac Newton Creates a List of His 57 Sins (Circa 1662) Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the most important and influential scientist in history, discovered the...
a month ago
28
a month ago
Sir Isaac Newton, arguably the most important and influential scientist in history, discovered the laws of motion and the universal force of gravity. For the first time ever, the rules of the universe could be described with the supremely rational language of mathematics....
Open Culture
A Close Look at Beowulf-Era Helmets & Swords, Courtesy of the British Museum Even if a student assigned Beowulf is, at first, dismayed by its language, that same student may...
6 months ago
43
6 months ago
Even if a student assigned Beowulf is, at first, dismayed by its language, that same student may well be captivated by its setting. While that mythical but somehow both gloriously and dankly realistic realm of kings and dragons, mead halls and bog monsters may feel familiar to...
Open Culture
Beautiful 19th Century Maps of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise & More Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do so, we may or may not be thinking of where the concept originated: Dante’s Divina Commedia, or Divine Comedy. We each imagine the circles in our own way — usually filling them with...
Marian's Blog
Arduino-Wetterstation mit Bluetooth, Datalogging und Android-App Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen...
over a year ago
6
over a year ago
Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen Schülerwettbewerb (ILC) bekommen und zusammengesetzt habe. Auf dem Board rechnet ein ATxmega128A3U. Temperatur, Luftfeuchte, Luftdruck, Helligkeit, Regenmenge und Windgeschwindigkeit werden...
Seth's Blog
Calendars are a choice Humans are unique. We give names to the days of the week (we even have weeks). We eat something...
a week ago
18
a week ago
Humans are unique. We give names to the days of the week (we even have weeks). We eat something different for breakfast than dinner. We chronicle the passage of time. In fact, our chronicling of time is what makes it noticeable. Coordination can only happen when we’re in sync...
Seth's Blog
Rewrite for humans My building had an elevator problem. The management company sent everyone this note: Please be...
a year ago
18
a year ago
My building had an elevator problem. The management company sent everyone this note: Please be advised we have been experiencing intermittent issues with the elevator. Our priority is your safety, and we are taking immediate action to address the situation. After a thorough...
Open Culture
When 20,000 Americans Held a Pro-Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939 Above, two-time Academy Award nominee Marshall Curry presents A Night at The Garden, a film that...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
Above, two-time Academy Award nominee Marshall Curry presents A Night at The Garden, a film that revisits a night in February 1939 when “20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism — an event largely forgotten from U.S. history.”...
Seth's Blog
Phrenology For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge...
6 months ago
63
6 months ago
For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge someone’s character. Carefully charting the bumps on someone’s head, along with the slope of their forehead and other telltale signs was seen as a thoughtful and proven way to...
Anarchy Unfolds
No Futures We don't have to think of the children
7 months ago
The Last...
Ten Extra Seconds Would Have Saved True Detective's Finale what could it mean? You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a...
over a year ago
5
over a year ago
what could it mean? You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a show been smarter than its writer.   I submit as second evidence the season finale for The Bachelor that was on yesterday, for three hours, drawing ten million "people".  Just...
Open Culture
Is Reality Real?: 8 Scientists Explain Whether We Can Ever Know What Objectively Exists Ask aloud whether reality is real, and you’re liable to be regarded as never truly having left the...
7 months ago
19
7 months ago
Ask aloud whether reality is real, and you’re liable to be regarded as never truly having left the freshman dorm. But that question has received, and continues to receive, consideration from actual scientists. The Big Think video above assembles seven of them to explain how they...
Seth's Blog
Confusion and certainty When facing a complex problem, it’s easy to become confused. Lately, it’s become socially acceptable...
a year ago
20
a year ago
When facing a complex problem, it’s easy to become confused. Lately, it’s become socially acceptable to express your confusion with certainty. Untrained in the field, make a pronouncement that makes it clear that you have not just an understanding of what’s going on, but also...
Seth's Blog
Trading trust The Brookings Institution did a fascinating survey series over the last five years. I have two...
10 months ago
23
10 months ago
The Brookings Institution did a fascinating survey series over the last five years. I have two takeways from this: The first is that focused and persistent propaganda is able to shift public opinion about institutions they don’t have direct interaction with. The more important...
Seth's Blog
Normalizing selfishness Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly...
11 months ago
15
11 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
The Net Promoter Score More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their...
