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Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: MrBeast Games The System Plus! A Momfluencer Horror Story and an Important Orca Update
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
The ledge Drowning is devastating, a tragic and painful way to go. So much so that feeling like we’re drowning...
9 months ago
63
9 months ago
Drowning is devastating, a tragic and painful way to go. So much so that feeling like we’re drowning is a trigger, an overwhelming emotion that causes us to grasp, struggle and leave our best self behind. It’s easy to experience this even when we’re out of the water. When the...
Seth's Blog
Indifferent overhead Every business and individual has overhead. The bills we have to pay and the costs we incur that...
a year ago
50
a year ago
Every business and individual has overhead. The bills we have to pay and the costs we incur that aren’t directly related to our income. You pay them whether or not you’re busy. But there are two kinds of overhead, worth differentiating: Different overhead … the investments that...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Grace Gillespie Hello! I’m Grace Gillespie, a printmaker specialising in reduction linocuts and based in Bristol....
a year ago
108
a year ago
Hello! I’m Grace Gillespie, a printmaker specialising in reduction linocuts and based in Bristol. Most days you will find me in my teeny home studio, adding layers of colour to my prints, thinking about future designs or working on the never-ending administration side of running...
Seth's Blog
Waves and tides It’s easy to be distracted by the wave that’s crashing on the shore. On the other hand, the tide is...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
It’s easy to be distracted by the wave that’s crashing on the shore. On the other hand, the tide is inexorable. It’s the long-term trend, the one that is quietly happening, over time. Sometimes, a big wave comes along and we lose our focus. It’s urgent. But expecting and working...
Seth's Blog
Generosity and gratitude A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility and energy. And the magic...
a year ago
24
a year ago
A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility and energy. And the magic of gratitude is that it improves everything it touches, especially the person who offered it in the first place. So, what holds us back? Fear. Fear of connection, of change, of...
Seth's Blog
Redundancy has a half-life At first, this stop sign sign makes a lot of sense: Lives are at stake. Break the rhythm, turn...
a year ago
32
a year ago
At first, this stop sign sign makes a lot of sense: Lives are at stake. Break the rhythm, turn something ignored into something noticed. The challenge with “highlighting” is that it fades. When everything is in all caps, nothing is. Exclamation points are like salt. When people...
Open Culture
Explore an Online Archive of 2,100+ Rare Illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes...
6 months ago
62
6 months ago
As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes mainly, of course, to A Christmas Carol, and even more so to its many adaptations, most of which draw inspiration from not just its text but also its illustrations. That 1843 novella...
Seth's Blog
Halfway projects Half a canoe is worth less than no canoe at all. On the other hand, eating half a pear is much...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
Half a canoe is worth less than no canoe at all. On the other hand, eating half a pear is much better than not having one. You might get 85% of the value from only part of the pear. Some projects only benefit us when they’re finished all the way. Knowing this in advance is […]
Seth's Blog
The illusion of concern When organizations reach scale, digital interactions belie our expectation that someone in charge...
a year ago
35
a year ago
When organizations reach scale, digital interactions belie our expectation that someone in charge actually gives a damn. Once there’s math to do, the CFO does the math. It quickly reveals that no, the search engine shouldn’t bother having a customer support team. That UPS or...
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...
3 months ago
21
3 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 […]
Seth's Blog
Putting up the big numbers Some people go to the gym for health and energy. Some go to lift more weight than they did yesterday...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Some people go to the gym for health and energy. Some go to lift more weight than they did yesterday (or more than the person next to them). You can start a company to make an impact and surround yourself with people on a similar journey, or you can seek to maximize the stock...
Seth's Blog
The obligation of “none of the above” As we continue to face difficult choices and work to make things better, it’s quite likely that the...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
As we continue to face difficult choices and work to make things better, it’s quite likely that the alternatives being presented aren’t ideal or even appealing. Many organizations and communities are stuck because “none of the above” is the majority’s opinion, or perhaps the...
Seth's Blog
Confusion and delay Marketing is generally about action. Marketers seek to create the conditions for a change to happen,...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Marketing is generally about action. Marketers seek to create the conditions for a change to happen, for people to accomplish their goals and to satisfy their needs. But since 1950, some marketers have worked in a different direction. To sow confusion and doubt, and most of all,...
Haterade
Who Booby-Trapped This Tiny Cabbage? And other critical questions from the mailbag.
over a year ago
Haterade
Cooking with Dom DeLuise The dream of the ‘90s is alive and portly
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Curation (vs the road to junk) The independent bookstore down the street is carefully curated. Each book takes up the spot that a...
a year ago
43
a year ago
The independent bookstore down the street is carefully curated. Each book takes up the spot that a different book could inhabit, so the owner makes sure that there’s a great reason a title is included. Amazon, on the other hand, has no shelf space problem, and the Kindle...
Open Culture
How a Steady Supply of Coffee Helped the Union Win the U.S. Civil War Americans doing “e‑mail jobs” and working in the “laptop class” tend to make much of the quantity of...
12 months ago
57
12 months ago
Americans doing “e‑mail jobs” and working in the “laptop class” tend to make much of the quantity of coffee they require to keep going, or even to get started. In that sense alone, they have something in common with Civil War soldiers. “Union soldiers were given 36 pounds of...
Seth's Blog
In and out Lots of organizations (and individuals) have plans and processes for getting the word out. In fact,...
over a year ago
63
over a year ago
Lots of organizations (and individuals) have plans and processes for getting the word out. In fact, we spend trillions of dollars doing so. Do you have a plan for getting the word in? Is it simply random chance that some ideas get to you and your team, that cultural and technical...
Open Culture
Free: 356 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it–including an early version of his masterpiece Fahrenheit 451–as did Robert A....
Seth's Blog
The sixty-day staircase In the moment, it’s really difficult. L’espirit descalier means, “the spirit of the staircase.” That...
a year ago
39
a year ago
In the moment, it’s really difficult. L’espirit descalier means, “the spirit of the staircase.” That thing you wished you had a said just a moment ago, the bon mot or the clever riposte. It only comes to us as we’re walking away. But this sort of quick comment is good for the...
Handprinted - Blog
Neocolor Pastels for Mono Screen Printing Monoprinting using an open screen is a wonderfully creative way of using your screen printing...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
Monoprinting using an open screen is a wonderfully creative way of using your screen printing equipment for speedy, painterly prints. Neocolor Pastels are a great material to use when mono screen printing - you can draw directly onto the mesh and print your drawing through the...
Open Culture
Hannah Arendt Explains the Rise of Totalitarian Regimes–and the Strategies Needed to Combat Them “Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity,” wrote the political philosopher Hannah...
a year ago
54
a year ago
“Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows with great dignity,” wrote the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, describing the scene leading up to the prominent Holocaust-organizer’s execution. After drinking half a bottle of wine, turning down the offer of religious assistance, and even...
Handprinted - Blog
Mono Screen Printing Using a Guide Mono screen printing is a great technique if you want to create beautiful painterly prints but...
over a year ago
104
over a year ago
Mono screen printing is a great technique if you want to create beautiful painterly prints but achieve the flatness of a screen print. It allows you to incorporate multiple colours in one layer and play with brush strokes and mark making.  When working with this technique,...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rach Lloyd Hello, my name is Rach and I'm a printmaker from Shropshire. I go by the name Rach Lloyd Press, and...
9 months ago
60
9 months ago
Hello, my name is Rach and I'm a printmaker from Shropshire. I go by the name Rach Lloyd Press, and pride myself on making all of my print-runs and editions in very small numbers, so people can own a unique piece of artwork at an affordable price. I am a multidisciplinary artist,...
Prolost
Red Giant & Maxon, Sitting in a Tree Red Giant, where I’ve been Chief Creative Officer for a couple of years now, but making filmmaking...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
Red Giant, where I’ve been Chief Creative Officer for a couple of years now, but making filmmaking tools for you for 17 years, is merging with Maxon, makers of Cinema 4D. From the Red Giant blog: Hi folks — by now you’ve probably heard the news that Maxon and Red Giant are...
Anarchy Unfolds
March '24 Myths & Recs Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
a year ago
Seth's Blog
All customers are the same [and all customers are different.] Customers are why you’re here. They pay the bills and they are...
a year ago
39
a year ago
[and all customers are different.] Customers are why you’re here. They pay the bills and they are the primary driver of your growth. But each adds a different amount of value to your organization and the journey you’re on. The customer who spends 100x as much as the average...
Seth's Blog
Polishing the problem I won’t walk away. I won’t ease any of the constraints. I won’t forgive. I won’t get a coach. It’s...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
I won’t walk away. I won’t ease any of the constraints. I won’t forgive. I won’t get a coach. It’s personal. I don’t want to talk about it. I will think about this often. I can add another problem just like this one. I can do this. Persistent perfect problems are a great way to...
Seth's Blog
The answer to every question If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If,...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If, regardless of the problem, the answer is crypto, homeopathy, or the internet, or perhaps GPT, essential oils or decarbonization, it’s possible we’re taking an easy way out. A new...
Open Culture
Michio Kaku Demystifies the God Equation: The Key to Understanding Everything It speaks to the importance of discoveries in physics over the past few generations that even the...
9 months ago
60
9 months ago
It speaks to the importance of discoveries in physics over the past few generations that even the disinterested layman has heard of the field’s central challenge. In brief, there exist two separate systems: general relativity, which describes the physics of space, time, and...
