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Seth's Blog
The steps vs. the concept If you memorize the steps, you have a direct, simple and fast path to obtain the result. Until the...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
If you memorize the steps, you have a direct, simple and fast path to obtain the result. Until the world changes. Even the tiniest shift in the system will render your memorization useless. On the other hand, if you understand the concept, you’ll be able to produce the steps...
Open Culture
Behold the Oldest Written Text in the World: The Kish Tablet, Circa 3500 BC Image by José-Manuel Benito, via Wikimedia Commons Some refer to the written Chinese language as...
8 months ago
68
8 months ago
Image by José-Manuel Benito, via Wikimedia Commons Some refer to the written Chinese language as ideographic: that is, structured according to a system in which each symbol represents a particular idea or concept, whether abstract or concrete. That’s true of certain Chinese...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: MintFlamingo Hi - I’m Alex! I’m a freelance graphic designer by day, and a self-taught linocut printmaker by...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Hi - I’m Alex! I’m a freelance graphic designer by day, and a self-taught linocut printmaker by night. Although my day job is ‘creative’ I think I really fell in love with making/designing my own linocut prints as it allows me to create whatever I like, without being restricted...
Seth's Blog
Omitting the herbs Without salt, human beings don’t survive long. But it’s possible to eat for a month without tasting...
10 months ago
42
10 months ago
Without salt, human beings don’t survive long. But it’s possible to eat for a month without tasting an herb. The food will sustain you. Herbs are an expensive non-obvious addition, while also being a bargain if the goal is to create delight, interest or satisfaction. As we...
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,...
a year ago
94
a year 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...
Seth's Blog
Nihil hic deest This page intentionally left blank has a long history. I thought it was an IBM thing from the 1960s,...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
This page intentionally left blank has a long history. I thought it was an IBM thing from the 1960s, but I was off by a thousand or more years. There are good reasons for a page to be blank. Folding signatures, printing processes, having chapters start on the right or the left…...
Seth's Blog
Generosity and fear Fear is self-focused. Day to day, our fear is about us. What will happen if we give that speech,...
a year ago
35
a year ago
Fear is self-focused. Day to day, our fear is about us. What will happen if we give that speech, launch that project, get stuck in traffic, are eaten by an alligator… And generosity is about others. “How can I help?” Jumping in the water to save a struggling swimmer stops us from...
Open Culture
Behold a Creative Animation of the Bayeux Tapestry In previous centuries, unless you were a member of the nobility, a wealthy religious order, or a...
10 months ago
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10 months ago
In previous centuries, unless you were a member of the nobility, a wealthy religious order, or a merchant guild, your chances of spending any significant amount of time with a Medieval tapestry were slim. Though “much production was relatively coarse, intended for decorative...
Seth's Blog
Bad design might simply be obsolete design Perhaps you’ve encountered a sink with two taps, not one. One for hot, one for cold, without a...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
Perhaps you’ve encountered a sink with two taps, not one. One for hot, one for cold, without a chance to mix them before you scald or chill yourself. It seems absurd that the folks who figured out the technology to build sinks with running water couldn’t be bothered with the last...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: YouTube's AI Problem Plus! Vibe Shift Reversal and Dr Pepper Guy
2 months ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Chaos is a Ladder Vertical Integrators: Part V
2 months ago
Open Culture
How Eyes Evolved: A Fascinating Tour Through the Animal Kingdom Above, Lars Schmitz, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, guides us “through a giant tree of...
2 months ago
11
2 months ago
Above, Lars Schmitz, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, guides us “through a giant tree of life mapping the evolution of eyes in the animal kingdom: how they work, why they’ve taken the form they have, and the evolutionary advantages they’ve unlocked across species.” The...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Host Jumping, thinking about viruses and how they’re changing. Thinking about the concepts and reasons behind the making of my work ‘Host Jump’.
over a year ago
Open Culture
How Magician David Copperfield Made the Statue of Liberty Disappear (1983) In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the...
8 months ago
72
8 months ago
In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, straight into thin air. If you’re north of 50, you perhaps remember the spectacle. How did he do it? 40 years later, the YouTube channel Mind Blown Magic...
Seth's Blog
“I don’t know” Particularly when it comes to the future. And perhaps about the past. More often than not, we find...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Particularly when it comes to the future. And perhaps about the past. More often than not, we find ourselves in situations where we don’t know. Where we can’t know. That’s a given. The open question is how often we claim that stance. If it feels uncomfortable or awkward to...
Seth's Blog
In search of incompetence Learning is about becoming incompetent on our way to getting better. If you’re not open to the...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Learning is about becoming incompetent on our way to getting better. If you’re not open to the tension that is caused by knowing you could do better, it’s unlikely you’re willing to do the work to get better. As you’re doing that work, there’s the satisfaction it brings, but also...
escape the algorithm
Live Near Friends I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m about to recommend that you subscribe to a product marketing...
a year ago
17
a year ago
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m about to recommend that you subscribe to a product marketing email.
On the Arts
The Sea Has Always Looked the Same A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
over a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Bethan Designs Hi! I’m Beth (Bethan) a printmaker who found a love for linocut relief printing. I’m based in a...
4 months ago
45
4 months ago
Hi! I’m Beth (Bethan) a printmaker who found a love for linocut relief printing. I’m based in a little village in the middle of Derbyshire.  Describe your printmaking process. My printmaking process probably isn’t as traditional as others, I draw my designs digitally and transfer...
Open Culture
Simone de Beauvoir Explains “Why I’m a Feminist” in a Rare TV Interview (1975) In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his...
a year ago
45
a year ago
In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his childhood friend Marcel’s reaction to the word “revolution”: It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not meddle...
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...
10 months ago
38
10 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
It’s not easy …to make it look easy. Sometimes, you don’t need to bother. Making it look hard might be a plus. The...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
…to make it look easy. Sometimes, you don’t need to bother. Making it look hard might be a plus. The important part is how it makes the recipient feel.
Seth's Blog
The unaware snoop Here’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen somewhere: A GPT that reads every email that anyone in...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
Here’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen somewhere: A GPT that reads every email that anyone in your organization has ever sent and makes it easy to ask it questions about what the entire organization knows. A person could probably not find the time, bandwidth or privacy...
Seth's Blog
Yes, but how does it work? I worked with Arthur C. Clarke at the very beginning of my career. He’s most famous for saying, “Any...
9 months ago
53
9 months ago
I worked with Arthur C. Clarke at the very beginning of my career. He’s most famous for saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Magic isn’t such a bad thing. And we certainly have plenty of advanced technology around. Advanced in the sense...
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...
a year ago
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a year 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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Maplands Maplands is a long-form generative art project I released on fxhash on 5th Jan 2022. It sold out...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Maplands is a long-form generative art project I released on fxhash on 5th Jan 2022. It sold out 256 pieces in exactly 2 minutes.
Open Culture
How the First Rock Concert Ended in Mayhem (Cleveland, 1952) “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is...
a month ago
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a month ago
“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” That observation tends to be attributed to Tennessee Williams, though it’s become somewhat detached from its source, so deeply does it resonate with a certain experience of...
Haterade
Nostalgia Pizza The virtues (and limitations) of the Soggy School Lunch Square
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Division is easier than connection But connection is where the value lies. Connected, resilient communities create possibility and...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
But connection is where the value lies. Connected, resilient communities create possibility and forward motion. Division is satisfying in the short run, and it might even draw a crowd. But the only useful reason to disconnect is if it opens up the chance to increase connection...
Seth's Blog
Asking for directions It hadn’t happened in such a long time that I hesitated to respond. As I was walking through town, a...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
It hadn’t happened in such a long time that I hesitated to respond. As I was walking through town, a driver pulled up, rolled down his window and said, “is this the way to Irvington?” We now take for granted that we’re unlikely to ever again be in a car and not know where we […]
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...
9 months ago
50
9 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...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “I am your BFDL” edition 1. Tech benevolent dictators are still… dictators in the tech community there is a concept of the...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
1. Tech benevolent dictators are still… dictators in the tech community there is a concept of the “benevolent dictator for life”. This is a leadership model where one person, usually the founder, has the final say on decisions. They guide the project’s direction, relying on their...
Seth's Blog
Productivity, AI and pushback Typesetters did not like the laser printer. Wedding photographers still hate the iphone. And some...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
Typesetters did not like the laser printer. Wedding photographers still hate the iphone. And some musicians are outraged that AI is now making mediocre pop music. One group of esteemed authors is demanding that book publishers refuse to use AI in designing book covers, recording...
Seth's Blog
16 minutes Some facts and assertions about healthcare (particularly in the US) and then an outline of a change...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
Some facts and assertions about healthcare (particularly in the US) and then an outline of a change agent that could improve health, perhaps dramatically. And so, a system that’s organized around treatments and status, that misallocates time and effort, causing stress for...
Seth's Blog
Don’t rush …but hurry. The words matter. Rushing has a built-in excuse. Rushing pushes us to skip steps or ship...
a year ago
86
a year ago
…but hurry. The words matter. Rushing has a built-in excuse. Rushing pushes us to skip steps or ship junk. But hurrying acknowledges how precious this moment in time is. It honors our good fortune to be in this place, able to contribute something generous.
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...
a year ago
69
a year ago
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can think hard about the tomorrow we’re about to live in. Summer reads are supposed to be a bit lighter. Technological change is making our near future a bit harder to dance with, and...
Seth's Blog
What do you need more of? If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: …we know where to get it. If not, then...
a month ago
15
a month ago
If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: …we know where to get it. If not, then why are we spending our magical attention there?
Seth's Blog
Reimagining cities in a few simple questions What would happen if public transportation were free? What if it were paid for by congestion...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
What would happen if public transportation were free? What if it were paid for by congestion pricing, digitally implemented? What if public toilets were safe, beautiful, well-appointed and consistently maintained? What if there were a tax on empty storefronts, payable after three...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Forecast Forecast is a long-form generative art project released on fxhash on 16th Feb 2023. This article...
over a year ago
20
over 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.
Seth's Blog
Sorting and choosing One is far more important than the other. Sorting puts our options into two piles. One pile is the...
2 months ago
12
2 months ago
One is far more important than the other. Sorting puts our options into two piles. One pile is the don’t-like, not-good-enough or wrong stack. These are the flavors we don’t enjoy, the paths that are dead ends and the people we simply don’t want to hang out with. The other pile...