8 months ago
53
8 months ago
More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their customers. Some are using it to measure employee satisfaction as well. The P stands for ‘promoter’, but of course, it doesn’t actually measure promotion. If that many of your customers...
Seth's Blog
Finding agency The first few moves of a chess game give the player almost unlimited freedom. There are countless...
a year ago
29
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...
Seth's Blog
Three things about innovation New approaches will never be embraced by everyone at first. If you need unanimous consent, you’re...
a year ago
47
a year ago
New approaches will never be embraced by everyone at first. If you need unanimous consent, you’re not going to move forward. And it’s not convenient. If it were, someone would have done it already. Finally, it’s not sure to work. If you need any or all three of these things for...
Seth's Blog
The empathy of useful feedback When a friend shows you work in progress, your best contribution is to imagine the point of view and...
a year ago
16
a year ago
When a friend shows you work in progress, your best contribution is to imagine the point of view and preferences of the person it is being created for. “I don’t like it,” isn’t useful, because it’s not for you. “I could imagine that someone who wants x, y or z would be looking...
Seth's Blog
The two bicycle errors Momentum activities like public speaking, board sports and leadership all share an attribute with...
5 months ago
36
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Pia Bramley I’m an artist, illustrator and printmaker. Having left London after a decade of city life I now live...
a year ago
40
a year ago
I’m an artist, illustrator and printmaker. Having left London after a decade of city life I now live and work in The New Forest, squeezing in drawing and printing around caring for a three year old. How and where did you learn to print? I did my foundation at KIAD (formerly...
Anarchy Unfolds
Met Gala meets Hunger Games #Blockout and beyond
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Queued It’s sort of the opposite of “cued.” In addition to being delightful to spell, the idea of work...
10 months ago
53
10 months ago
It’s sort of the opposite of “cued.” In addition to being delightful to spell, the idea of work that’s queued up is energizing. The chapter ahead of schedule, the process in place for the next quarter, the continued commitment to learning… It is locked, loaded and ready to go....
Seth's Blog
Bye now The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a commitment, we break the trust we’ve earned. For a while, you might not notice the broken trust, because we’re encouraged to keep pushing, treating every individual as a walking...
Open Culture
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
23
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
x1000 The future creeps up on us slowly. But when it leaps dramatically, we notice. One spam phone call a...
a year ago
57
a year ago
The future creeps up on us slowly. But when it leaps dramatically, we notice. One spam phone call a day is an irritation. 1,000 of them destroy the utility of the phone. One photographer undercutting our rates is a threat. 1,000 of them means we can’t make a living at it any...
Seth's Blog
Assume lack of context The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see. It’s...
6 months ago
38
6 months ago
The person you’re working with might not know what you know, might not see what you see. It’s tempting to begin where we are. But it’s more useful to begin where they are.
The Great Discontent...
Sheyam Ghieth Sheyam Ghieth (she/they) is an artist and queer Egyptian-American abolitionist known for her work on...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Sheyam Ghieth (she/they) is an artist and queer Egyptian-American abolitionist known for her work on the comedy-drama television series Ramy, FX’s The Americans, and the web series BROTHERS. They now live in Portland, OR, where they are prioritizing queer joy as a radical act of...
Seth's Blog
Semantic algebra Doing math problems in your head is a skill. No one is born knowing the answer to, “You have 35...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
Doing math problems in your head is a skill. No one is born knowing the answer to, “You have 35 coins in nickels and quarters. They add up to $4.15. How many quarters do you have?” but we can learn. And some people find it easier than others, but yes, we can learn. The same […]
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...
2 months ago
27
2 months 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
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
45
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...
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
14
a year ago
Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in something that’s useful but not true, it can serve a helpful purpose. The tooth fairy, perhaps. When we act on something that’s useful and also true, we’ve found a resilient path...
Seth's Blog
The next one When asked what his favorite composition was, Duke Ellington said, “the next one.” This is the...
a year ago
14
a year ago
When asked what his favorite composition was, Duke Ellington said, “the next one.” This is the essence of the artistic process. When we’re in the liminal space between now and what is about to come, we’re fully alive.
Marian's Blog
How to add Bluetooth to your Arduino Project with BTduino This tutorial will show you how to connect your Arduino project to an Android device using the...
over a year ago
7
over a year ago
This tutorial will show you how to connect your Arduino project to an Android device using the BTduino app. You don’t need an extra Arduino library and you don’t need to code anything on the Android side. Here is what you need: an Android device running Android 4.0 or higher that...