Open Culture
The Roads of Ancient Rome Visualized in the Style of Modern Subway Maps Sasha Trubetskoy, formerly an undergrad at U. Chicago, has created a “subway-style diagram of the...
a year ago
59
a year ago
Sasha Trubetskoy, formerly an undergrad at U. Chicago, has created a “subway-style diagram of the major Roman roads, based on the Empire of ca. 125 AD.” Drawing on Stanford’s ORBIS model, The Pelagios Project, and the Antonine Itinerary, Trubetskoy’s map combines well-known...
Neocha – Culture &...
Natural Selection
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The magic of a page a day In 1979, the page-a-day calendar was born. It’s basically a book on its side, but the user rips off...
over a year ago
72
over a year ago
In 1979, the page-a-day calendar was born. It’s basically a book on its side, but the user rips off a page each day. My friend Michael Cader took this concept and ran with it, creating calendars that sold millions of copies. Of course, everyone knows what day it is, and if you...
Seth's Blog
“What’s the catch?” It’s an important question. Lots of opportunities come with one, and going in with your eyes open...
a year ago
56
a year ago
It’s an important question. Lots of opportunities come with one, and going in with your eyes open helps avoid problems later. Two challenges: Sometimes, a really good opportunity doesn’t actually have a catch. And spending a lot of time looking for one keeps us from the work we...
Seth's Blog
Paddling upstream We notice the current most when we’re headed against it. It’s easy to take our advantage for granted...
a month ago
11
a month ago
We notice the current most when we’re headed against it. It’s easy to take our advantage for granted when we’re headed the other way and it’s helping us. Related: When I’m on my bike, I generally hope that drivers will cut me some slack–a lesson that’s easy to forget when I’m the...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #141 Building Civilizations, Nuclear Moon, Physical Intelligence, Argentina, Creatine
2 months ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #125 Commonwealth Fusion, Off-grid Solar Microgrids, HORNET, Astranis , Technology Brothers
6 months ago
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....
3 weeks ago
10
3 weeks 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...
Infinite Scroll
Internet Book Club: Careless People Incuriosity, carelessness, and the current political moment
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Optimized or maximized? Engineers can optimize a bridge. There are some bridge designs that satisfy aesthetic, financial,...
a year ago
31
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Designing a Repeat Block by Hand Visualising what your design will look like when printed can be the hardest thing about designing a...
a year ago
151
a year ago
Visualising what your design will look like when printed can be the hardest thing about designing a repeat pattern. We have a good method for sketching out your initial design to see how it will work when it has been printed. For this project, we will be using a mounted lino...
Open Culture
Hōshi: A Short Documentary on the 1300-Year-Old Hotel Run by the Same Japanese Family for 46... Hōshi, a traditional Japanese inn in Komatsu, Japan, holds the distinction of being the second...
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Hōshi, a traditional Japanese inn in Komatsu, Japan, holds the distinction of being the second oldest hotel in the world—and “the oldest still running family business in the world.” Built in 718 AD, Hōshi has been operated by the same family for 46 consecutive generations. Count...
Haterade
How to Garnish Instructions on making (and becoming) a Silly Goose
a year ago
Open Culture
The Secret Link Between Jazz and Physics: How Einstein & Coltrane Shared Improvisation and Intuition... Scientists need hobbies. The grueling work of navigating complex theory and the politics of academia...
a month ago
20
a month ago
Scientists need hobbies. The grueling work of navigating complex theory and the politics of academia can get to a person, even one as laid back as Brown University professor and astrophysicist Stephon Alexander. So Alexander plays the saxophone, though at this point it may not be...
Seth's Blog
High fidelity It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original...
a year ago
54
a year ago
It might be the high fidelity of a good LP on a great turntable. It sounds just like the original recording. It might be the high fidelity of loyalty. No shopping around for a momentarily better deal. It might be the high fidelity of genre. This is just what you hoped it would...
Seth's Blog
Find the others New years bring resolutions, but those resolutions rarely stick. Creating change is difficult, and...
6 months ago
61
6 months ago
New years bring resolutions, but those resolutions rarely stick. Creating change is difficult, and it’s hard to do it alone. New years remind us that we might need a better strategy. A philosophy of becoming, a clear vision on where we’re going (and why). Here’s an invitation to...
Seth's Blog
Getting AI to do your work That’s the first step, certainly. If you don’t, your boss will. The second step is to take the time...
9 months ago
58
9 months ago
That’s the first step, certainly. If you don’t, your boss will. The second step is to take the time you’ve freed up and do work that the AI can’t do.
Infinite Scroll
On Consumption vs Production How to improve yourself and be happier, online or offline
7 months ago
escape the algorithm
Be specific Ode to ᵗᶦⁿʸ ᵗᵒᵒˡˢ
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Fidelity, compression and culture The alphabet is a miracle, one that is compounded by books. And the lessons we learn from this...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
The alphabet is a miracle, one that is compounded by books. And the lessons we learn from this cornerstone of modern culture apply to organizations, meetings, tech, politics and almost everything we do together. Your copy of To Kill a Mockingbird contains every single word that...
Open Culture
Scientists Discover that Ancient Egyptians Drank Hallucinogenic Cocktails from 2,300 Year-Old Mug Bes mug by USF Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) on Sketchfab If ZZ Top have a favorite...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
Bes mug by USF Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) on Sketchfab If ZZ Top have a favorite ancient Egyptian deity, that deity is surely Bes, whom the New York Times’ Alexander Nazaryan quotes curator and scholar Branko van Oppen de Ruiter as calling “a beer drinker and a...
Seth's Blog
Meaningfully informed Community requires individuals to have the option of speaking up. If we’re in this together, we...
a year ago
34
a year ago
Community requires individuals to have the option of speaking up. If we’re in this together, we ought to be able to chime in. But while every member of the community can speak out, the ones that are heard also have something useful to say. Being informed is a requirement to be...
Seth's Blog
As slow as possible A six-hundred-year-long organ recital is going on, and today marks a change in notes. If you miss...
a year ago
28
a year ago
A six-hundred-year-long organ recital is going on, and today marks a change in notes. If you miss it, the next one is in two years. We’re used to the rapid increase in speed in just about everything around us. Absolutely positively overnight is mostly too slow for many industries...
Open Culture
Beautiful 19th Century Maps of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise & More Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do so, we may or may not be thinking of where the concept originated: Dante’s Divina Commedia, or Divine Comedy. We each imagine the circles in our own way — usually filling them with...
Seth's Blog
For customers vs to customers In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for...
a year ago
22
a year ago
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your customers, to squeeze out extra income? This doesn’t mean that the only path is to keep...
Open Culture
Unlock AI’s Potential in Your Work and Daily Life: Take a Popular Course from Google Generative AI is rapidly becoming an essential tool for streamlining work and solving complex...
6 months ago
36
6 months ago
Generative AI is rapidly becoming an essential tool for streamlining work and solving complex challenges. However, knowing how to use GenAI effectively isn’t always obvious. That’s where Google Prompting Essentials comes in. This course will teach you to write clear and specific...
Seth's Blog
What’s a “techie”? A friend’s email said, “I know many of my readers aren’t techies and you’re thinking of putting this...
over a year ago
93
over a year ago
A friend’s email said, “I know many of my readers aren’t techies and you’re thinking of putting this newsletter aside…” We should get clear about what we’re talking about when we say “techie.” I’m going to argue that involves a combination of two things: But someone who says,...
Open Culture
60 Free Film Noir Movies You Can Watch Online, Including Classics by John Huston, Orson Welles &... During the 1940s and 50s, Hollywood entered a “noir” period, producing riveting films based on...
a month ago
35
a month ago
During the 1940s and 50s, Hollywood entered a “noir” period, producing riveting films based on hard-boiled fiction. These films were set in dark locations and shot in a black & white aesthetic that fit like a glove. Hardened men wore fedoras and forever smoked cigarettes. Women...
Seth's Blog
The NSE confusions “Nobody wants this” is unlikely. “Somebody will like this” is almost certainly true. “Everyone needs...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
“Nobody wants this” is unlikely. “Somebody will like this” is almost certainly true. “Everyone needs this” is a trap. The work begins with finding the right somebodies, while ignoring the imaginary everyone. Scale is rarely the first signal of important work.
Open Culture
What It Takes to Pass “the Knowledge,” the “Insanely Hard” Exam to Become a London Taxicab Driver Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab...
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab driver is no mean feat. Tony Walker, one of the series’ most memorable participants, was selected at the age of seven from an East End primary school, already distinguished as a...
Infinite Scroll
Revolt and the Reversal of Trust The digital roots of Trump's surprising youth popularity
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Too much competition There are two approaches: Broaden your offerings, make them easier, cheaper and more available. Dumb...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
There are two approaches: Broaden your offerings, make them easier, cheaper and more available. Dumb them down and race to the bottom. Or… Focus on the customers who care enough about your idiosyncratic and particular offerings that they’ll not only happily walk away from the...
Seth's Blog
Getting to next There’s a difference between ‘rich’ and ‘richer’. And ‘fit’ and ‘fitter’. The problem with a pre-amp...
a month ago
18
a month 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...
Marian's Blog
Quadcopter Lightpainting Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung aufgenommen. Bei diesen Fotos stimmte die Einstellung noch nicht, sodass sie zu dunkel sind: ...