Open Culture
The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Explore the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard’s... I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, magic mushrooms or the chemical...
7 months ago
64
7 months ago
I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, magic mushrooms or the chemical called psilocybin that’s derived from magic mushrooms—to people dying of cancer, people with terminal diagnoses, to help them deal with their — what’s called existential distress. And...
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
35
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...
Open Culture
Hear the First Recording of the Human Voice (1860) When inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville sang a nursery rhyme into his phonoautogram in 1860,...
2 months ago
11
2 months ago
When inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville sang a nursery rhyme into his phonoautogram in 1860, he had no plans to ever play back this recording. A precursor to the wax cylinder, the phonoautogram took inputs for the study of sound waves, but could not be turned into an...
Seth's Blog
A bowl of rice It’s expensive. Hundreds of people were involved in getting you that simple bowl of rice. It...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
It’s expensive. Hundreds of people were involved in getting you that simple bowl of rice. It involved countless gallons of water, hours of labor, gallons of fuel. A complex supply chain that ensured you got what you needed, in perfect condition, just as you were ready for it. And...
Seth's Blog
Glib One of the valid complaints about some AI systems is that they make stuff up, with confidence, and...
a year ago
85
a year ago
One of the valid complaints about some AI systems is that they make stuff up, with confidence, and without sourcing, and then argue when challenged. Unsurprisingly, this sounds a lot like people. We often end up with what we are willing to tolerate. Show your work and ask for...
Seth's Blog
Drama at work A divo (or diva) is an opera singer with skill. Sometimes, though, that skill comes in a package...
a year ago
31
a year ago
A divo (or diva) is an opera singer with skill. Sometimes, though, that skill comes in a package that also includes imperiousness, skittishness and a fair amount of unpredictable drama. It’s tempting to imagine that CEOs, painters or poets that bring the noise must also have...
Seth's Blog
Speed, creativity and AI A little faster is a market advantage. A step change in speed changes the market entirely. Fedex was...
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
A little faster is a market advantage. A step change in speed changes the market entirely. Fedex was faster mail. It allowed them to grow and profit. Email, on the other hand, completely changed communication. In the discussions of AI, most people are failing to consider the step...
Seth's Blog
Closed/open I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a...
a year ago
19
a year ago
I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a good swing. It’s getting them to stop using a bad one. Our position feels so fragile, we hold on very tightly. Competence, status and connection are fleeting yet hard-won. We can...
Seth's Blog
Sharp tools Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know...
10 months ago
47
10 months ago
Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know this. The rest of us, on the other hand, regularly use digital tools we don’t understand, don’t maintain and haven’t optimized. Sometimes, our lack of care in the choice and use of...
Seth's Blog
Finding the others Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer support, brainstorming, community workshops, coaching, dailies and more. Distributed work doesn’t have to be disconnected work. Freelancing, creating, and leading can feel solitary,...
Seth's Blog
The perils of doing it live [Relevant aside: If you get this blog by email, apologies for the glitches of the last few days...
a year ago
40
a year ago
[Relevant aside: If you get this blog by email, apologies for the glitches of the last few days caused by my provider. If you ever see a broken link or something that doesn’t render, you can visit the blog. It always has the latest version, typos fixed. It’s much easier to fix...
Seth's Blog
Long-term selfish Everyone is selfish. We do things that increase our chances of survival, help us achieve our goals...
11 months ago
93
11 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
Rainy day surfer Of course you’re going to get wet, that’s part of the sport. And yet, only the hard core surfers...
5 months ago
64
5 months ago
Of course you’re going to get wet, that’s part of the sport. And yet, only the hard core surfers show up in the rain. If your project is about making things better, organizing the disorganized, connecting the disconnected and building community, you shouldn’t wait until the...
Seth's Blog
Projects and the long haul Rome was built in a day. It wasn’t finished in a day. In fact, it’s still not finished. But the day...
a year ago
59
a year ago
Rome was built in a day. It wasn’t finished in a day. In fact, it’s still not finished. But the day someone said, “this is Rome,” and announced the project, it was there. Sometimes we get hung up on the beginning, unwilling to start Rome unless we’re sure we can finish it without...
Open Culture
The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors... Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from...
8 months ago
55
8 months ago
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.” Featuring 825 colors, each associated with different types of mushrooms, the interactive atlas lets you appreciate the broad spectrum of colors latent in the...
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...
over a year ago
87
over 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...
Haterade
I Regret to Announce that I Cannot Stop Eating the Shaq Gummies I have the blood sugar of a very large, very tall man.
5 months ago
cabel.com
Marching Age This is a short story about something delightful. In 2014, I did a bunch of music for my friends...
a year ago
22
a year ago
This is a short story about something delightful. In 2014, I did a bunch of music for my friends Neven Mrgan and Matt Comi who were making an incredible iOS game called Space Age. I had never written that much music in my life, and it was incredibly fun for me in every way. (You...
Open Culture
Why You Do Your Best Thinking In The Shower: Creativity & the “Incubation Period” Image via Wikimedia Commons “The great Tao fades away.” So begins one translation of the Tao Te...
a year ago
43
a year ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons “The great Tao fades away.” So begins one translation of the Tao Te Ching’s 18th Chapter. The sentence captures the frustration that comes with a lost epiphany. Whether it’s a profound realization when you just wake up, or moment of clarity in the...
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
24
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
Grab and go Every retailer knows that the items that sell the best are at eye level or at the cash register....
a month ago
14
a month ago
Every retailer knows that the items that sell the best are at eye level or at the cash register. Some people are hungry, rushed, distracted and lazy. If you want to reach them (us), you need to make it convenient. The lesson is simple: We can market to ourselves the same way...
The Last...
Randi Zuckerberg Thinks We Should Untangle Our Wired Lives how hard could it be, none of those circles are actually connected Randi Zuckerberg is...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
how hard could it be, none of those circles are actually connected Randi Zuckerberg is CEO of Zuckerberg Media, which, according to its 10-K, is an iphone.  If you have no idea who she is, and you shouldn't, then the answer to your one and only question is yes. In her...
Seth's Blog
Which agenda? Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda....
a year ago
89
a year ago
Every day matters. It seems like a waste to spend one as a to-do list item on someone else’s agenda. It’s easy to become so focused on checking the boxes that we forget that there are people involved. Peers, colleagues and friends that with something human to offer, if we only...
Open Culture
Watch Philosophy Lectures That Became a Hit During COVID by Professor Michael Sugrue (RIP): From... If we ask which philosophy professor has made the greatest impact in this decade, there’s a solid...
a year ago
51
a year ago
If we ask which philosophy professor has made the greatest impact in this decade, there’s a solid case to be made for the late Michael Sugrue. Yet in the nearly four-decade-long career that followed his studies at the University of Chicago under Allan Bloom (author of The Closing...
Seth's Blog
Adjacent but not relevant There’s a sale on band saw blades, including a really good deal on one that fits the saw you owned...
11 months ago
64
11 months ago
There’s a sale on band saw blades, including a really good deal on one that fits the saw you owned years ago. The folks who live next door to the house you used to live in are having a raucous party. A guy with a name just like yours wins the lottery… These adjacencies can […]
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Lisa Stubbs Hi, I'm a printmaker and illustrator living in the Holme Valley in Yorkshire, with a little print...
a year ago
114
a year ago
Hi, I'm a printmaker and illustrator living in the Holme Valley in Yorkshire, with a little print studio in the neighbouring Colne valley.   Describe your printmaking process. Playful and experimental! I love being curious during my process, combining different processes together...
Seth's Blog
The Mona Lisa problem If you want to be a great painter, perhaps you could reverse engineer what made the Mona Lisa such...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
If you want to be a great painter, perhaps you could reverse engineer what made the Mona Lisa such an important painting. You could move to Italy. You could learn about shadows and light and technique. The problem is that the Mona Lisa isn’t the most famous painting in the world...
Seth's Blog
Willfully uninformed Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and time at the microfilm reader was booked in advance. Today, if there’s something I don’t know, it’s almost certainly because I haven’t cared enough to find out. I don’t understand...
Prolost
iPhone ProRes Log in Peru and Taiwan This is a blog post about a video, which is about new color-conversion LUTs for Apple Log footage...
a year ago
116
a year ago
This is a blog post about a video, which is about new color-conversion LUTs for Apple Log footage from the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max (updated from my first set). The video is also a mini-travelogue of my recent trips to Taiwan and Peru. This post dives a bit deeper into both the...
Seth's Blog
Avoid false proxies They’re toxic, wasteful and a tempting trap. It’s one of the most important topics in my new book....
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
They’re toxic, wasteful and a tempting trap. It’s one of the most important topics in my new book. (And here’s a new podcast on it). We need proxies. You’re not allowed to read the book before you buy it or taste the ketchup before you leave the store. We rely on labels and...
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
22
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
Carl Sagan Issues a Chilling Warning About the Decline of Scientific Thinking in America: Watch His... Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along —...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along — popularizing science and “enthusiastically conveying the wonders of the universe to millions of people on television and in books.” Whenever Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny...
Seth's Blog
Ecosystems come and go Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers,...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers, competitors, marketplaces, systems and tech that make it all work. I used to make almanacs. Long, detailed, fact-checked reference books that might save a trip to the library....
Haterade
Divorce Licorice Introducing: the salmiakki blood pressure cuff
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The power of expectations When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to...
a year ago
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a year ago
When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to possibility. We offer them dignity and a chance to grow. We are offering them trust. But if we become attached to those expectations, if the expectation unmet leads us to distress or...
Open Culture
A Japanese Zen Monk Explains What Zen Is Really About Despite developing in Asia, as the Chinese form of a religion originally brought over from India and...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
Despite developing in Asia, as the Chinese form of a religion originally brought over from India and later refined in Japan, Zen Buddhism has long appealed to Westerners as well. Some of that owes to the spare, elegant aesthetics with which popular culture associates it, and more...
Seth's Blog
The perfect conditions Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Somewhere, there is the ideal soil for growing mangoes. Or the best possible wave for surfing. Or the most romantic sunset for a proposal. But it’s not right here and it’s not right now. Our success has a lot to do with how we dance with conditions that aren’t quite perfect.