Seth's Blog
The page-a-day calendar Time passes. And humans have always kept track. Distribution and technology combined to create a few...
5 months ago
49
5 months ago
Time passes. And humans have always kept track. Distribution and technology combined to create a few decades where the tear off daily calendar was nearly ubiquitous (read on for details on my new one, a collaboration with Debbie Millman). First, the industry needed to efficiently...
Seth's Blog
Evenly distributed For the first time, the only time, everyone on Earth was in the same boat at the same time. We’ve...
a year ago
17
a year ago
For the first time, the only time, everyone on Earth was in the same boat at the same time. We’ve long been divided by privilege, by caste, by accidents of birth or by organized hierarchies. Sure, there have been events that struck us all at once. Landing on the moon caused us...
Seth's Blog
Out of control It’s negative when we say that someone is out of control. They’ve lost their self-restraint, and...
9 months ago
30
9 months ago
It’s negative when we say that someone is out of control. They’ve lost their self-restraint, and they’re doing things that they’ll regret later. And it’s honest when we acknowledge that just about everything is out of our control. We can work to influence it, we can practice...
On the Arts
On the Arts: A Year-End Review A brief guide to everything published this year.
a year ago
escape the algorithm
Be specific Ode to ᵗᶦⁿʸ ᵗᵒᵒˡˢ
11 months ago
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
20
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...
Seth's Blog
“I can’t go for that” Culture has stability. “The way things are around here.” When we are pushed too far from our norms,...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
Culture has stability. “The way things are around here.” When we are pushed too far from our norms, life gets stressful. Some of the people in the systems that used to keep things stable have discovered that they can make a profit or gain an edge by embracing extremism instead....
Seth's Blog
Different kinds of people It’s a tempting shortcut. Different kinds of people prefer pop tarts to pizza, or prefer expensive...
a year ago
37
a year ago
It’s a tempting shortcut. Different kinds of people prefer pop tarts to pizza, or prefer expensive wine to beer, or prefer amusement parks to bowling. Except everyone is the same and everyone is different. What’s actually useful is to realize that in this moment, under these...
Seth's Blog
Full circle with myopia In 1983, an old article from the Harvard Business Review changed my life. In 1960, Ted Levitt, a...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
In 1983, an old article from the Harvard Business Review changed my life. In 1960, Ted Levitt, a professor at HBS, wrote the most popular article in the Review’s history. Called Marketing Myopia, it described a different way of thinking about change and marketing. I was a (very)...
Neocha – Culture &...
Spectacular Skin
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Assume goodwill There’s often doubt. Giving someone the benefit of that doubt enables us to move forward, and that...
7 months ago
34
7 months ago
There’s often doubt. Giving someone the benefit of that doubt enables us to move forward, and that requires us to realize that our doubt might be unfounded. Systems that assume goodwill create possibility, connection and utility far easier than those that don’t. Being invited to...
Seth's Blog
Clear ice I love Zamboni machines. They’re ungainly, they’re slow but they’re also majestic. Like an elephant...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
I love Zamboni machines. They’re ungainly, they’re slow but they’re also majestic. Like an elephant for ice hockey. After each period, when the ice is chopped up by play, the Zamboni rolls out and leaves behind a sheet of perfect ice. Cold, smooth and untouched. It’s useful to...
Seth's Blog
Glib One of the valid complaints about some AI systems is that they make stuff up, with confidence, and...
5 months ago
52
5 months ago
One of the valid complaints about some AI systems is that they make stuff up, with confidence, and without sourcing, and then argue when challenged. Unsurprisingly, this sounds a lot like people. We often end up with what we are willing to tolerate. Show your work and ask for...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Cal Russell I'm an artist living in Edinburgh working mainly in papercutting and linocut printmaking. I studied...
a year ago
33
a year ago
I'm an artist living in Edinburgh working mainly in papercutting and linocut printmaking. I studied Illustration at Falmouth School of Art and did a Masters in Contemporary Art at the Edinburgh College of Art. I mostly work independently and sell my prints and originals online or...
Open Culture
How Henri Matisse Scandalized the Art Establishment with His Daring Use of Color Even those of us not particularly well-versed in art history have heard of a painting style called...