Open Culture
The Soviet Union Creates a List of 38 Dangerous Rock Bands: Kiss, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Village... Image by Mario Casciano via Wikimedia Commons Music is dangerous and powerful, and can be, without...
2 weeks ago
8
2 weeks ago
Image by Mario Casciano via Wikimedia Commons Music is dangerous and powerful, and can be, without intending to, a political weapon. All authoritarian regimes have understood this, including repressive elements in the U.S. throughout the Cold War. I remember having books handed...
Seth's Blog
Intuition Intuition is simply a theory we haven’t yet put into words. Once we write down and share our...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
Intuition is simply a theory we haven’t yet put into words. Once we write down and share our intuition, it becomes more resilient, focused and useful to others.
Open Culture
Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Hamburger Recipe Image via Wikimedia Commons In 2013, the food writer Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan stumbled across an article...
12 months ago
82
12 months ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons In 2013, the food writer Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan stumbled across an article in the Boston Globe describing a trove of digitized documents from Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba that had been recently donated to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “ignoring the election” edition 1. UK university fees going up (but not by enough to make the system work) For those of you not in...
7 months ago
32
7 months ago
1. UK university fees going up (but not by enough to make the system work) For those of you not in the UK, the British system of university funding is a weird mash-mash of different stuff, cobbled together from the mistakes made by successive governments. When I was young, the...
Seth's Blog
The bitterness loop Spoiled leads to bitter. A sense of entitlement is a trap, because bitterness demands more evidence...
9 months ago
36
9 months ago
Spoiled leads to bitter. A sense of entitlement is a trap, because bitterness demands more evidence and seeks to maintain dominance over the other emotions. When we’re busy looking for more reasons to be bitter, we’re not taking the time to do generative work, to connect and to...
Seth's Blog
The explosion We spend much of our worrying time on crises. Our media is filled with warnings, coverage and fear...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
We spend much of our worrying time on crises. Our media is filled with warnings, coverage and fear of cataclysms. The big boom, the sudden end, the crash. In fact, rot is far more common. Things decay unless we persistently work to support them. Organizations, reputations,...
Seth's Blog
Bongo is here And you can be the first on your block to play it. It’s free. Click here to see today’s game. Over...
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
And you can be the first on your block to play it. It’s free. Click here to see today’s game. Over the next week, I’m going to do a few bonus posts to explain how we thought about the creation and game design and marketing of this new project. The last eighteen months of...
Open Culture
The Story of Francis Ford Coppola’s Four-Decade-Struggle to Make Megalopolis This past summer, out came a trailer for Megalopolis, the movie Francis Ford Coppola has spent half...
8 months ago
51
8 months ago
This past summer, out came a trailer for Megalopolis, the movie Francis Ford Coppola has spent half of his life trying to make. It took the bold approach of opening with quotes from reviews of his previous pictures, and not positive ones: when it was first released, Rex Reed...
Neocha – Culture &...
Peace, Love, & Ass
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Confused by signals Even at a distance, we can sometimes tell if someone is educated, rich, powerful or physically...
a week ago
8
a week ago
Even at a distance, we can sometimes tell if someone is educated, rich, powerful or physically attractive. But that doesn’t always correlate with smart, kind or honest. Strong signals might not be the same as useful ones.
Open Culture
What Is Religion Actually For?: Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury Weigh In In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to...
a year ago
37
a year ago
In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to side with either the Beatles or their rivals, the Rolling Stones. On some level, it must have made sense, given the growing aesthetic divide between the music the two world-famous...
Open Culture
Isaac Asimov Predicts the Future of Online Education in 1988–and It’s Now Coming True “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Though that line probably originated...
a year ago
44
a year ago
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Though that line probably originated with  a Canadian novelist called Grant Allen, it’s long been popularly attributed to his more colorful nineteenth-century contemporary Mark Twain. It isn’t hard to understand why it...
Open Culture
How Rome Began: The History As Told by Ancient Historians Much attention has been paid to the fall of the Roman Empire, by everyone from august historians...
11 months ago
59
11 months ago
Much attention has been paid to the fall of the Roman Empire, by everyone from august historians like Edward Gibbon to modern-day observers wringing their hands over the fate of the United States of America. But as every Rome enthusiast knows, that long collapse constitutes just...
Open Culture
How Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture Evolved Over 70 Years and Changed America In the new Architectural Digest video above, Michael Wyetzner talks about a fair few buildings we’ve...
a month ago
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a month ago
In the new Architectural Digest video above, Michael Wyetzner talks about a fair few buildings we’ve featured over the years here on Open Culture: the Imperial Hotel, the Ennis House, Taliesin, Fallingwater. These are all, of course, the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who still...
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...
Open Culture
The Original Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Manuscript, Handwritten & Illustrated By Lewis Carroll... On a summer day in 1862, a tall, stammering Oxford University mathematician named Charles Lutwidge...
12 months ago
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12 months ago
On a summer day in 1862, a tall, stammering Oxford University mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took a boat trip up the River Thames, accompanied by a colleague and the three young daughters of university chancellor Henry Liddell. To stave off tedium during the...
Infinite Scroll
Midweek Scroll: Woke Puritanism Slack Espionage, Evil Scientists, and RIP Hamster Forums
3 months ago
Stat Significant
Which Car Brands are Frequently Featured in Popular Music? A Statistical Analysis Which car brands are a fixture of song lyrics?
2 months ago
Open Culture
What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Hit a Major City Today: A Visualization of the Destruction One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop...
a year ago
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a year ago
One of the many memorable details in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, placed prominently in a shot of George C. Scott in the war room, is a binder with a spine labeled “WORLD TARGETS IN MEGADEATHS.” A megadeath, writes Eric...
Seth's Blog
The inevitable meeting When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for...
8 months ago
51
8 months ago
When the person you could have been meets the person you are becoming, is it going to be a cause for celebration or heartbreak? This is something we must work on right now, and tomorrow, and every single day until the meeting happens.
Infinite Scroll
JD Vance and Vice Signaling Abandon your values for power and profit
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Direct questions worth answering For everyone on the team… Do you care enough to do great work? Can we agree on what great work looks...
a year ago
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a year ago
For everyone on the team… Do you care enough to do great work? Can we agree on what great work looks like? When the world changes, do we have a process to redefine great work? Do you have the tools you need to reach your goals? How could we create a system where great work […]
Open Culture
Enter a Huge Archive of Amazing Stories, the World’s First Science Fiction Magazine, Launched in... If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula,...
a year ago
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a year ago
If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula, it’s the most prestigious of science fiction prizes, bringing together in its ranks of winners such venerable authors as Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Neil...
Seth's Blog
Building a process culture Process is the investment we make in inefficiency now to prevent errors from costing us later. Jet...
5 months ago
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5 months ago
Process is the investment we make in inefficiency now to prevent errors from costing us later. Jet airlines are the safest form of travel ever created, largely because of the inefficient process that we put in place. They’re over tested and over staffed, with checklists and...
Seth's Blog
Practical empathy (vs. telepathy) “If I were you…” or, more commonly, “if you were me.” Management has never been easy, but as the...
a year ago
52
a year ago
“If I were you…” or, more commonly, “if you were me.” Management has never been easy, but as the world becomes more complex, it gets more difficult. We’d like to imagine that the person (or AI bot, or freelancer, or firm) that we hired has enough drive, insight and common sense...
Open Culture
Behold a Digital Restoration of 655 Plates of Roses & Lilies by Pierre-Joseph Redouté: The Greatest... Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a meticulousness that exceeds all bounds of normality. He published his three-volume collection Les Roses and his eight-volume collection Les Liliacées between 1802 and 1824, and a glance...
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
18
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
The magic of placebos One of two things is true: A placebo is a force beyond understanding, one that is capable of...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
One of two things is true: A placebo is a force beyond understanding, one that is capable of disappearing when we do the appropriate double-blind tests and has mechanisms that defy our knowledge of the laws of physics. Or… A placebo is a prompt for our subconscious to do the hard...
Seth's Blog
Unfettered That’s unlikely. You’re rarely going to get the freedom and resources to do your best work...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
That’s unlikely. You’re rarely going to get the freedom and resources to do your best work unfettered. The hard part (and the opportunity) is to figure out how to get comfortable with fettered. Because fettered is what’s on offer. Boundaries and scarcity aren’t simply...
Handprinted - Blog
Jigsaw Block Printing on Fabric Block printing onto fabric is such a fun way to create your own designs. Jigsaw printing allows you...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
Block printing onto fabric is such a fun way to create your own designs. Jigsaw printing allows you to carve just one block to print a multi-coloured design. By cutting our carved block into jigsaw pieces we can ink them up separately and print onto the fabric, knowing they'll...
Seth's Blog
Refusing the salon of the refused This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was...
a year ago
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a year ago
This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was organized by and featured artists who weren’t even among those that had a slot at the runner’s up exhibit for artists who weren’t featured in the real Salon in Paris. Manet didn’t have...
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,...
4 months ago
26
4 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
Personal process notation “I’ll remember it later.” I’ll confess, I rarely do. It turns out, it’s easier to remember questions...
a year ago
29
a year ago
“I’ll remember it later.” I’ll confess, I rarely do. It turns out, it’s easier to remember questions than answers. And tools like Google Docs and photos in the cloud give us a chance to build our own personal search engine. It takes 14 steps to construct the pages in one of my...