Seth's Blog
Fooling ourselves It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker....
a year ago
27
a year ago
It’s tempting to believe that we’re not easy to fool. Not by a magician, a politician or a banker. Other folks might be easily duped by a spammer or a hustler, but not us. And yet, no one fools you more than you. When you look in the mirror, do you see what others see, […]
Seth's Blog
Own it and label it This takes guts, and hustlers are afraid to do so. Thirty years ago, when the avalanche of email...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
This takes guts, and hustlers are afraid to do so. Thirty years ago, when the avalanche of email spam was on the horizon, I proposed that any commercial email should have a $ in the subject line. A simple way for email programs to filter it out if you’re not looking for it....
Not Boring by Packy...
Most Human Wins A Strategy Memo for Humans, 2025 and Beyond
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
Maybe it’s in how you tell it The plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey is pretty simple. You could write out a summary in three...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
The plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey is pretty simple. You could write out a summary in three paragraphs. That’s not what made it one of the most revered movies of all time, and also one of the most difficult to make. Blurting out the plot of what we’re offering seems like the...
Open Culture
Spin the 17th-Century Death Roulette Wheel & Find Out What Would Have Killed You in 1665 A common historical misconception holds that, up until a few centuries ago, everyone died when they...
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
A common historical misconception holds that, up until a few centuries ago, everyone died when they were about 40. In fact, even in antiquity, one could well make it to what would be considered an advanced age today — assuming one survived the great mortal peril of childhood, and...
Haterade
Who Booby-Trapped This Tiny Cabbage? And other critical questions from the mailbag.
over a year ago
Open Culture
Watch Hardware Wars, the Original Star Wars Parody, in HD (1978) This past May, YouTuber Jenny Nicholson set off waves of social-media discourse with “The...
a year ago
83
a year ago
This past May, YouTuber Jenny Nicholson set off waves of social-media discourse with “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel,” a four-hour-long video critique of Disney’s hugely expensive, now-shuttered Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser in Orlando, Florida. Having gone...
The Great Discontent...
Brian Eno From pioneering ambient music and ever-evolving light paintings to innovating production styles,...
a year ago
26
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Rob Jones I am a textiles artist working with Japanese techniques such as Shibori, shaped resist and Katagami...
a year ago
90
a year ago
I am a textiles artist working with Japanese techniques such as Shibori, shaped resist and Katagami stencilling (using indigo to dye the fabric). I also work with formal Japanese embroidery techniques - Sashiko and Kogin (counted thread) embroidery as well as some Boro inspired...
Open Culture
David Bowie’s Fashionable Mug Shot From His 1976 Marijuana Bust David Bowie always managed to look cool, even when he was being booked for a felony. In early 1976,...
9 months ago
47
9 months ago
David Bowie always managed to look cool, even when he was being booked for a felony. In early 1976, Bowie was on his “Isolar” tour, performing as the Thin White Duke, a persona he would describe as “a very Aryan fascist type — a would-be romantic with no emotions at all.” Bowie...
Open Culture
George Orwell Reviews Salvador Dali’s Autobiography: “Dali is a Good Draughtsman and a Disgusting... Images or Orwell and Dali via Wikimedia Commons Should we hold artists to the same standards of...
a month ago
29
a month ago
Images or Orwell and Dali via Wikimedia Commons Should we hold artists to the same standards of human decency that we expect of everyone else? Should talented people be exempt from ordinary morality? Should artists of questionable character have their work consigned to the trash...
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...
over a year ago
85
over 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.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Angie Lewin I'm a printmaker working in linocut, wood engraving and silk screen. I also exhibit my watercolours...
a year ago
106
a year ago
I'm a printmaker working in linocut, wood engraving and silk screen. I also exhibit my watercolours and create collages of printed Japanese papers applied to objects collected on walking and sketching trips. In 2005, I set up St Jude's, along with my husband Simon, to produce...
Seth's Blog
“I’ve never seen you paint” … said the collector to the painter Jasper Johns. “Neither have I.” Watching is different than...
a year ago
32
a year ago
… said the collector to the painter Jasper Johns. “Neither have I.” Watching is different than doing. Trying to do both at the same time is a challenge.
Open Culture
Public.Work: A Smoothly Searchable Archive of 100,000+ “Copyright-Free” Images We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our...
11 months ago
58
11 months ago
We live in an age, we’re often told, when our ability to conjure up an image is limited only by our imagination. These days, this notion tends to refer to artificial intelligence-powered systems that generate visual material from text prompts, like DALL‑E and the many others that...
Open Culture
Mary Tyler Moore Accidentally Nails a Perfect Pool Shot on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1962) Let’s rewind the videotape and revisit a classic moment in The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the 1962...
7 months ago
82
7 months ago
Let’s rewind the videotape and revisit a classic moment in The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the 1962 episode called “Hustling the Hustler,” Mary Tyler Moore (as Laura Petrie) plays pool and sinks three balls in a single shot. The original plan was to splice in footage of a professional...
Stat Significant
What Are the Greatest Sequels of All Time? A Statistical Analysis What are the best movie sequels, and why?
6 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Monotype with Natural Materials Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut...
8 months ago
74
8 months ago
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut block or plate. For this project we're using this simple technique to produce beautifully delicate prints using natural materials and found objects. You can also combine this with...
Seth's Blog
A labor of love That’s magical. To have the resources to expend labor on something that fills us with joy. If you’re...
10 months ago
66
10 months ago
That’s magical. To have the resources to expend labor on something that fills us with joy. If you’re lucky enough to encounter this, perhaps it makes sense not to confuse the issue by also trying to turn it into labor for maximum profit. When we focus on one, we often decrease...
Seth's Blog
Digital prepwork It’s so tempting to simply begin painting a wall. After all, it’s pretty easy to lay down paint. But...
over a year ago
103
over a year ago
It’s so tempting to simply begin painting a wall. After all, it’s pretty easy to lay down paint. But it turns out that masking and dropcloths, painstakingly put into place, save many hours compared to cleaning up a mess afterward. The same is true for what happens when we have a...
Seth's Blog
The obligations of the Town Hall A few hundred years ago, small towns in New England embraced the idea of the town hall. Citizens (at...
a year ago
44
a year ago
A few hundred years ago, small towns in New England embraced the idea of the town hall. Citizens (at the time, just the white men) came together and worked through the town’s agenda. Each person could speak, each person could vote, it was direct and sometimes effective. Part of...
Seth's Blog
Our homunculus is showing The little person at the control panel, the one who sees what the retina produces, the one who...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
The little person at the control panel, the one who sees what the retina produces, the one who decides, the one who speaks up… (This is the dualist solution to the free will problem–yes, I have a physical body, they say, but I also have a little human inside of me that gets to...
Seth's Blog
Ice sculpture There are very few activities that are fully reversible. Ice sculpture might be one of them. Once...
8 months ago
45
8 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
How to buy a lottery ticket There are lots of cultural lotteries around us. The next pop song, the book that everyone is talking...
8 months ago
53
8 months ago
There are lots of cultural lotteries around us. The next pop song, the book that everyone is talking about, the blog post or video that goes viral… it even applies to who gets into a famous college or is selected by the AI screening for a good job. The usual advice is: Fit in....
Seth's Blog
Paying attention to attention There are people and organizations that are working overtime to redirect and manipulate your...
a month ago
15
a month ago
There are people and organizations that are working overtime to redirect and manipulate your attention. The question is: Are they more aware and careful in how you spend your attention than you are? The act of focusing on what we focus on pays enormous dividends.
John Reynolds -...
Title Designer & Creative Director ︎︎︎ X/Twitter ︎︎︎ Instagram ︎︎︎ LinkedIn
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The Superman metaphors Sooner or later, we are all superheroes. Superman wears a costume. As we all do. He isn’t great at...
5 days ago
7
5 days ago
Sooner or later, we are all superheroes. Superman wears a costume. As we all do. He isn’t great at time management, always focused on the urgency at hand instead of investing in long-term planning. He rarely works to change the foundational system he’s part of. Supervillians...
Open Culture
Watch Pablo Picasso’s Creative Process Unfold in Real-Time: Rare Footage Shows Him Creating Drawings... Pablo Picasso was born not long before the invention of the motion picture. With a different set of...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Pablo Picasso was born not long before the invention of the motion picture. With a different set of inclinations, he might have become one of the most daring pioneers of that medium. Instead, as we know, he mastered and then practically reinvented the much older art form of...
Open Culture
Johnny Cash & The Clash’s Joe Strummer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” (2002) In 1958, Merle Haggard saw Johnny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing honest country songs...
9 months ago
79
9 months ago
In 1958, Merle Haggard saw Johnny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing honest country songs for country outlaws. In 1982, future Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello saw Joe Strummer play with The Clash in Chicago and went on to play angry righteous rock for...
Open Culture
Ancient Greek Armor Gets Tested in an 11-Hour Battle Simulation Inspired by the Iliad By Greek law, every male citizen over the age of eighteen must spend from nine months to a year in...
a year ago
68
a year ago
By Greek law, every male citizen over the age of eighteen must spend from nine months to a year in the Hellenic Armed Forces. As in every country with such a policy of mandatory conscription, this is surely not a prospect relished by most conscripts-to-be. But then, it can’t be...
Seth's Blog
The first nine minutes Mixing up a batch of homemade vegan marshmallow Fluff® is an exercise in patience. For the first...
a year ago
53
a year ago
Mixing up a batch of homemade vegan marshmallow Fluff® is an exercise in patience. For the first nine minutes of the ten minutes it takes in the mixer, not much happens. And then, it transforms into something fluffy and delightful. Without the recipe, it’s unlikely that most...
Open Culture
Hear the Letter of Gratitude That Albert Camus Wrote to His Teacher After Winning the Nobel Prize,... When Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize, he wrote a letter to one of his old schoolteachers. “I let...
4 weeks ago
18
4 weeks ago
When Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize, he wrote a letter to one of his old schoolteachers. “I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart,” the letter begins. “I have just been given far too great an honor, one I neither...
Anarchy Unfolds
3 Pieces for Rethinking Identity Politics Mental health, neurodivergence, orientation, and the path ahead
8 months ago
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
23
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
Discernment in creativity The hard part isn’t good ideas. It never has been. The hard part is choosing. Ask GPT for ten...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
The hard part isn’t good ideas. It never has been. The hard part is choosing. Ask GPT for ten subtitles for your book, or sixteen ways to hold a surprise party, and you’ll be delighted at how useful they are. Ask Dreamstudio or Kittl for some logo designs, same thing. There is...
Seth's Blog
Charged by the word In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the word when you write, in fact, you should pay for every extra word you use. Be as brief as is useful.