3 months ago
19
3 months ago
Even those of us not particularly well-versed in art history have heard of a painting style called fauvism — and probably have never considered what it has to do with fauve, the French word for a wild beast. In fact, the two have everything to do with one another, at least in the...
escape the algorithm
The Scan Artist What it means to copy the world
11 months ago
Seth's Blog
(Without the bad parts) That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and...
a year ago
17
a year ago
That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and mob manipulation.)” “I’d like to run a marathon (without getting tired).” “I’m in favor of strict copyright law (except for the endless © trolls and with just the right amount of...
Seth's Blog
“But what if it doesn’t work?” The best way to win a short-term game is to bet it all on one strategy. Someone is going to get...
a year ago
72
a year ago
The best way to win a short-term game is to bet it all on one strategy. Someone is going to get lucky and it might be you. But we rarely thrive in the long run if we persist in playing a series of short-term games. Instead, organizations, individuals and teams do better when they...
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
33
a year ago
When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or Extender. Both of these give us different results so which should we choose? We have performed a few experiments to show the difference between mixing with Opaque White and...
Open Culture
The First Professional Footage of Pink Floyd Gets Captured in a 1967 Documentary (and the Band Also... British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with...
7 months ago
41
7 months ago
British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with his promo films for the Rolling Stones in the mid-60s. According to Ali Catterall and Simon Wells, authors of Your Face Here, a study of “British Cult Film since the Sixties,”...
Open Culture
Gustave Doré’s Macabre Illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884) One of the busiest, most in-demand artists of the 19th century, Gustave Doré made his name...
6 months ago
39
6 months ago
One of the busiest, most in-demand artists of the 19th century, Gustave Doré made his name illustrating works by such authors as Rabelais, Balzac, Milton, and Dante. In the 1860s, he created one of the most memorable and popular illustrated editions of Cervantes’ Don Quixote,...
Open Culture
Explore and Download 14,000+ Woodcuts from Antwerp’s Plantin-Moretus Museum Online Archive We appreciate illuminated manuscripts and historical books here on Open Culture, adhere though we do...
a month ago
13
a month ago
We appreciate illuminated manuscripts and historical books here on Open Culture, adhere though we do to a much more restrained aesthetic style in our own texts. But that’s not to deny the temptation to start this paragraph with one of those oversized initial letters that grew...
Open Culture
Ray Bradbury Explains Why Literature is the Safety Valve of Civilization (in Which Case We Need More... Ray Bradbury had it all thought out. Behind his captivating works of science fiction, there were...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
Ray Bradbury had it all thought out. Behind his captivating works of science fiction, there were subtle theories about what literature was meant to do. The retro clip above takes you back to the 1970s and it shows Bradbury giving a rather intriguing take on the role of literature...
Seth's Blog
Fiblets Organizations lie all the time. Big lies, sometimes, but usually small ones. Is the call volume...
a week ago
16
a week ago
Organizations lie all the time. Big lies, sometimes, but usually small ones. Is the call volume actually unusually heavy? Did a chef really prepare this meal just for me? These fiblets are so common that they become part of the culture, a trope that lets the user know that this...
Seth's Blog
“And” fatigue Digital abundance creates a new problem. Most of our lives are filled with “or” decisions. You can...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Digital abundance creates a new problem. Most of our lives are filled with “or” decisions. You can have this or that. You can save money for the big party or you can go out for lunch. You can have exactly one thing for dessert–cake or fruit. But the war for our attention has...
Seth's Blog
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
53
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....
Handprinted - Blog
Choosing Printmaking Paper Choosing the paper for your printmaking project can have a significant impact on the way the print...
11 months ago
73
11 months ago
Choosing the paper for your printmaking project can have a significant impact on the way the print turns out. Changing the colour, thickness or texture of a paper can alter the mood, style or success of a print - it can be great fun to experiment. Although there are no rules...
Seth's Blog
Population and big innovations It’s tempting to embrace the meme that the best way for humans to solve the big problems in front of...
a year ago
31
a year ago
It’s tempting to embrace the meme that the best way for humans to solve the big problems in front of us is to increase the population, perhaps dramatically. The thinking goes that people are the ones who can solve problems, and more people give us more problem-solvers. This...
Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll x GiveDirectly Read to the end for an AI cokehead
a month ago