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,...
a month ago
7
a month 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
“I don’t care” This is difficult. Care requires time and effort, and we can’t care about everything, all the way,...
3 months ago
30
3 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...
Open Culture
Browse 64 Years of RadioShack Catalogs Free Online … and Revisit the History of American Consumer... “I bet RadioShack was great once,” writes former employee Jon Bois in a much-circulated 2014 piece...
10 months ago
66
10 months ago
“I bet RadioShack was great once,” writes former employee Jon Bois in a much-circulated 2014 piece for SB Nation. “I can’t look through their decades-old catalogs and come away with any other impression. They sold giant walnut-wood speakers I’d kill to have today. They sold...
Open Culture
See Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in 3D in a New 108-Gigapixel Scan You may believe that you’ve had a close enough view of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring....
a month ago
7
a month ago
You may believe that you’ve had a close enough view of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. You may have gone to The Hague and seen the painting in person at the Mauritshuis. You may have zoomed into the ten billion-pixel scan we featured here on Open Culture in 2021....
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Meaningless My ArtBlocks debut, releasing on 30th May 2023. Find out how the algorithm works and explore some...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
My ArtBlocks debut, releasing on 30th May 2023. Find out how the algorithm works and explore some conceptual thoughts.
Seth's Blog
What comes after trust? Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Walk into a bank with a stocking on your head and you’re probably going to get arrested. Civil society as we know it is dependent on identity and responsibility. A person does something and owns the consequences. This requirement of identity leads to the dynamic of the free...
Prolost
Lightroom Adds Video Color Editing, with Prolost Presets From the Lightroom Blog: The same edit controls that you already use to make your photography shine...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
From the Lightroom Blog: The same edit controls that you already use to make your photography shine can now be used with your videos as well! Not only can you use Lightroom’s editing capabilities to make your video clips look their best, you can also copy and paste edit settings...
Seth's Blog
Student coach Big football at colleges in the US costs more than $5 billion a year. And none of these programs has...
11 months ago
82
11 months ago
Big football at colleges in the US costs more than $5 billion a year. And none of these programs has a student acting as a coach. The same analysis, at a much smaller scale, applies to school theater directors and producers, conductors of the jazz band or orchestra and even the...
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
48
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...
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Opens for The Monkees on a 1967 Tour; Then Flips Off the Crowd and Quits It’s easy to dismiss The Monkees. Critics and listeners have been doing it since the sixties,...
11 months ago
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11 months ago
It’s easy to dismiss The Monkees. Critics and listeners have been doing it since the sixties, although the band has also come in for its share of reappraisals, particularly for their psych-rock album Head. (That’s the soundtrack from the 1968 Jack Nicholson-directed art film of...
Seth's Blog
The 77% threshold When the gas car was first introduced, it couldn’t compete with horses. After all, we’d had...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
When the gas car was first introduced, it couldn’t compete with horses. After all, we’d had thousands of years to optimize our systems around horseback, and this new technology was still nascent. Roads were rare, gas stations were scarce and the cars themselves were unreliable....
Seth's Blog
But where are the secret recipes? Over the years, I’ve been sharing recipes as pages here on the blog, but never posting about them…...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Over the years, I’ve been sharing recipes as pages here on the blog, but never posting about them… you only got the link if I sent it to you. Well, your wait is over. For those seeking non-obvious but delicious and light-on-their-feet recipes, here you go: (two new ones added,...
Seth's Blog
Boundaries and limits They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it...
a year ago
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a year ago
They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it without risk. The electrified third rail, on the other hand, is a limit. If you touch it, you’re done. Boundaries can give us room to innovate and thrive. Budgets, schedules and...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Chris Long My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music...
over a year ago
89
over a year ago
My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music at the University of Liverpool, a Masters in musical composition at Newcastle University and I completed my PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. I have recently returned to...
Seth's Blog
“I made a mistake” This sits right next to, “I made a bad decision,” in things that are hard to say. But there are many...
2 weeks ago
8
2 weeks ago
This sits right next to, “I made a bad decision,” in things that are hard to say. But there are many moments when we’re confused about what actually happened. You might not have made a bad decision. And it’s also possible you didn’t make a mistake. It could be that there was...
Open Culture
A Digital Archive Features Hundreds of Audio Cassette Tape Designs, from the 1960s to the 1990s Audio cassette tapes first appeared on the market in the early nineteen-sixties, but it would take...
10 months ago
78
10 months ago
Audio cassette tapes first appeared on the market in the early nineteen-sixties, but it would take about a decade before they came to dominate it. And when they did, they’d changed the lives of many a music-lover by having made it possible not just to listen to their albums of...
Seth's Blog
Mediocre tools Lousy tools are dangerous. They endanger our safety (physical or emotional) and undermine our work....
6 months ago
79
6 months ago
Lousy tools are dangerous. They endanger our safety (physical or emotional) and undermine our work. Lousy tools are pretty easy to avoid, because they reveal themselves whenever we use them. Great tools are magical. They multiply our effort, amplify the quality of our work and...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Kate Maxwell Hello! I’m Kate Maxwell from Design and Draw. I’m a printmaker and freelance Illustrator. I make...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Hello! I’m Kate Maxwell from Design and Draw. I’m a printmaker and freelance Illustrator. I make colourful screen prints, risographs and other handprinted goods. You can also find my freelance illustrations on wooden toys and in children’s publishing. Describe your printmaking...
Seth's Blog
The good news What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing...
a year ago
20
a year ago
What if there were a pipeline into your day, a series of emails or posts or feeds that had nothing but nice things, positive feedback and encouragement coming your way? Amazingly, you could build something like that in just a few minutes and have it forever. If the bad news...
Infinite Scroll
Is a Progressive Joe Rogan Impossible? Why the online environment has broken sharply to the right
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
The question book In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that...
a year ago
29
a year ago
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that an employee could anonymously submit a suggestion to make things better is a first step in engagement. Some companies took this much further and paid employees for suggestions that...
Open Culture
Wes Anderson Directs & Stars in an Ad Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Montblanc’s Signature Pen One hardly has to be an expert on the films of Wes Anderson to imagine that the man writes with a...
a year ago
51
a year ago
One hardly has to be an expert on the films of Wes Anderson to imagine that the man writes with a fountain pen. Maybe back in the early nineteen-nineties, when he was shooting the black-and-white short that would become Bottle Rocket on the streets of Austin, he had to settle for...
Infinite Scroll
The Unbearable Cynicism of Trump 2.0 Who cares, nothing matters, cry about it
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
Consider joining Purple Space It’s not for everyone, but it might be for you. All the details are at purple.space It’s for...
a year ago
26
a year ago
It’s not for everyone, but it might be for you. All the details are at purple.space It’s for creatives, independents, brand managers, strategists, founders, non-profit leaders and lifelong learners.
Open Culture
David Bowie/Nirvana’s “The Man Who Sold The World” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument from... East meets West, and the Ancient, the Modern. That’s what happens every time Luna Lee plays one of...
a month ago
16
a month ago
East meets West, and the Ancient, the Modern. That’s what happens every time Luna Lee plays one of your favorites on the Gayageum, a Korean instrument that dates back to the 6th century. We’ve featured her work in years past (see the Relateds below). Above, watch one of her...
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
82
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
Pavlonian coincidence There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the...
a year ago
21
a year ago
There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the make-believe magic of two things occurring that we didn’t expect to occur. When you and your long-lost college roommate end up randomly sharing adjacent bowling lanes when you’re...
Stat Significant
Quantifying 'The Kevin Bacon Game': A Statistical Exploration of Hollywood’s Most Connected Actors Examining 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' and its statistical underpinnings.
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Tom Peters Tom announced his retirement today, at 80 years old, after 45 years of Excellence and perhaps...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
Tom announced his retirement today, at 80 years old, after 45 years of Excellence and perhaps 10,000,000 miles flown. I remember a photo of him sleeping on a bench in an airport in Siberia. I remember him holding my young son just before we went on stage in Florida together...
John Reynolds -...
Mammoth Life - Lights Out Music Video Title: Lights OutArtist: Mammoth LifeYear: 2014 --
over a year ago
Blog - Mac Pierce
+ / - , Actualization Reposting some writing I did a while back on the subject of how additive manufacturing is...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
Reposting some writing I did a while back on the subject of how additive manufacturing is necessarily a destructive process.
Seth's Blog
Giving up vs. quitting Shrug your shoulders, care less, phone it in. One software company I used to depend on has sort of...
11 months ago
40
11 months ago
Shrug your shoulders, care less, phone it in. One software company I used to depend on has sort of given up. They have plenty of cash in the bank, but they simply stopped trying. You can feel it in their updates, their customer service, their approach to the future. Giving up is...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
A strange kind of physical reality A long-form generative art project coming to fxhash in partnership with FAB DAO on 11th Jan 2024....
a year ago
25
a year ago
A long-form generative art project coming to fxhash in partnership with FAB DAO on 11th Jan 2024. This series is inspired, in the abstract, by the images I visualise when reading about quantum theory. Particularly thoughts of particles spreading out as waves and then collapsing...
Open Culture
How the Ancient Greeks & Romans Made Beautiful Purple Dye from Snail Glands Much has been written about the loss of color in the twenty-first century. Our environments offered...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Much has been written about the loss of color in the twenty-first century. Our environments offered practically every color known to man not so very long ago — and in certain eras, granted, it got to be a bit much. But now, everything seems to have retreated to a narrow palette...