Seth's Blog
No lunging I’ve been working hard on my juggling (actual juggling, not metaphorical juggling). The secret, as I...
a year ago
30
a year ago
I’ve been working hard on my juggling (actual juggling, not metaphorical juggling). The secret, as I wrote about in The Practice is the throwing, not the catching. If you get the throws right, the catches are easy. The way to focus on the throws is simple but culturally...
Open Culture
When Kris Kristofferson (RIP) Stood by Sinéad O’Connor at the Height of Her Controversy One would have imagined Sinéad O’Connor impervious to any reaction from a hostile audience, no...
9 months ago
71
9 months ago
One would have imagined Sinéad O’Connor impervious to any reaction from a hostile audience, no matter how vitriolic. But even for a public figure as outspoken and unapologetic as her, it could all get to be a bit much at times. Take the 1992 concert Columbia Records put on for...
John Reynolds -...
Mammoth Life - Wanna Be Loved Music Video Title: Wanna Be LovedArtist: Mammoth LifeYear: 2014 --
over a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Caroline Whitehead I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with...
a year ago
47
a year ago
I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with alternative forms of lithography (mokulito (wood litho), kitchen litho, prontoplate litho, waterless litho, gum transfer). I also make prints on clay. As well as making my own prints, I also...
Anarchy Unfolds
Queer Folk Don't Need Orientation How decade-old discourse shows us a way out
9 months ago
Open Culture
David Bowie Songs Reimagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers: Space Oddity, Heroes, Life on Mars & More In the last year, screenwriter Todd Alcott’s hobby has blown up into a legit side career. This Etsy...
10 months ago
76
10 months ago
In the last year, screenwriter Todd Alcott’s hobby has blown up into a legit side career. This Etsy seller isn’t peddling kombucha SCOBYs, letter pressing new baby announcements, or repurposing old barns for use as cutting boards. No, Alcott’s crafty fortunes fall squarely at the...
Open Culture
A Short Visual History of America, According to the Irreverent Comic Artist R. Crumb As a founder of the “underground comix” movement in the 1960s, R. Crumb is either revered as a...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
As a founder of the “underground comix” movement in the 1960s, R. Crumb is either revered as a pioneering satirist of American culture and its excesses or reviled as a juvenile purveyor of painfully outmoded sexist and racist stereotypes. Crumb doesn’t apologize. He keeps...
Seth's Blog
Gentle Scrabble hacks Perhaps these might make a great game more fun: Maximize total score: Exactly the same rules as...
over a year ago
80
over a year ago
Perhaps these might make a great game more fun: Maximize total score: Exactly the same rules as regular Scrabble, but focus on increasing the total score of all players instead of defeating the others. It’s subtle, it can be challenging for a good player, and it creates more...
Seth's Blog
On whining It’s not just for little kids, and it might not be a bug in our culture. Whining might be a feature,...
8 months ago
55
8 months ago
It’s not just for little kids, and it might not be a bug in our culture. Whining might be a feature, something that all humans have a desire to do, regardless of our age or position. Let’s define whining as a complaint about a situation that’s not easily addressed, often a...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #128 Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline,...
5 months ago
15
5 months ago
Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline, Contrary Tech Trends, Sacca on Ferriss
Seth's Blog
Invention or discovery? We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit...
a year ago
92
a year ago
We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit for naming it and describing it. And Columbus definitely didn’t discover North America. There had been people living here for tens of thousands of years before he arrived. After...
Seth's Blog
On choosing a college For some fortunate 17 year olds, the end of the year is the day for a momentous decision, one that’s...
a year ago
37
a year ago
For some fortunate 17 year olds, the end of the year is the day for a momentous decision, one that’s largely out of the comfort zone of a 17 year old. A four-year college education in the US can cost nearly half a million dollars once we count the expenses and foregone...
Open Culture
Ken Burns’ New Documentary on Leonardo da Vinci Streaming Online (in the US) for a Limited Time A quick heads up: The filmmaker Ken Burns has just released his new documentary on Leonardo da...
7 months ago
64
7 months ago
A quick heads up: The filmmaker Ken Burns has just released his new documentary on Leonardo da Vinci. Running nearly four hours, the film offers what The New York Times calls a “thorough and engrossing biography” of the 15th-century polymath. Currently airing on PBS, the film can...
Seth's Blog
Refocusing Freedom, liberty and independence are human rights. But they depend on responsibility....
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
Freedom, liberty and independence are human rights. But they depend on responsibility. Responsibility to others, to our future, to the community. Responsibility for our actions and our choices. The only way to earn our independence is to keep the promises we’ve made. Can we...
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Sunday 15th December
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
The weird math of halfway 6 times 1/2 doesn’t equal 3. It equals zero. We’re tempted to do a little less than we need to....
a year ago
27
a year ago
6 times 1/2 doesn’t equal 3. It equals zero. We’re tempted to do a little less than we need to. Perhaps we’re busy, with too many options. Perhaps it’s resistance, pushing us to hold a little bit back. Whatever the reason, when we show up just a little, we get zero credit. The...
Seth's Blog
Everyone wants to be connected But we hesitate to be the connector. Everyone wants to be trusted, but we hesitate to trust. And...
a year ago
60
a year ago
But we hesitate to be the connector. Everyone wants to be trusted, but we hesitate to trust. And everyone wants to be respected, but we often fail to offer our respect. What an opportunity.
Seth's Blog
“Thank you” is a complete sentence It’s a way to offer connection or acknowledgment. It’s a recognition of feedback and the time it...
7 months ago
43
7 months ago
It’s a way to offer connection or acknowledgment. It’s a recognition of feedback and the time it took someone to consider us. We can use it after we share something important, or someone shares with us. More than the end of an exchange, it can be the beginning of a relationship....
Seth's Blog
The sportscar quadrants They apply to jobs, relationships, art projects and everything in between: The top right is the rare...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
They apply to jobs, relationships, art projects and everything in between: The top right is the rare one–a car that goes fast but doesn’t feel like it’s on the edge. The hot rod is a car that is actually pretty safe, precisely because it doesn’t feel that way. You don’t have to...
Seth's Blog
Ensemble stars Over the last 50 years, 167 different people have been part of the Saturday Night Live ensemble...
5 months ago
30
5 months ago
Over the last 50 years, 167 different people have been part of the Saturday Night Live ensemble cast. Some of them went on to become comedy superstars, others lasted a less than a season and are fairly obscure in the cultural pantheon. But if you were tasked of creating an...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Corinne Mangan Hello, I’m Corinne Mangan and I live and work in the beautiful Surrey Hills where I find most of my...
3 weeks ago
20
3 weeks ago
Hello, I’m Corinne Mangan and I live and work in the beautiful Surrey Hills where I find most of my inspiration; I’m currently an Artist in Residence at Ochre Print Studio in Guildford. Describe your printmaking process. I have spent the previous year or so working mostly in...
On the Arts
The Meaning of Melancholy An Interview with Hans Maes
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Optimized or maximized? Engineers can optimize a bridge. There are some bridge designs that satisfy aesthetic, financial,...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Engineers can optimize a bridge. There are some bridge designs that satisfy aesthetic, financial, durability, safety and efficiency needs better than others. The work of optimization is finding the best set of tradeoffs. Maximization, on the other hand, seeks the solution that...
Open Culture
Read 20 Short Stories From Nobel Prize-Winning Writer Alice Munro (RIP) Free Online Note: Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, we published a post...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Note: Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, we published a post featuring 20 short stories written by Munro. Today, with the sad news that Alice Munro has passed away, at the age of 92, we’re bringing the original post (from October 10, 2013) back to...
Seth's Blog
Moving toward ease “Ease” isn’t the same as “easy.” In fact, they’re often at odds. Easy work is hardly worth our...
9 months ago
59
9 months ago
“Ease” isn’t the same as “easy.” In fact, they’re often at odds. Easy work is hardly worth our effort. It can deaden us instead of giving us the chance to bring our best selves to life. Ease, on the other hand, is the feeling of doing something worthwhile, and doing it well. When...
Open Culture
Face to Face with Carl Jung: ‘Man Cannot Stand a Meaningless Life’ (1959) Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was...
12 months ago
54
12 months ago
Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was born on July 26, 1875 in the village of Kesswil, in the Thurgau canton of Switzerland. Above, we present a fascinating 39-minute interview of Jung by John Freeman for the BBC program...
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
30
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
Summarize this… A great use of ChatGPT and other AI is to paste relevant text into the chat box and ask for a...
a year ago
18
a year ago
A great use of ChatGPT and other AI is to paste relevant text into the chat box and ask for a summary. I did this with 300 suggestions that came via a Google form and it did the work better, faster and with more clarity (and less bias) than a person would. Often, we’re clouded...
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...
over a year ago
44
over 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,...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Understanding the work - Thoughts on one day with three art events. A few thoughts on a few art events that happened around Boston Feb. 22nd.
over a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Jenny O'Leary Hi, my name is Jenny O’Leary and I am a textile artist and tutor living in Shropshire. I work with...
11 months ago
88
11 months ago
Hi, my name is Jenny O’Leary and I am a textile artist and tutor living in Shropshire. I work with batik (hot wax resist), mainly on tissue paper - combining it with bleach, ink and dyes. I sometimes stitch to create beautiful surfaces and textures. Collage and layering are an...
Not Boring by Packy...
Hyperlegible 007: 50 Things Brian Potter Has Learned Writing Construction Physics Things are almost always more complicated than they seem.
2 months ago
Stat Significant
What's the Perfect Song Length? A Statistical Analysis Investigating the "ideal" song length, and whether such a thing exists.
4 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Frankie Brown I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic storybooks and I love to create whimsical hand-printed illustrations. I also work part-time at Handprinted; looking after the studio, liaising with tutors, teaching some Fab Fridays,...
Stat Significant
Do People Actually Hate Coldplay? A Statistical Analysis Examining Coldplay's confusing cultural reputation.
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
The generous ask “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That’s problematic advice. Taken to an extreme, it turns us into...
a year ago
31
a year ago
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That’s problematic advice. Taken to an extreme, it turns us into hustlers. The alternative is to realize that the best asks are actually offers. When we offer to help someone get to where they were going, we’re approaching the relationship with...
Open Culture
The Fake Buildings of New York: What Happens Inside Their Mysterious Walls You can’t go on a walk with a serious enthusiast of New York history without hearing the stories...
9 months ago
57
9 months ago
You can’t go on a walk with a serious enthusiast of New York history without hearing the stories behind at least a few notable, beautiful, or downright strange buildings. Yet most longtime New Yorkers, famed for tuning out their surroundings to better strive for their goals of...
Seth's Blog
Specific It’s one thing to say that 7,000,000 people will die next year from smoking cigarettes. It’s a...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
It’s one thing to say that 7,000,000 people will die next year from smoking cigarettes. It’s a totally different thing to list those folks by name. When we confront risk, two things make it seem less real: We’re not sure who, and we’re not sure when. If you want to clarify our...
Seth's Blog
An end to pop Pop culture depends on scarcity. When there are only a few TV stations or a dozen radio stations,...
over a year ago
90
over a year ago
Pop culture depends on scarcity. When there are only a few TV stations or a dozen radio stations, it’s likely that many of us watch or hear the same thing at the same time. And so a popular TV show or song from fifty years ago probably reached twenty times as many people as a […]
Seth's Blog
The Impact Matrix: Moving to the golden quadrant Tactics are tempting. We can lean into them, invest, build our skills and count on results....
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
Tactics are tempting. We can lean into them, invest, build our skills and count on results. Strategies are more elusive. And a mismatch between strategy and tactics leads to wasted effort. In this 2 x 2 grid, you can see how easy it is to get stuck. The worst outcome is a...
Open Culture
What Victorian People Sounded Like: Hear Recordings of Florence Nightingale & Queen Victoria Herself More than 120 years after the end of the Victorian era, we might assume that we retain a more or...
8 months ago
43
8 months ago
More than 120 years after the end of the Victorian era, we might assume that we retain a more or less accurate cultural memory of the Victorians themselves: of their social mores, their aesthetic sensibilities, their ambitions great and small, their many and varied hang-ups. Some...
Seth's Blog
The Le Guin precepts Fabled author Ursula Le Guin had a sign over her desk: Not a bad place to begin.
a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Madder Cutch & Co. We are screen printers. We presume everyone knows that this is pushing ink through a mesh, which has...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
We are screen printers. We presume everyone knows that this is pushing ink through a mesh, which has a pattern on it, using a squeegee. In our case, the screen and squeegee are quite big! We print linen by the metre and it is mainly used for home decorations, including...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #133 Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine, Restoring Hearing, Loyal, Atlas, Apple, Coinbase, Lunar Landers
4 months ago
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Suckered Yet Again Influencer boxing, BlueSky winning, and incredible calendar confessions
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
By association We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person...
a year ago
27
a year ago
We’re busy, we’re confused and we’re always seeking a shortcut. If a company is hiring, the person who worked at Google or Apple or Disney gets more of the benefit of the doubt. Even if all they did was bring coffee to someone. But, if that person was one of the hundreds laid off...
Seth's Blog
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...
over a year ago
46
over 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 […]
Open Culture
High-Tech Analysis of Ancient Scroll Reveals Plato’s Burial Site and Final Hours Even if you can name only one ancient Greek, you can name Plato. You can also probably say at least...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Even if you can name only one ancient Greek, you can name Plato. You can also probably say at least a little about him, if only some of the things humanity has known since antiquity. Until recently, of course, that qualification would have been redundant. But now, thanks to an...
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing a Repeat Pattern Printing a length of your own designed fabric is so exciting but most of us do not have the luxury...
over a year ago
89
over a year ago
Printing a length of your own designed fabric is so exciting but most of us do not have the luxury of a fabric registration table. Here's an easy step by step guide to printing a repeat pattern on a length of fabric using an A4 43T screen. Draw the design motifs onto...
Seth's Blog
99 vs 0 If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other...
over a year ago
96
over a year ago
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other hand, if the scrub nurse only does a 99% job of disinfecting the tools in the operating room, you’re still going to die of an infection. Some projects respond very well to...
Marian's Blog
Agent V – Global Game Jam 2018 Project This year I participated in my first game jam, the Global Game Jam 2018. With a team of artists,...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
This year I participated in my first game jam, the Global Game Jam 2018. With a team of artists, programmers and a sound designer, we made a video game within 48 hours. You play the game as a virus that infiltrates a company’s headquarters. The virus can not move on its own, it...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Keith A. Pettit I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex....
8 months ago
61
8 months ago
I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex. I left school and started work with a signwriter. I thought I was learning a trade for life - alas I was unaware of the digital revolution that was sweeping all before it. I've...
escape the algorithm
Befriending neighbors and beneighboring friends The Casement Window Theory of community building
11 months ago
Seth's Blog
The paradox of self skepticism If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we...
a year ago
66
a year ago
If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we have something to offer. That we are, in some way, right. But the enterprise of rational thought is based on theories, tests and improvements. We can never be certain, all we have is...
Handprinted - Blog
How Much Detail on Exposed Screens? When designing artwork for exposed screens it can be very difficult to figure out what level of...
a month ago
19
a month ago
When designing artwork for exposed screens it can be very difficult to figure out what level of detail you can include. Different mesh counts will be able to handle different levels of detail. The mesh number relates to how many threads there are per cm of mesh: 32T has 32...
Seth's Blog
The A.R.E. skills matter more than ever Perhaps this is what your team needs from you: Agreeableness is not the same as agreeing. In fact,...
over a year ago
63
over a year ago
Perhaps this is what your team needs from you: Agreeableness is not the same as agreeing. In fact, they have little in common. Finding someone who’s only job is to agree with everything that is said is easy. On the other hand, agreeableness is the skill of having a contrary...
Open Culture
Watch The Cure Perform a Three-Hour Concert in London, Celebrating the Release of Their New Album httpv://www.youtube.com/live/_aWDlaxvEZo Last Friday, The Cure celebrated the release of their new...
8 months ago
54
8 months ago
httpv://www.youtube.com/live/_aWDlaxvEZo Last Friday, The Cure celebrated the release of their new album, Songs of a Lost World, with a three-hour set at the Troxy in London. The band kicked off the show by performing all eight tracks from the album, before then playing another...
escape the algorithm
Have you tried unplugging and plugging yourself back in again? A conversation with David Zvi Kalman
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
Who cares? A question we don’t ask ourselves very often, but a choice we make every day. It’s tempting to not...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
A question we don’t ask ourselves very often, but a choice we make every day. It’s tempting to not care. If you choose to not care, you’re off the hook. It’s simply to do as little as possible, avoid too much trouble, ask if it will be on the test, try to stay off the […]
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...
8 months ago
58
8 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...
Open Culture
Oscar-Winning Director Frank Capra Made an Educational Science Film Warning of Climate Change in... In 2015, we highlighted for you The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays, a largely-forgotten 1957...
a year ago
51
a year ago
In 2015, we highlighted for you The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays, a largely-forgotten 1957 educational science film. The production is notable partly because it was shot by Frank Capra, the influential director who had won not one, not two, but three Oscars for best director....
Seth's Blog
Take good notes Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes)...
8 months ago
43
8 months ago
Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes) our understanding of the world. Good teachers are storytellers, and storytellers are teachers. Notes, then, aren’t recitations of facts. They’re story prompts. A good note reminds...
Seth's Blog
The shifting status of more data How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell....
a year ago
31
a year ago
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell. Either the building falls down or it doesn’t. Either the car starts after you charge the battery or it’s still dead. We can ask easy questions about how long it took or how much it […]
Seth's Blog
It’s not easy to see time Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about...
9 months ago
74
9 months ago
Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about any frame of this graph. But when we pause for just a few seconds for it to load and render, we can see 150 years unfold and then the truth becomes apparent. The snapshot is a...
Marian's Blog
Infinite procedurally generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm This is a game where you walk through an infinite city that is procedurally generated as you...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
This is a game where you walk through an infinite city that is procedurally generated as you walk. It is generated from a set of blocks with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm. You can download a playable build of the game on itch.io and you can get the source code on...
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
24
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
PW 3: Errors and productivity If productivity is useful work created by time or money, it’s worth thinking about what we mean by...
a year ago
28
a year ago
If productivity is useful work created by time or money, it’s worth thinking about what we mean by ‘useful’. There are areas where reliability is crucial. It turns out that building an airplane that works 95% of the time is incredibly easy compared to building one that never...
Seth's Blog
Significant work is a vote When we show up to bring humanity to work, we’re making a choice. It involves risk and effort and...
a year ago
21
a year ago
When we show up to bring humanity to work, we’re making a choice. It involves risk and effort and emotional labor. We’re here to make a change happen, and we’re giving something to make that happen. So it’s a vote. A vote for the customer we seek to serve. A vote for the boss and...
Seth's Blog
Should we assume rational goodwill? There’s often a choice between following the cultural dictates of a given group or seeking out...
a year ago
23
a year ago
There’s often a choice between following the cultural dictates of a given group or seeking out demonstrable facts and the scientific method. Which do you expect most people would choose? Which would you choose? When we revert to a testable analysis of what works, we’re relying on...
Open Culture
The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973–2023) Hip-hop was once a subculture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unquestionably dominant...
7 months ago
41
7 months ago
Hip-hop was once a subculture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unquestionably dominant forms of popular music — not just in America, and not just among young people. There are, of course, still a fair few hip-hop holdouts, but even they’ve come to know a thing or two...
Open Culture
Umberto Eco’s List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism Creative Commons image by Rob Bogaerts, via the National Archives in Holland One of the key...
8 months ago
89
8 months ago
Creative Commons image by Rob Bogaerts, via the National Archives in Holland One of the key questions facing both journalists and loyal oppositions these days is how do we stay honest as euphemisms and trivializations take over the discourse? Can we use words like “fascism,” for...
Seth's Blog
Project management A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
A project is a promise. It’s about coordinating unknowable future events to deliver something of value. Showing up on time for a meeting is a project (airlines! traffic! weather!) and so is building a skyscraper. That next podcast you’re going to publish is a project, and so is...
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
27
over a year ago
what could it mean? You just watched a historical TV moment: never before has the audience for a show been smarter than its writer.   I submit as second evidence the season finale for The Bachelor that was on yesterday, for three hours, drawing ten million "people".  Just...
Seth's Blog
The seduction of false promises Why do we buy the pitch of the snake oil salesman, the flim-flam man, the con artist, the demagogue...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Why do we buy the pitch of the snake oil salesman, the flim-flam man, the con artist, the demagogue or the trickster? As our modern world becomes more informed and more rational, we see an increase (not the expected decrease) in scams, hustles, and chaos. There are Jokers and...