Seth's Blog
The first draft of your first non-fiction book Writing a book is good for you. It clarifies your thinking and it’s generous as well. You might not...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
Writing a book is good for you. It clarifies your thinking and it’s generous as well. You might not publish it professionally, but sharing it with people you want to teach and lead is a useful practice. The first draft can be challenging. We’re facing a blank page, trying to find...
Open Culture
Download 1,000+ Digitized Tapes of Sounds from Classic Hollywood Films & TV, Courtesy of the... Watch enough classic movies — especially classic movies from slightly downmarket studios — and...
10 months ago
64
10 months ago
Watch enough classic movies — especially classic movies from slightly downmarket studios — and you’ll swear you’ve been hearing the very same sound effects over and over again. That’s because you have been hearing the very same sound effects over and over again: once recorded or...
Seth's Blog
Anti-smart There’s a difference between intellectual and smart. A plumber is smart, they know how to do a...
a year ago
19
a year ago
There’s a difference between intellectual and smart. A plumber is smart, they know how to do a skilled and effective job on the task at hand. Intellectualism isn’t about practical results, it’s a passion for exploring what others have said, though this approach is sometimes...
Seth's Blog
The ghost in the machine “The computer wants you to click this button.” “It thinks you asked for something else.” “He’s mad...
over a year ago
86
over a year ago
“The computer wants you to click this button.” “It thinks you asked for something else.” “He’s mad at you.” Thousands of generations ago, we evolved our way into a magnificent hack. It turns out that we can more safely navigate the world by imagining that other people have a...
On the Arts
Generative AI and the Falling Costs of Art Creation For individual creators on a budget, the future is bright.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Product and process What do we get in exchange for our work? There’s pay, of course, and the satisfaction of a job well...
a year ago
36
a year ago
What do we get in exchange for our work? There’s pay, of course, and the satisfaction of a job well done. There’s stress and human interaction, learning and physical exertion. We get the drama of what might happen next and the delight of actually pulling it off. And mostly we get...
Open Culture
Will Machines Ever Truly Think? Richard Feynman Contemplates the Future of Artificial Intelligence... Though its answer has grown more complicated in recent years, the question of whether computers will...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Though its answer has grown more complicated in recent years, the question of whether computers will ever truly think has been around for quite some time. Richard Feynman was being asked about it 40 years ago, as evidenced by the lecture clip above. As his fans would expect, he...
Seth's Blog
We probably can’t buy our way out of it That’s what we usually try to do. When technology, comfort, convenience, efficiency and price line...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
That’s what we usually try to do. When technology, comfort, convenience, efficiency and price line up, the market takes care of itself. On the other hand, seatbelts would never have happened if they weren’t required. But pizza grew to dominate our diets with no centralized...
Seth's Blog
Podcasts, international covers and more I just received copies of the new reprints of four of my books in the UK: I’m really pleased at how...
a year ago
46
a year ago
I just received copies of the new reprints of four of my books in the UK: I’m really pleased at how the books have stayed relevant and also delighted at what a good job the publisher did with the reissues. Also, the Italian version of This is Marketing just went back for its 14th...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Courtney Arnold Hello! I’m Courtney, a printmaker specialising in linocut. I live in a little town on the edge of...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
Hello! I’m Courtney, a printmaker specialising in linocut. I live in a little town on the edge of Dartmoor, nestled between moorland, farmland and the exquisite River Dart. The wonderful flora and fauna of these rugged and beautiful surroundings is my main inspiration. However,...
Open Culture
Death: A Free Online Philosophy Course from Yale Helps You Grapple with the Inescapable It pays to think intelligently about the inevitable. And this course taught by Yale professor Shelly...
9 months ago
56
9 months ago
It pays to think intelligently about the inevitable. And this course taught by Yale professor Shelly Kagan does just that, taking a rich, philosophical look at death. Here’s how the course description reads: There is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to...
Open Culture
Artificial Intelligence & Drones Uncover 303 New Nazca Lines in Peru If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu...
9 months ago
58
9 months ago
If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu Picchu. If you visit another, it’ll probably be the Nazca Desert, home to many large-scale geoglyphs made by pre-Inca peoples between 500 BC and 500 AD. Many of these “Nazca lines”...
Open Culture
How Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon Became the First Sci-Fi Film & Changed Cinema Forever (1902) If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
If you happen to visit the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, do take the time to see the Musée Méliès located inside it. Dedicated to la Magie du cinéma, it contains artifacts from throughout the history of film-as-spectacle, which includes such pictures as 2001: A Space Odyssey...
Open Culture
Hear Moby Dick Read in Its Entirety by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Stephen Fry... Image of Moby Dick by David Austen. In 2013, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read,...
9 months ago
78
9 months ago
Image of Moby Dick by David Austen. In 2013, Plymouth University kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read, promising a full audiobook of Herman Melville’s influential novel, with famous (and not so famous) voices taking on a chapter each. When we first wrote about it here, only six...
Seth's Blog
Kinds of incompetence The second worst is the unaware sort. The work doesn’t meet spec, and we don’t even realize it. The...
5 months ago
74
5 months ago
The second worst is the unaware sort. The work doesn’t meet spec, and we don’t even realize it. The worst is uncaring. We know the work doesn’t meet spec, but we don’t bother to fix it. But there are other varieties, and some are worth seeking out: There’s the incompetence of...
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
40
a year ago
Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and time at the microfilm reader was booked in advance. Today, if there’s something I don’t know, it’s almost certainly because I haven’t cared enough to find out. I don’t understand...
Open Culture
Watch Animations Showing How Humans Migrated Across the World Over the Past 60,000 Years Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the...
a year ago
78
a year ago
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the probable inspiration for Isak Dinesen’s poem “Ex Africa,” itself the probable inspiration for her memoir Out of Africa, which in turn was loosely adapted into Sydney Pollack’s...
Seth's Blog
The name doesn’t matter (that much) Busy people in important organizations waste a lot of time naming things. It could be that once a...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
Busy people in important organizations waste a lot of time naming things. It could be that once a name is good enough, you’re done. That’s certainly true for the logo. Nike is hard to pronounce. Starbucks is named after an obscure character in a mostly unreadable book. Apple is...
On the Arts
On the Arts: A Three Month Review And a Thank You to Subscribers
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
41
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....
Seth's Blog
Useful assumptions for teachers Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment....
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment. Either someone is committed to learning or they’re not. While many situations place people into a spot where they are compelled to show up (exhibit A: learning arithmetic in grade...
Seth's Blog
The leap In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there,...
a year ago
46
a year ago
In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there, all at once. It’s easy to imagine that sudden leaps are how we make our impact. This is blog post #9000 (give or take). When did the leap happen? It wasn’t an external leap. The...
Seth's Blog
The head of marketing It’s easy to be confused about this job, because it’s not one job, it’s at least three. This is why...
a year ago
32
a year ago
It’s easy to be confused about this job, because it’s not one job, it’s at least three. This is why it’s a difficult job to fill, and why turnover is so high–we’re not allocating resources or setting expectations in a way that matches the work to be done. Marketing strategy: This...
Seth's Blog
Amazon Smile gets a frown I’m pretty sure how the first meetings went almost a decade ago: “Well, we’re paying our affiliates...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
I’m pretty sure how the first meetings went almost a decade ago: “Well, we’re paying our affiliates 5% for referrals. If we pay charities a tenth of that and call it a donation, it’ll be great PR and we’ll also make a profit on every sale because we won’t need to pay a full...
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...
10 months ago
55
10 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...
Seth's Blog
The hard parts (and the important parts) The hard parts of what you do all day can feel fraught. It’s heavy lifting. Emergencies. Dangerous...
10 months ago
67
10 months ago
The hard parts of what you do all day can feel fraught. It’s heavy lifting. Emergencies. Dangerous labor. The stakes are high and the work can be difficult. The important parts of what you do all day are valuable to someone else. This is what you’re getting paid for–solving a...
Open Culture
Simone de Beauvoir Explains “Why I’m a Feminist” in a Rare TV Interview (1975) In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his...
11 months ago
43
11 months ago
In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his childhood friend Marcel’s reaction to the word “revolution”: It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not meddle...
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
Simple and painless productivity On the factory floor, productivity increases are relentlessly implemented, often without regard for...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
On the factory floor, productivity increases are relentlessly implemented, often without regard for worker satisfaction. For people working with a laptop, though, they are often seen as optional lifestyle choices instead of ways to significantly boost how much we can get done–and...
Seth's Blog
The Ikea metaphors
4 months ago
Infinite Scroll
Trapped in the Platforms Platform lock in and the Open Web
3 months ago
The Last...
No Self-Respecting Woman Would Go Out Without Make Up For some reason, one of the most emailed articles from the NYT was an article about whether women...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
For some reason, one of the most emailed articles from the NYT was an article about whether women should or should not wear make up.  "New York Times? Sounds progressive."  Yes.  Seven people were asked their opinion in a column called "Room For Debate," liars, there was no...
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
63
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
Rainy day surfer Of course you’re going to get wet, that’s part of the sport. And yet, only the hard core surfers...