Marian's Blog
Generating 3D roof meshes from aerial LIDAR data This is my graduation project I did in computer science. The goal was to come up with a method to...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
This is my graduation project I did in computer science. The goal was to come up with a method to generate 3D meshes of building roofs from point cloud data. The point cloud data was taken with aerial LIDAR scanners and is available online. In addition, I used building layout...
Anarchy Unfolds
The hope of anarchy Letters to an anarchist - Part 6
8 months ago
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
90
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...
Neocha – Culture &...
Modern Thai Calligraphy
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The run-on sentence Periods were an extraordinary invention. It took thousands of years of writing before we settled on...
8 months ago
40
8 months ago
Periods were an extraordinary invention. It took thousands of years of writing before we settled on this simple convention. The most direct way to improve your writing is to make your sentences shorter. I was reading a magazine article yesterday and was rapidly losing interest....
Open Culture
How Art Gets Stolen: What Happened to Egon Schiele’s Painting Boats Mirrored in the Water After Its... George Clooney may be better regarded as an actor than as a director, but his occasional work in the...
9 months ago
55
9 months ago
George Clooney may be better regarded as an actor than as a director, but his occasional work in the latter capacity reveals an admirable interest in lesser-dramatized chapters of American history. His films have found their material in everything from the early years of the NFL...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Jennie Ing Describe your printmaking process. I make linocut prints by the reduction method. This is where all...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Describe your printmaking process. I make linocut prints by the reduction method. This is where all the colours come from the same piece of lino with the successive cutting away of the lino block and printing a new colour over the top of the last. The edition size has to be...
Open Culture
The First Professional Footage of Pink Floyd Gets Captured in a 1967 Documentary (and the Band Also... British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with...
a year ago
60
a year ago
British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with his promo films for the Rolling Stones in the mid-60s. According to Ali Catterall and Simon Wells, authors of Your Face Here, a study of “British Cult Film since the Sixties,”...
Seth's Blog
Getting to next There’s a difference between ‘rich’ and ‘richer’. And ‘fit’ and ‘fitter’. The problem with a pre-amp...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
There’s a difference between ‘rich’ and ‘richer’. And ‘fit’ and ‘fitter’. The problem with a pre-amp that goes all the way to 11 isn’t that it’s louder. The problem is that very soon, the person who bought one of these will want one that goes to 12. Living in the liminal space is...
Seth's Blog
Time well spent Doing what? When we choose which job to apply for, what career to commit to, which business to...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
Doing what? When we choose which job to apply for, what career to commit to, which business to start, it might be worth a moment (or a few moments) to get at the heart of what a day well spent produces. What’s it for? Here are a few to get you started: It’s hard to […]
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...
11 months ago
47
11 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...
Open Culture
Why Most Ancient Civilizations Had No Word for the Color Blue In an old Zen story, two monks argue over whether a flag is waving or whether it’s the wind that...
3 months ago
45
3 months ago
In an old Zen story, two monks argue over whether a flag is waving or whether it’s the wind that waves. Their teacher strikes them both dumb, saying, “It is your mind that moves.” The centuries-old koan illustrates a point Zen masters — and later philosophers, psychologists, and...
Open Culture
Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi–Walt Disney’s 1943 Film Shows How Fascists Are Made During World War II, Walt Disney entered into a contract with the US government to develop 32...
2 months ago
36
2 months ago
During World War II, Walt Disney entered into a contract with the US government to develop 32 animated shorts. Nearly bankrupted by Fantasia (1940), Disney needed to refill its coffers, and making American propaganda films didn’t seem like a bad way to do it. On numerous...
Anarchy Unfolds
To beat fascism, tell better stories On false narratives and the stories we need to tell
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
The lonely zone For many, the goal is to be the deciding vote, the donation that gets a cause over the goal, the...
over a year ago
80
over a year ago
For many, the goal is to be the deciding vote, the donation that gets a cause over the goal, the person who counts. And often, we enjoy piling on. Once the cause or fashion or tech is clearly working, it’s easy and fun to say “me too.” More rare, more vulnerable and more...
Open Culture
Thousands of Pablo Picasso’s Works Now Available in a New Digital Archive If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Pablo Picasso, you might start at the Museo Picasso...
a year ago
59
a year ago
If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Pablo Picasso, you might start at the Museo Picasso Málaga, located in the artist’s Spanish birthplace. But to understand how his work developed throughout his life, you’ll have to get out of Spain — which is just what Picasso did...
Anarchy Unfolds
April '24 Myths & Recs Sexual orientation, Cowboy Carter, mental health recovery, and more
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Normalizing selfishness Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly...
a year ago
28
a year 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
“Won’t get fooled again” Alas, we probably will. Recurring scams, hustles and deceptions work because we’re eager to be...
8 months ago
44
8 months ago
Alas, we probably will. Recurring scams, hustles and deceptions work because we’re eager to be fooled by them. Vaporware, false deadlines, fake budgets, unrealistic promises and straight out con jobs persist because at some level, we demand them. Divisive arguments, mob...
Haterade
The Haterade Test Kitchen Makes Depression Tots™ Combating nihilism with crispier crowns.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Feeding the algorithm The marketing consultant told the client that they have to post three times a day on LinkedIn. “It...
10 months ago
37
10 months ago
The marketing consultant told the client that they have to post three times a day on LinkedIn. “It doesn’t matter if it’s good.” The SEO consultant explained that the website had to be loaded with keywords, and that a big budget needed to be set aside to develop inbound links....
Seth's Blog
How to win an argument with a toddler You can’t. That’s because toddlers don’t understand what an argument is and aren’t interesting in...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
You can’t. That’s because toddlers don’t understand what an argument is and aren’t interesting in having one. Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda and radio talk show hosts) may indicate that they’d like to...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #129 Supersonic Boom, DeepSeek, Science Corp, Heart Allografts, New Space, Meter
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
Silence vs noise When a group comes together, noise is easy. Just a few people have to make a commotion for noise to...
11 months ago
58
11 months ago
When a group comes together, noise is easy. Just a few people have to make a commotion for noise to happen. But silence requires everyone to be in sync.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Sue Lewry How and where did you learn to print? A decade ago, when I first stepped into a print workshop, I...
a year ago
83
a year ago
How and where did you learn to print? A decade ago, when I first stepped into a print workshop, I met print technician and artist India Ritchie, who taught me various printmaking methods while studying at Arts University Plymouth. India taught me intaglio, relief, and screen...
Seth's Blog
Misunderstanding bigness IBM spent a fortune fighting calls for them to be broken up. So did AT&T and Microsoft. In all three...
11 months ago
52
11 months ago
IBM spent a fortune fighting calls for them to be broken up. So did AT&T and Microsoft. In all three cases, there’s plenty of evidence that they would have been better off if they had simply broken themselves up. Microsoft is still recovering and IBM never will. One computer...
Stat Significant
The Fall and Rise of Nicolas Cage: A Statistical Analysis Nicolas Cage: A Data Story
10 months ago
Seth's Blog
Quietly change it When we think about altering a policy, a setting or even the outfit we usually wear, it’s easy to...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
When we think about altering a policy, a setting or even the outfit we usually wear, it’s easy to imagine that everyone is going to notice. In fact, almost no one will. That’s because no one cares about the noise in our head (or the actions we take) nearly as much as we do. You...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Something Wicked This Way Comes Theater Kids, BlueSky momentum, and Kai Cenat's big month
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
It just barely works This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers...
9 months ago
68
9 months ago
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers have ever created. The first Wright Bros. plane just barely flew. The first version of VisiCalc was just barely useful. The earliest bridges were shaky, unreliable and made of vines....
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
Richard Feynman Creates a Simple Method for Telling Science From Pseudoscience (1966) Photo by Tamiko Thiel via Wikimedia Commons How can we know whether a claim someone makes is...
10 months ago
49
10 months ago
Photo by Tamiko Thiel via Wikimedia Commons How can we know whether a claim someone makes is scientific or not? The question is of the utmost consequence, as we are surrounded on all sides by claims that sound credible, that use the language of science—and often do so in attempts...
Seth's Blog
Graceful Long after people forget the details, they’ll remember your kindness. There are many forms of...
a year ago
39
a year 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.
Seth's Blog
The freedom loop We spend almost no time teaching toddlers about freedom. Instead, the lessons we teach (and learn)...
over a year ago
125
over a year ago
We spend almost no time teaching toddlers about freedom. Instead, the lessons we teach (and learn) for our entire lives are about responsibility. It’s easy to teach freedom, but important to teach responsibility. Because if you get the responsibility taken care of, often the...
Seth's Blog
A protest or a project? Protests let off steam. They organize people who might not show up by creating a moment in time...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Protests let off steam. They organize people who might not show up by creating a moment in time where there’s enough opportunity and social pressure that they participate. A protest sends a message. But almost every time, the very things that made a protest appealing mean that it...
Seth's Blog
Spines out I lost a cookbook the other day. After twenty more minutes of searching, there it was, right on the...
a year ago
28
a year ago
I lost a cookbook the other day. After twenty more minutes of searching, there it was, right on the cookbook shelf. But the spine was much more subtle than the cover, and it hadn’t been what I was looking for or expecting. We spend a lot of time on our (metaphorical) book covers....
Open Culture
The World’s First Medieval Electronic Instrument: The EP-1320 Lets You Play the Sounds of... At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Gotland puts on Medeltidsveckan, or “Medieval Week,”...
11 months ago
66
11 months ago
At this time of the year, the Swedish island of Gotland puts on Medeltidsveckan, or “Medieval Week,” the country’s largest historical festival. According to its official About page, it offers its visitors the chance to “watch knights on horseback, drink something cold, take a...
Open Culture
Leo Tolstoy’s Family Recipe for Mac and Cheese In 1874, Stepan Andreevich Bers published The Cookbook and gave it as a gift to his sister, countess...
a month ago
23
a month ago
In 1874, Stepan Andreevich Bers published The Cookbook and gave it as a gift to his sister, countess Sophia Andreevna Tolstaya, the wife of the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy. The book contained a collection of Tolstoy family recipes, the dishes they served to their family...
Prolost
Kino: My New Favorite iPhone Video App The new Kino app recording ProRes Log with a custom preview LUT. Yes we’re still talking about...
a year ago
127
a year ago
The new Kino app recording ProRes Log with a custom preview LUT. Yes we’re still talking about shooting video on iPhones. But I also want to talk about digital cinema shooting in general, in a world where top camera makers are battling to give filmmakers everything we want in a...