4 months ago
58
4 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
Pleasant We often use words like “beautiful” or “stunning” or “perfect” when we actually mean “popular” or...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
We often use words like “beautiful” or “stunning” or “perfect” when we actually mean “popular” or “pleasant.” Every day is beautiful in its own way. But the weather yesterday was pleasant. Hit songs are hits. But they’re rarely perfect. I’m a big fan of pleasant. And I often like...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Anita Klein Hi, I am a painter and printmaker working in London and Italy. Describe your printmaking process. I...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
Hi, I am a painter and printmaker working in London and Italy. Describe your printmaking process. I use almost all printmaking processes and choose between techniques depending on the type of mark that suits the picture I want to make. At the moment I am mostly working in...
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
87
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 […]
Open Culture
The Wisdom of Alan Watts in 4 Mind-Expanding Animations Perhaps no single person did more to popularize Zen Buddhism in the West than Alan Watts. In a...
8 months ago
50
8 months ago
Perhaps no single person did more to popularize Zen Buddhism in the West than Alan Watts. In a sense, Watts prepared U.S. culture for more traditionally Zen teachers like Soto priest Suzuki Roshi, whose lineage continues today, but Watts did not consider himself a Zen Buddhist....
Seth's Blog
The paradox of insular language We often develop slang or codewords to keep the others from understanding what we’re saying. Here’s...
a year ago
24
a year ago
We often develop slang or codewords to keep the others from understanding what we’re saying. Here’s an example (thanks BK) of the lengths that some are going to be able to take about Chinese politics. Of course, if you come up with a concealed enough code, the people you’re...
Seth's Blog
What happened vs. what we do about it It’s possible to have a useful conversation about what to do about something that’s broken or needs...
a year ago
45
a year ago
It’s possible to have a useful conversation about what to do about something that’s broken or needs improvement. But first, we must acknowledge that it happened. It’s not controversial to understand the facts, the data and the shifts that are happening in the world we live in. In...
Stat Significant
The Fall and Rise of Nicolas Cage: A Statistical Analysis Nicolas Cage: A Data Story
10 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Nick Morley (with giveaway!) Nick Morley, aka Linocutboy, is an artist, illustrator, author and educator specialising in linocut....
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
Nick Morley, aka Linocutboy, is an artist, illustrator, author and educator specialising in linocut. His prints have been bought by people all over the world and his illustrations have appeared on book covers and in magazines. Nick teaches regular linocut workshops at Hello Print...
Seth's Blog
Chores They’re essential. The house begins to stink if we don’t take out the garbage. But at work, while...
over a year ago
88
over a year ago
They’re essential. The house begins to stink if we don’t take out the garbage. But at work, while they might be essential, they may not be important. At least, not important enough for us to spend a lot of focus on. Chores are: The bills have to get paid. But they might not have...
Seth's Blog
Population and big innovations It’s tempting to embrace the meme that the best way for humans to solve the big problems in front of...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
It’s tempting to embrace the meme that the best way for humans to solve the big problems in front of us is to increase the population, perhaps dramatically. The thinking goes that people are the ones who can solve problems, and more people give us more problem-solvers. This...
Seth's Blog
“That will never work” Every successful SNL sketch, every bestselling book, every landslide-winning candidate… every single...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
Every successful SNL sketch, every bestselling book, every landslide-winning candidate… every single one… had skeptics. Someone in the writer’s room, or on the editorial board or even an investor looked at what was on offer and said, “no.” Not just, “I’m sorry, this doesn’t match...
Seth's Blog
PW1: Two hats for productivity Welcome to 2024. Back to work, here we go. So it’s Productivity Week on the blog. Productivity is...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Welcome to 2024. Back to work, here we go. So it’s Productivity Week on the blog. Productivity is the measure of the output (value) we get for the time or money we spend. Two hats for productivity: When I’m clearing my inbox, responding to comments in a doc, cooking lunch–these...
Seth's Blog
A finite ordered set of interesting objects The alphabet is one. 26 letters, no more. One order, that’s it. The Beatles are another. John, Paul,...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
The alphabet is one. 26 letters, no more. One order, that’s it. The Beatles are another. John, Paul, George and then Ringo. The Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, The Supremes. The astrological zodiac gets us to twelve, but I’m having a really difficult time finding a memorable...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #137 Mitochondria, Image Generation, Nobels, Vast, Common Sense, AI Lifeguards, Tina He
3 months ago
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
57
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...
Seth's Blog
Scripts and casting In the theatre, the play is written before casting begins. This gives the playwright freedom and...
a month ago
9
a month ago
In the theatre, the play is written before casting begins. This gives the playwright freedom and responsibility, and it puts the text first. Writing for a sitcom is different. The 50th episode of Seinfeld was a lot easier to write because the cast and the tropes were already set....
Seth's Blog
Who is undermining your brand? There’s a high-end grocer in a very expensive neighborhood of New York–and they focus all of their...
over a year ago
41
over a year ago
There’s a high-end grocer in a very expensive neighborhood of New York–and they focus all of their energy on Italian food. Everything is imported, and they spend a lot of time and money earning the premium they charge for an authentic Italian shopping experience. And then a lazy...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rachel Snowdon Hello! I’m Rachel Snowdon of Rachel Snowdon Studio, a London-born relief printmaker and illustrator...
9 months ago
90
9 months ago
Hello! I’m Rachel Snowdon of Rachel Snowdon Studio, a London-born relief printmaker and illustrator who has been based in West Devon since 2009.   Describe your printmaking process. Having recently introduced more colour into my designs, multi-block lino printing is probably...
Handprinted - Blog
Screen Printing with Speedball Night Glo onto Fabric As Halloween fast approaches, it’s time to get those costumes ready. We think it’s a perfect...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
As Halloween fast approaches, it’s time to get those costumes ready. We think it’s a perfect opportunity to try out Speedball Night Glo Fabric Screen Printing Ink! Print glow in the dark Halloween messages, pictures, or even your kids’ spooky drawings onto their own...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “rapid evolution of form” edition 1. Why should Trump deliver for anyone but Trump? This Bloomberg piece forgets one important fact:...
6 months ago
38
6 months ago
1. Why should Trump deliver for anyone but Trump? This Bloomberg piece forgets one important fact: Donald Trump is not going to be on the ticket next time. He doesn’t have to deliver a dime for ordinary voters, and will act accordingly.  2. You can now sync Apple Passwords with...
Infinite Scroll
Flat Earthers and Belief in Belief What flat earthers can teach us about politics
6 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
62
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
“This time will be different” Why is that? The new diet. The fundraising after a natural disaster. The relationship. The hype...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Why is that? The new diet. The fundraising after a natural disaster. The relationship. The hype cycle of a new technology or the media frenzy around a hot new fad or candidate… It always feels like it will be different this time. It rarely is. If it’s going to be different, the...
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
107
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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Packing & Expanding Polygons : An ongoing exploration I've been packing lots of irregular polygons into the canvas, and discovered some interesting (and...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I've been packing lots of irregular polygons into the canvas, and discovered some interesting (and some annoying) geometry along the way.
Ian Betteridge
When dealing with Musk, Labour needs to understand the world has changed There are plenty of objections to preventing Elon Musk from donating to Reform. The first is it’s...
6 months ago
64
6 months ago
There are plenty of objections to preventing Elon Musk from donating to Reform. The first is it’s politically motivated. A party shouldn’t (the theory goes) use its power in government specifically to target another party. Of course, Labour could do this in a way which prevented...
Handprinted - Blog
Inking Methods for Etching Once you've made an etching plate, you may be ready to print an edition - or you might want to proof...
7 months ago
80
7 months ago
Once you've made an etching plate, you may be ready to print an edition - or you might want to proof it to decide on further edits. Taking a print is the only way you’ll be able to see how your plate is progressing. This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques to...
Open Culture
Sex and Alcohol in Medieval Times: A Look into the Pleasures of the Middle Ages Playing video games, road-tripping across America, binge-listening to podcasts, chatting with...
11 months ago
61
11 months ago
Playing video games, road-tripping across America, binge-listening to podcasts, chatting with artificial intelligence: these are a few of our modern pleasures not just unknown to, but unimaginable by, humanity in the Middle Ages. Yet medieval people were, after all, people, and...
Seth's Blog
The landlord and the creative coach The conflict is real. “Jean-Michel [Basquiat] called,” Mr. Warhol wrote in his diary on Sept. 5,...
10 months ago
63
10 months ago
The conflict is real. “Jean-Michel [Basquiat] called,” Mr. Warhol wrote in his diary on Sept. 5, 1983. “He’s afraid he’s just going to be a flash in the pan. And I told him not to worry, that he wouldn’t be. But then I got scared because he’s rented our building on Great Jones...
The Last...
The Maintenance Of Certification Exam As Fetish no need to wait for the receipt (I had reworked an old post for a psychiatry trade journal, which I...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
no need to wait for the receipt (I had reworked an old post for a psychiatry trade journal, which I would happily have linked you to, except that page 2 is behind a login wall. So here is the version I submitted before the editors edited it, slightly longer with more typos. I am...
Open Culture
RIP David Sanborn: See Him Play Alongside Miles Davis, Randy Newman, Sun Ra, Leonard Cohen and... It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the...
a year ago
112
a year ago
It’s late in the evening of Saturday, October 28th, 1989. You flip on the television and the saxophonist David Sanborn appears onscreen, instrument in hand, introducing the eclectic blues icon Taj Mahal, who in turn declares his intent to play a number with “rural humor” and...
Seth's Blog
A really good reason Do you see the defaults? The question, “What are things like around here?” has two possible answers....