Stat Significant
How Do Music Listening Habits Change With Age? A Statistical Analysis How does music listening change as we grow older?
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
No time to waste Of course there isn’t. Time is all we’ve got. Time is all there is. We can’t waste time because it’s...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
Of course there isn’t. Time is all we’ve got. Time is all there is. We can’t waste time because it’s not ours to waste. It’s simply the way we keep track of everything else.
Seth's Blog
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
25
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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Generating The Alphabet My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser...
a year ago
28
a year ago
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser based art work, using a “web safe” font could produce inconsistent results, while including a font file would mean a large file size. Additionally, I don’t want a visual element of...
Open Culture
14 Self-Portraits by Pablo Picasso Show the Evolution of His Style: See Self-Portraits Moving from... 15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic shifts of style as a kind of self-portraiture, an exercise in shifting consciousness and trying on of new aesthetic identities. The Spanish modernist made a career of sweeping...
Seth's Blog
“I don’t care” This is difficult. Care requires time and effort, and we can’t care about everything, all the way,...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
This is difficult. Care requires time and effort, and we can’t care about everything, all the way, all the time. If you’re prepared to care about every element of your work, then you also have to decide to not care about something else. Because caring equally about everything...
Seth's Blog
Transitions are difficult They’re risky (unknown territory leads to unforeseen outcomes) and a very recent phenomenon. A kid...
a year ago
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a year ago
They’re risky (unknown territory leads to unforeseen outcomes) and a very recent phenomenon. A kid dropped off at pre-school, a new boss, a food you’re not familiar with. None of this was common for most of pre-history. When the transition occurs, we’re tempted to direct our...
Open Culture
A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Back in 2008, Bob Boilen (host of All Songs Considered) and NPR music critic Stephen Thompson...
3 days ago
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3 days ago
Back in 2008, Bob Boilen (host of All Songs Considered) and NPR music critic Stephen Thompson attended a noisy concert where they struggled to hear Laura Gibson perform. Jokingly, Thompson suggested that Gibson perform at Boilen’s office desk instead. She did. And, with that, the...
Seth's Blog
When the media is ready (Bongo part 2) Media isn’t a magazine or a website. It’s a system. We can learn to see the system and contribute to...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Media isn’t a magazine or a website. It’s a system. We can learn to see the system and contribute to it with leverage. There are three elements to consider in a media system that’s worth a professional creator’s time: Systems are changed by technology. When desktop publishing...
Open Culture
Medievalist Professor Answers Medieval Questions From Twitter: Why Is It called the “Middle” Ages?,... From Wired comes this: “Professor of English and Medieval Literature Dr. Dorsey Armstrong answers...
a year ago
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a year ago
From Wired comes this: “Professor of English and Medieval Literature Dr. Dorsey Armstrong answers your questions about the Middle Ages from Twitter. Why is it called the “Middle” Ages? [What did medieval English sound like?] What activities did people do for fun? Why were animals...
Handprinted - Blog
How to Design and Print a Straight Repeating Pattern Here’s an easy way to design a repeat pattern (without using a computer) and to block print it on to...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Here’s an easy way to design a repeat pattern (without using a computer) and to block print it on to fabric. We used MasterCut for our block because it’s an easy to cut stamping material that prints beautifully. Draw around your block onto a piece of paper. Draw part of your...
Open Culture
The Entire History of English in 22 Minutes When we speak English, we might say we’re speaking the language of Samuel Johnson, the man who wrote...
4 days ago
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4 days ago
When we speak English, we might say we’re speaking the language of Samuel Johnson, the man who wrote its first dictionary. Or we could say we’re speaking the language of Shakespeare, who coined more English terms than any other individual in history. It would make just as much...
Not Boring by Packy...
Hyperlegible 003: Julian Lehr The case against conversational interfaces
3 months ago
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Curved Line Jellyfish I had pictured something quite bold, graphical and geometric but I ended with gradients and...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I had pictured something quite bold, graphical and geometric but I ended with gradients and floatiness.
Open Culture
T. S. Eliot’s Classic Modernist Poem The Waste Land Gets Adapted into Comic-Book Form The phrase “April is the cruelest month” was first printed more than 100 years ago, and it’s been in...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
The phrase “April is the cruelest month” was first printed more than 100 years ago, and it’s been in common circulation almost as long. One can easily know it without having the faintest idea of its source, let alone its meaning. This is not, of course, to call T. S. Eliot’s The...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rosanna Morris I am an illustrator and printmaker, working mainly with relief. I work from my large studio on the...
a year ago
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a year ago
I am an illustrator and printmaker, working mainly with relief. I work from my large studio on the top floor of an creative warehouse in east Bristol. I also run a courses, workshops and printmaking events. Describe your printmaking process. I usually start with a pencil...
Seth's Blog
Celebrating the thousand with a special package [Lots of links in this post… US offer is here, international is here.] Ideas travel horizontally....
10 months ago
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10 months ago
[Lots of links in this post… US offer is here, international is here.] Ideas travel horizontally. Not from the creator to the audience as much as from one person to another. It’s easy to misunderstand the insight of Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans. Decades ago he argued that the...
Infinite Scroll
A User's Guide to Building a Subculture How communities form online
6 months ago
Haterade
Introducing: Barbecue Running Gel It's time to smoke the competition.
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...
a year ago
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a year 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....
Prolost
Red Giant VFX Suite Today Red Giant has released a brand-new collection of plug-ins for visual effects compositing. It’s...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Today Red Giant has released a brand-new collection of plug-ins for visual effects compositing. It’s called VFX Suite, and some of these tools are things I’ve been dreaming about since computers were beige. There are nine plug-ins in the suite. You can learn about all of them at...
Marian's Blog
3D Printed Mechanical Digital Clock This post is about building a 3D printed, mechanical digital clock, made out of seven-segment...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
This post is about building a 3D printed, mechanical digital clock, made out of seven-segment displays. The project was inspired by a video by Lukas Deem, who built a clock with seven-segment displays where the segments slide in and out when they change their state. In his...
Seth's Blog
The empathy device It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
It’s interesting to realize that mirrors weren’t perfected until a few hundred years ago. Human beings spend a lot of time considering our own appearance and our own feelings and most of all, our own needs. The market produces a shift. When it’s a fair and open exchange, the...
Prolost
Jurassic Punk If you’re reading this blog, you probably know the story — at least, you think you do. As Steven...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
If you’re reading this blog, you probably know the story — at least, you think you do. As Steven Spielberg began production on 1993’s Jurassic Park, he and Industrial Light and Magic’s Dennis Muren planned to execute the all-important visual effects component of the film’s...
Seth's Blog
Further vs. faster Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is different, and so is the technique. Which one are you signing up for? What about the thing you sell? Are we trying to get there faster, or do we promise to go further?
Seth's Blog
Honesty about better “I don’t want to learn to be better,” is something we rarely admit. We don’t say: I don’t want to...
5 months ago
51
5 months ago
“I don’t want to learn to be better,” is something we rarely admit. We don’t say: I don’t want to learn statistics, even though it will dramatically improve my decision making. I don’t want to learn a new programming language, even though it will get me a better job. I don’t want...
Seth's Blog
The house painter and the architect We don’t design a book until after it’s written. Or cast the movie until the screenplay is complete....
over a year ago
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over a year ago
We don’t design a book until after it’s written. Or cast the movie until the screenplay is complete. The house painter has an important job, but it makes no sense to plan for the painting before the house is designed. This makes a lot of sense because some parts of a project have...
Open Culture
The World Record for the Shortest Math Article: 2 Words In 2004, John Conway and Alexander Soifer, both working on mathematics at Princeton University,...
2 months ago
25
2 months ago
In 2004, John Conway and Alexander Soifer, both working on mathematics at Princeton University, submitted to the American Mathematical Monthly what they believed was “a new world record in the number of words in a [math] paper.” Soifer explains: “On April 28, 2004 … I submitted...
Seth's Blog
What does reality look like? Not what we see when we’re present, but what do we see when we imagine we’re present? In the early...
a year ago
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a year ago
Not what we see when we’re present, but what do we see when we imagine we’re present? In the early days of photography, the world was black and white, and sort of flat. It’s worth noting that no one who saw these pictures complained about the fact that they didn’t exactly match...
Seth's Blog
Organizing for urgent There are many ways to prioritize our time and focus, but the easiest and most vivid way is to do...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
There are many ways to prioritize our time and focus, but the easiest and most vivid way is to do the urgent things first. If we wait until a house plant is sick before we take care of it, though, it’s too late. Deadlines, loud requests and last-minute interventions are crude...
Prolost
VFX Suite 1.5 Today Red Giant released the first major update to the VFX Suite we introduced last year. Lens...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
Today Red Giant released the first major update to the VFX Suite we introduced last year. Lens Distortion Matcher A brand-new effect, Lens Distortion Matcher makes it ridiculously easy to profile the distortion of any lens, and either remove it, or build a VFX workflow around it...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #125 Commonwealth Fusion, Off-grid Solar Microgrids, HORNET, Astranis , Technology Brothers
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
All species are invasive species Human beings as we know them have only been around for 70,000 years or so. Honeybees got to North...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Human beings as we know them have only been around for 70,000 years or so. Honeybees got to North America around the time Columbus did. And the same is true for technologies and companies. Western Union was an interloper, telegrams were the scary new tech that was going to change...
Seth's Blog
Bullies Bullies use intimidation and power to force others to act against their best interests. Bullies...
a year ago
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a year ago
Bullies use intimidation and power to force others to act against their best interests. Bullies blame the victim, assuring everyone that they wouldn’t have to use force if people would simply go along with what they want. Effective bullies organize a small mob to enforce their...
Seth's Blog
The Net Promoter Score More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their...
a year ago
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a year 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
On building a cathedral If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks...
a year ago
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a year ago
If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks to meet, a cathedral is probably way more than you need. It’s far more expensive to build and maintain and not optimal in delivering what’s required. But what if this building...
Seth's Blog
Perfect Nothing is perfect… But everything can get better. There’s never enough time… But there’s time...
3 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
Nothing is perfect… But everything can get better. There’s never enough time… But there’s time enough to make a difference. Someone will always be opposed to the change we seek to make. And there’s always someone who wants to help. Anything can happen… But something will.
Seth's Blog
Change your shoes Like all good metaphors, it might be practical too. Your ‘shoes’ are the point of greatest leverage....