9 months ago
42
9 months ago
Do you see the defaults? The question, “What are things like around here?” has two possible answers. When a new idea or opportunity arrives, your organization says yes, unless there’s a really good reason to say no. Or your organization says no, unless someone makes a powerful...
Open Culture
How the 13th-Century Sufi Poet Rumi Became One of the World’s Most Popular Writers The Middle East is hardly the world’s most harmonious region, and it only gets more fractious if you...
a year ago
65
a year ago
The Middle East is hardly the world’s most harmonious region, and it only gets more fractious if you add in South Asia and the Mediterranean. But there’s one thing on which many residents of that wide geographical span can agree: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī. One might at first...
Seth's Blog
Typist/Hypist Not that long ago, you could make a living as a typist. Technology keeps changing the world. Now,...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
Not that long ago, you could make a living as a typist. Technology keeps changing the world. Now, you’re more likely to find a job doing something that seems a lot less mechanized. But that too will be programmatic soon enough. PS here’s an important new book about perfectionism.
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
32
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...
Open Culture
The Olympics in the 2020s Versus 1912: See Side-by-Side Comparisons of the Athletes’ Performance... The Olympic Games have their origins in antiquity, but their modern revival has also been going on...
11 months ago
52
11 months ago
The Olympic Games have their origins in antiquity, but their modern revival has also been going on longer than any of us has been here. Even the fifth Summer Olympics, which took place in Stockholm in 1912, has passed out of living memory. But thanks to the technology of the...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #138 Isomorphic Labs, OpenAI Round, Streaming Thoughts, Dementia Vaccine?, Lipoprotein(a), Hyperlegible...
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Books don’t sell That’s not true, actually. Books sell, but book doesn’t. The odds of a particular book selling a lot...
a year ago
58
a year ago
That’s not true, actually. Books sell, but book doesn’t. The odds of a particular book selling a lot of copies are close to zero. The truth of the long tail is that most titles are way out on the fringe. Now that book publishing is unleashed from retail distribution, the math is...
Seth's Blog
The gap between impossible and normal It keeps getting shorter and shorter. This video couldn’t have been made, at any price, 18 months...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
It keeps getting shorter and shorter. This video couldn’t have been made, at any price, 18 months ago. 18 weeks ago, it would have required a thousand hours of work. Now, here it is. This impossible is going to happen faster and faster and faster.
Seth's Blog
The paradox of brittle Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the...
9 months ago
59
9 months ago
Optimizing a device or system means squeezing every drop of productivity out of it. In the short-run, optimization works as long as the world stays the same. We can optimize a device to work at capacity. However, something working at capacity blows up if you step on the gas when...
Seth's Blog
Tricked (again) If you knew then what you know now, would you have made the same decision? In the last fifty years,...
a year ago
22
a year ago
If you knew then what you know now, would you have made the same decision? In the last fifty years, more than 25,000,000 Americans have died prematurely due to cigarette smoking. Worldwide, it’s significantly higher. That’s fifty times as many U.S. citizens as died in World War...
Open Culture
The Cramps Play a Mental Health Hospital in Napa, California in 1978: The Punkest of Punk Concerts “We’re The Cramps, and we’re from New York City, and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you...
11 months ago
60
11 months ago
“We’re The Cramps, and we’re from New York City, and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you people.” So begins one of the oddest but also the punkest of punk rock concerts in history, as The Cramps play for a crowd at a state mental hospital in Napa, California. The date was June...
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
18
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.
John Reynolds -...
Title Designer & Creative Director ︎︎︎ X/Twitter ︎︎︎ Instagram ︎︎︎ LinkedIn
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Confused about good How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your...
8 months ago
48
8 months ago
How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your work doesn’t catch on, does that mean it wasn’t good? In almost every field, people with insight, taste and experience admire and emulate good things that aren’t popular, and are...
Seth's Blog
Foundering or floundering? Floundering is flopping around and making little progress. A Dutch word for getting mired and lost....
8 months ago
63
8 months ago
Floundering is flopping around and making little progress. A Dutch word for getting mired and lost. Foundering is what we call it when the ship goes down. It’s an ancient French word based on bottom. Too often, in our desperate attempt to not founder, we flounder. Better, I...
Seth's Blog
The tooth fairy Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were...
11 months ago
61
11 months ago
Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were sure of, but now, with the passage of time and the benefit of experience, you know to be incorrect or incomplete. Of course, it’s not just mythical creatures beloved by children....
Seth's Blog
When the sun is shining Our job as professionals is to show up and do the work. Not simply respond to incoming or do the...
over a year ago
98
over a year ago
Our job as professionals is to show up and do the work. Not simply respond to incoming or do the chores, but to create and innovate. And yet, some days feel more conducive than others. There are moments when it simply flows. When the surf’s up, cancel everything else. Don’t waste...
Open Culture
Monty Python’s Michael Palin Presents His Favorite Painting, J. M. W. Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed Of all the English comedians to have attained worldwide fame over the past half-century, Sir Michael...
a year ago
59
a year ago
Of all the English comedians to have attained worldwide fame over the past half-century, Sir Michael Palin may be the most English of them all. It thus comes as no surprise that the National Gallery would ring him up and invite him to make a video about his favorite painting, nor...
Seth's Blog
Self restaint vs systemic restraint It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the restaurant to limit the number of trips that people take so that the restaurant can become sustainable. It’s possible to argue for systemic changes to cultural systems while also...
Seth's Blog
Delivering good taste There are lots of books on creating cooking, photography, writing and music. But they can’t possibly...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
There are lots of books on creating cooking, photography, writing and music. But they can’t possibly help you do better until you see and taste and appreciate what you’re trying to create. If you think what you’re serving is good, but others don’t, more recipes aren’t going to...
Seth's Blog
Making change happen One way to do it is to get people to want what you want. The other way is to help them get what they...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
One way to do it is to get people to want what you want. The other way is to help them get what they want in a way that gets you what you want. They’re not the same. Changing what someone wants is very different from helping them see the story and the path that […]
Anarchy Unfolds
Queer Folk Don't Need Orientation How decade-old discourse shows us a way out
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Sincerity is expected Well, not always. That’s why it’s so important. We don’t expect an actor to tell the truth. That’s...
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
Well, not always. That’s why it’s so important. We don’t expect an actor to tell the truth. That’s their job. Musicians and other performers are playing a role. And social niceties encourage us to put on a smile and share appreciation, even in situations where it might not be...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rosie Mclay I'm Rosie, a 32 year old female artist who is mostly from Bristol but can't decide whether to live...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
I'm Rosie, a 32 year old female artist who is mostly from Bristol but can't decide whether to live in Bristol or the Welsh borders so is a bit all over the place. I've been a full time artist for eight years, mostly making art about our relationship to mortality and nature by...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Lucy Gell Hi, I'm Lucy. I studied graphic design and illustration at Staffordshire University and later began...
over a year ago
62
over a year ago
Hi, I'm Lucy. I studied graphic design and illustration at Staffordshire University and later began a career in animation. During this fun and exciting time I was responsible for fabricating the Martians in the Tim Burton film ‘Mars Attacks’. I made many foam latex and silicone...
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
82
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...
Stat Significant
When Do Viewers Get Hooked on a TV Show? A Statistical Analysis When do TV viewers become committed fans?
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
When the future finds us The future never arrives, of course, but it has a powerful force that’s impossible to avoid. We can...
a year ago
38
a year ago
The future never arrives, of course, but it has a powerful force that’s impossible to avoid. We can see it as a threshold, a doorway toward something new. Or we can fight it as an unwanted change, and discover that it has traction, tenacity and leverage. We can influence the...
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
42
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...
Seth's Blog
Where does your mind go when it wanders? My friend Jason points out that this might be where your heart is. What would have to change for you...
a year ago
28
a year ago
My friend Jason points out that this might be where your heart is. What would have to change for you to actually follow the wandering and make it real? Or for your mind to choose to wander somewhere else? Somewhere you’re already going.
Blog - Mac Pierce
NCCCIAP 2025 - Photos + A photo gallery showcasing images taken at the 2025 National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
A photo gallery showcasing images taken at the 2025 National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art and Practices.
Seth's Blog
The right marketing question The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?” The right...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
The wrong question is, “our project isn’t catching on, how do we promote it better?” The right question is a little more nuanced and far more important, “We’re seeking to make a change in part of the world. How do we find the right people and tell them the right (true) story that...
Seth's Blog
Consider switching sides One of the spokespeople for the new milk marketing campaign confessed that she doesn’t really like...
over a year ago
58
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
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
37
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
“I didn’t get in” There are two ways to process this: The selection committee saw me, understood me, and then decided...
a year ago
32
a year ago
There are two ways to process this: The selection committee saw me, understood me, and then decided to reject me. or The selection committee didn’t get what I had to offer. I wasn’t rejected, my application was. It’s not that I didn’t get in, it’s that they didn’t engage with the...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Decreasing the F.Q. - A talk on Facial Recognition and the Opt Out Cap Links to a talk I gave on the Opt-Out cap and the state of surveillance via facial recognition.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
When was the last time you used a compass? How about an astrolabe? Or even a watch? Technology advances, and sooner or later, the old stuff...
a year ago
33
a year ago
How about an astrolabe? Or even a watch? Technology advances, and sooner or later, the old stuff gets left behind. It’s easy to romanticize some of the classic devices that we built civilization on, and it’s worth remembering that the tech we’re wrestling with now will soon be...