7 months ago
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7 months ago
Like all good metaphors, it might be practical too. Your ‘shoes’ are the point of greatest leverage. The spot where you have traction and engage with the world most directly. For a freelancer, it might be the way you engage with customers, or your software tools. It might be the...
Seth's Blog
The list of compromises All the no-compromise solutions have failed. If there was a way to solve our problem without giving...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
All the no-compromise solutions have failed. If there was a way to solve our problem without giving something up, we would have done that already. So, if a persistent problem important, the question is not: Should we compromise or not? The question is: Which changes are we going...
Seth's Blog
Did we give up before AI arrived? Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI....
a year ago
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a year ago
Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI. It can often draw, write and compose as well as a mediocre freelancer, sometimes better. But why were there mediocre freelancers? The system that pushed us to turn our writing into...
Open Culture
Why You Can Never Tune a Piano Grab a cup of coffee, put on your thinking cap, and start working through this video from Minute...
10 months ago
36
10 months ago
Grab a cup of coffee, put on your thinking cap, and start working through this video from Minute Physics, which explains why guitars, violins and other instruments can be tuned to a tee. But when it comes to pianos, it’s an entirely different story, a mathematical impossibility....
Open Culture
Read the Original 32-Page Program for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) One of the very first feature-length sci-fi films ever made, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis took a daring...
a month ago
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a month ago
One of the very first feature-length sci-fi films ever made, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis took a daring visual approach for its time, incorporating Bauhaus and Futurist influences in thrillingly designed sets and costumes. Lang’s visual language resonated strongly in later decades....
Seth's Blog
Consider switching sides One of the spokespeople for the new milk marketing campaign confessed that she doesn’t really like...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
One of the spokespeople for the new milk marketing campaign confessed that she doesn’t really like drinking milk. Sales are way down, and an entire generation is drinking other beverages. Other than the people who are paid to sell or lobby for milk sales, few people are...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding the trap questions A trick question is designed to fool us into proposing the wrong answer (example below). A trap...
a year ago
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a year ago
A trick question is designed to fool us into proposing the wrong answer (example below). A trap question, on the other hand, stops the train completely. A trap question demands an answer, and the answer will paralyze us and keep us from the work at hand. “Yes, but how many...
Stat Significant
Which Movies Have "Aged Poorly"? A Statistical Analysis Which films have not stood the test of time?
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
Conspicuous (non) consumption One way to show status is by demonstrating how many resources you have. A bespoke suit, a huge...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
One way to show status is by demonstrating how many resources you have. A bespoke suit, a huge graduation party, a fancy building… A bully who physically intimidates or an angry driver who cuts you off in traffic are each working to show their status and strength. But it’s also...
Open Culture
Launch Your Project Management Career with Google’s AI-Enhanced Professional Certificate ?si=TMflasoogRfSD14h Back in 2021, Google released a series of certificate programs, including one...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
?si=TMflasoogRfSD14h Back in 2021, Google released a series of certificate programs, including one focused on Project Management. Designed to give students “an immersive understanding of the practices and skills needed to succeed in an entry-level project management role,” the...
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...
8 months ago
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8 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
Which team? Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Culture seeks shortcuts. The oldest shortcut is: “Friend or foe?” If we know the answer to that, a whole bunch of time gets saved, and fear is reduced as well. The labeling goes beyond which team, cadre, tribe or village someone is part of. It extends to the ways we demonstrate...
Stat Significant
Gender Representation in the Film Industry: A Statistical Analysis Tracking the evolution of gender representation in acting, directing, and producing.
11 months ago
Seth's Blog
Don’t know, don’t care Clients and customers can be frustrating. Perhaps they don’t know what you know. Perhaps they don’t...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Clients and customers can be frustrating. Perhaps they don’t know what you know. Perhaps they don’t care. It’s possible to educate and inspire. It might be more productive to find the few that want to go where you do.
Open Culture
B.B. King Changes a Broken Guitar String Mid-Song at Farm Aid, and Doesn’t Miss a Beat (1985) The scene is Farm Aid, 1985, attended by a crowd of 80,000 people. The song is “How Blue Can You...
8 months ago
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8 months ago
The scene is Farm Aid, 1985, attended by a crowd of 80,000 people. The song is “How Blue Can You Get.” And the key moment comes at the 3:10 mark, when the blues legend B.B. King breaks a guitar string, then manages to replace it before the song finishes minutes later. All the...
Seth's Blog
The opposite of a good idea… might also be a good idea. The hard part isn’t finding proof before you begin. The hard part is...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
might also be a good idea. The hard part isn’t finding proof before you begin. The hard part is beginning, knowing you might not succeed.
Open Culture
George Harrison Explains Why Everyone Should Play the Ukulele George Harrison loved the ukulele, and really, what’s not to love? For its dainty size, the uke can...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
George Harrison loved the ukulele, and really, what’s not to love? For its dainty size, the uke can make a powerfully cheerful sound, and it’s an instrument both beginners and expert players can learn and easily carry around. As Harrison’s old friend Joe Brown remarked, “You can...
Seth's Blog
The lens or the problem? We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around money, the activist might see an opportunity for social justice. The technologist figures that a computer and more data might help, and the bureaucrat is looking for a system to put...
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...
7 months ago
41
7 months 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,...
Seth's Blog
The first person “I” is first person. “You” is second person. “She” “They” “It” are all third person. So far, so...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
“I” is first person. “You” is second person. “She” “They” “It” are all third person. So far, so good. But how can ChatGPT use the word “I”? And when we talk about ChatGPT, is it “he” or “she” or “they” or “it”? Because anything that is an “it” shouldn’t be able to say “I”. We […]
Seth's Blog
The friendly professional Friendly doesn’t mean saying ‘yes’ all the time, or changing every policy, or giving up our...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Friendly doesn’t mean saying ‘yes’ all the time, or changing every policy, or giving up our principles. Friendly is how it feels, not what it does.
Seth's Blog
The essence of industrialism Efficiency + Convenience. Not everything is industrialized. A backyard garden, a freelance editor,...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
Efficiency + Convenience. Not everything is industrialized. A backyard garden, a freelance editor, even a chef with a hands-on restaurant. These folks are building a practice and producing value, but they haven’t embraced industrialization. That happens when management steps in,...
Seth's Blog
Two kinds of instructions The more common, easier to execute sort: Instructions to remind people who already know what to do,...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
The more common, easier to execute sort: Instructions to remind people who already know what to do, what to do. The more essential and harder to create kind: Instructions for people who don’t know what to do. It’s a mistake to assume that just because you know all the steps, the...
Handprinted - Blog
In the Studio 2023 We've been looking back on all our studio highlights for 2023, and what a year it's been! If you...
a year ago
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a year ago
We've been looking back on all our studio highlights for 2023, and what a year it's been! If you took part in one of our Fab Fridays, attended a workshop, or used the studio for open access - thanks for being a part of our studio! We hope to see you back again in 2024! Workshops...
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...
8 months ago
63
8 months 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...
escape the algorithm
Should this be a map or 500 maps? 500 priests, cartographic n00bism, and the limits of scale
a year ago
Open Culture
Albert Einstein Tells His Son That the Key to Learning & Happiness Is Losing Yourself in Creativity... As one particularly astute observer of human emotions might put it, it is a truth universally...
5 days ago
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5 days ago
As one particularly astute observer of human emotions might put it, it is a truth universally acknowledged that we can’t all be Albert Einstein. In fact, none of us can. That unique experience was denied even Einstein’s son Hans Albert, though he did go on to his own...
Seth's Blog
Is there a market(place)? Not all needs have a market (yet). A market is a category. A market is a place with competition. In...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
Not all needs have a market (yet). A market is a category. A market is a place with competition. In a market, people have habits and budgets and social pressure to engage. There are buyers and sellers. In many cultures, there’s a market for all the items that go with a...
Seth's Blog
Facing the future The Tofflers explained that Future Shock kicks in when the world changes faster than we’re ready...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
The Tofflers explained that Future Shock kicks in when the world changes faster than we’re ready for. We react instead of respond, and often shut down in the face of too much of the new. When our world changes (and it always does, more now than ever) we have four choices. And...
Open Culture
Hear Newly Rediscovered Music by Erik Satie on the 100th Anniversary of His Death https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0Video can’t be loaded...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Satie: Discoveries (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0) If asked to name our favorite French composer...
escape the algorithm
Foreskin’s Comment What a Billie Eilish Youtube comment diarist can teach us about forging meaningful online rituals
a year ago
Infinite Scroll
There is No Plan. They're Just Morons. Trump doesn't have complex trade theories. He's just an idiot.
3 months ago
Open Culture
Get $160 Off a Year of Coursera Plus & Gain Unlimited Access to Courses in Data Analytics,... A heads-up on a Black Friday special: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40%...
7 months ago
38
7 months ago
A heads-up on a Black Friday special: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $239.40) gives you access to 7,000+ courses for one...
Seth's Blog
A branding exercise My friend’s organization is working with a branding studio to think about how they appear to people...
a year ago
62
a year ago
My friend’s organization is working with a branding studio to think about how they appear to people who don’t know them well. This is sometimes called ‘rebranding.’ What is almost always done in practice is actually better referred to as re-logo-ing. A brand is not a logo. A...
Seth's Blog
Figs, ivy, silphium and of course, commerce It’s just a week until Valentine’s Day, a multi-billion dollar spending jamboree. As often happens,...
5 months ago
28
5 months ago
It’s just a week until Valentine’s Day, a multi-billion dollar spending jamboree. As often happens, the people we depend on for much of it get the short end of the deal, but a little mindful planning can make a difference. The heart shape we associate with love came from leaves....
Seth's Blog
Expertise and credentials In the ideal world, credentials would be awarded to all experts, and withdrawn from all charlatans....
5 months ago
49
5 months ago
In the ideal world, credentials would be awarded to all experts, and withdrawn from all charlatans. But they don’t always line up as neatly as that. An expert is someone who can keep a promise. Point to the results that demonstrate your skill and understanding and commitment and...
Seth's Blog
The use (and design) of tools It’s hard to build a house without a hammer. The hammer has been around for a long time, and thanks...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
It’s hard to build a house without a hammer. The hammer has been around for a long time, and thanks to its intuitive design, a user can get 70% of the benefit after less than ten minutes of instruction. People who depend on hammers for their livelihood are probably at over 95%...