Seth's Blog
Pique-a-boo Marketers seek to make an impact, and that takes interest. Three ways to spell the key word: Peak...
over a year ago
63
over a year ago
Marketers seek to make an impact, and that takes interest. Three ways to spell the key word: Peak interest can’t get any higher. It never happens at launch. It’s the result of cultural change and an idea moving through the population. Peek interest happens when there’s scarcity...
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
22
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...
Seth's Blog
The Beatles and Taylor Swift When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too....
a year ago
21
a year ago
When we’re in the middle of a cultural swirl, it’s normal to believe that everyone else is too. That’s part of the magic of a cultural swirl–it’s our friends, our work, our world. Most of these moments are actually tiny pockets. An episode of the much-talked-about TV show...
Haterade
Homemade Pasta Is Easy When You Have Three Hands The Haterade Mailbag returns against all odds and most wishes.
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
It’s not easy to see time Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about...
8 months ago
72
8 months ago
Consider a simple graph of the temperature of the Earth over time. There’s nothing interesting about any frame of this graph. But when we pause for just a few seconds for it to load and render, we can see 150 years unfold and then the truth becomes apparent. The snapshot is a...
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
18
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...
Seth's Blog
Niching up Along the way, folks have talked about “niching down” as a way to help a project find focus. But...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Along the way, folks have talked about “niching down” as a way to help a project find focus. But that’s backward. When we identify and embrace the smallest viable audience, we’re moving up. Up the quality hierarchy. Up in responsibility. Up in the likelihood that we’ll make an...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: 2023 Round Up! What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put...
a year ago
86
a year ago
What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put together a round up for you with all of the wonderful advice our makers have given for creatives at any stage of their creative practice. Pop your feet up, grab yourself a nice...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: BookTok Perverts Plus! Elon's mania, presidential crypto, and concerning turkey behavior
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Valuable contributions We actually don’t really know. Netflix just released their first-ever detailed analysis of how many...
a year ago
43
a year ago
We actually don’t really know. Netflix just released their first-ever detailed analysis of how many hours of engagement the top 15,000+ most watched shows on the network received over a six month period. Here’s the file. Who won? That question is actually the lesson here. The...
Seth's Blog
A little faster than you What’s the best speed to drive? I was caught in a snowstorm the other day. Visibility was low, so I...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
What’s the best speed to drive? I was caught in a snowstorm the other day. Visibility was low, so I was going about 25 mph. Someone passed me on the highway, doing 30. Not 55 or 75, but fast enough to take a risk and pass the rest of traffic. Do that often enough and […]
Open Culture
The Rolling Stones Introduce Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf on US TV, One of the “Greatest Cultural Moments... Howlin’ Wolf may well have been the greatest blues singer of the 20th century. Certainly many people...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
Howlin’ Wolf may well have been the greatest blues singer of the 20th century. Certainly many people have said so, but there are other measurements than mere opinion, though it’s one I happen to share. The man born Chester Arthur Burnett also had a profound historical effect on...
Open Culture
How Carl Jung Inspired the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous There may be as many doors into Alcoholics Anonymous in the 21st century as there are people who...
a year ago
74
a year ago
There may be as many doors into Alcoholics Anonymous in the 21st century as there are people who walk through them—from every world religion to no religion. The “international mutual-aid fellowship” has had “a significant and long-term effect on the culture of the United States,”...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Ian Burke Ian Burke is a Painter Printmaker based in the North Yorkshire Moors. He was born in Saltburn and...
a year ago
87
a year ago
Ian Burke is a Painter Printmaker based in the North Yorkshire Moors. He was born in Saltburn and grew up in Redcar before studying Fine Art at Newcastle University. Having completed a Master's at Goldsmith's College, London he established a career in teaching art.  Ian now...
Open Culture
A New Analysis of Beethoven’s DNA Reveals That Lead Poisoning Could Have Caused His Deafness Despite the intense scrutiny paid to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven for a couple of...
a year ago
35
a year ago
Despite the intense scrutiny paid to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven for a couple of centuries now, the revered composer still has certain mysteries about him. Some of them he surely never intended to clarify, like the identity of “Immortal Beloved”; others he...
Seth's Blog
The strategy sessions I’m workshopping a new book. For the last few months, I’ve been feverishly writing a book about...
a year ago
102
a year ago
I’m workshopping a new book. For the last few months, I’ve been feverishly writing a book about strategy. Strategy for individuals, small organizations and large ones as well. Strategy for someone seeking to make a difference, and strategy for people who do projects. Starting...
Seth's Blog
Hungry (vs. not full) If consumption is the point (the engine of the economy, the focus of our marketing, the driver of...
11 months ago
61
11 months ago
If consumption is the point (the engine of the economy, the focus of our marketing, the driver of our status) then it’s easy to get confused about the difference between something that’s nearly empty (and must be refilled to ensure we keep going) and something that’s not quite...
Seth's Blog
Return on effort It’s a pretty simple calculation. How much value per dollar does a freelancer produce for you?...
a year ago
81
a year ago
It’s a pretty simple calculation. How much value per dollar does a freelancer produce for you? What’s the psychic reward for the time you put into your favorite hobby? That machine that takes time and money to set up and run… what does it create when it’s operating? Not...
Seth's Blog
The (very) long tail The average YouTube video gets five new views every day. Let’s parse that for a second. 5 billion...
a year ago
19
a year ago
The average YouTube video gets five new views every day. Let’s parse that for a second. 5 billion YouTube plays a day, spread over about a billion videos means that while some videos live in the short head and get millions of views, there are a huge number of videos that get...
Stat Significant
Why Do People Like True Crime? A Statistical Analysis Exploring the appeal of true crime podcasts and docuseries.
11 months ago
Open Culture
13 Experimental Animations of Osamu Tezuka, “the Godfather of Manga” (1964–1987) If you enjoy modern Japanese animation, you can no doubt name several masterpieces of the form off...
9 months ago
35
9 months ago
If you enjoy modern Japanese animation, you can no doubt name several masterpieces of the form off the top of your head, whether acclaimed series like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop to the work of cinema auteurs like Satoshi Kon and Hayao Miyazaki. What may cross your...
Handprinted - Blog
Should I use Caligo Extender or Opaque White? When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or...
a year ago
51
a year ago
When mixing shades of ink, we have the choice to dilute the colour with either Opaque White ink or Extender. Both of these give us different results so which should we choose? We have performed a few experiments to show the difference between mixing with Opaque White and...
Handprinted - Blog
Blind Embossing with Lino Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds...
a year ago
135
a year ago
Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds subtle texture and interest. Emboss prints ‘blind’ (without ink) or combine with inked lino for a complex final print. Prepare the design. These white pencils are brilliant for...
Anarchy Unfolds
Did we really just get taken over by fascists in less than a month? Red Round-up #2
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
Emotional labor and its consequences Forty years ago, Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote about emotional labor. The work that frontline...
a year ago
67
a year ago
Forty years ago, Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote about emotional labor. The work that frontline employees had to do (especially women) in managing and expressing emotions as part of their job. She talked about how exhausting it was for flight attendants to show up with a smile,...
escape the algorithm
The New Turing Test Changing the AI conversation
a year ago
On the Arts
Link List: 20 Articles + Websites About the Arts A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and...
a year ago
Open Culture
The 1924 Soviet Chess Match Where The Chess Pieces Were Real Soldiers and Horses Let’s time travel back to Leningrad (aka St. Petersburg) in 1924. That’s when an unconventional...
2 months ago
39
2 months ago
Let’s time travel back to Leningrad (aka St. Petersburg) in 1924. That’s when an unconventional chess match was played by Peter Romanovsky and Ilya Rabinovich, two chess masters of the day. Apparently, they called in their moves over the telephone. And then real-life chess...
Seth's Blog
Ways to alter the structure Cutting Growing Grinding Pruning Irrigating Sanding Cultivating Grafting Pressuring Polishing...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Cutting Growing Grinding Pruning Irrigating Sanding Cultivating Grafting Pressuring Polishing Shifting Feeding Bending Welding Celebrating Melting Burning It works better when we choose with intent.
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
22
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...
Seth's Blog
Dancing for the early adopters The traveling circus didn’t have to appeal to everyone. They rode into town with the elephants, the...
over a year ago
42
over a year ago
The traveling circus didn’t have to appeal to everyone. They rode into town with the elephants, the bearded lady and the Tasmanian Devil, and the people who came, came. Once the folks who wanted excitement were exhausted, the circus left. The problem kicks in when the circus...
Open Culture
Download 131,000 Historic Maps from the Huge David Rumsey Map Collection The world has changed dramatically over the past 500 years, albeit not quite as dramatically as how...
a year ago
41
a year ago
The world has changed dramatically over the past 500 years, albeit not quite as dramatically as how we see the world. That’s just what’s on display at the David Rumsey Map Collection, whose more than 131,000 historical maps and related images are available to browse (or download)...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Aurore Swithenbank Hiya, I’m Aurore Swithenbank, a printmaker living in South East London with my partner and cute cat....
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
Hiya, I’m Aurore Swithenbank, a printmaker living in South East London with my partner and cute cat. I moved to London when I was 10 from France and haven’t looked back since.  Describe your printmaking process.  My printmaking method is linocut. I plan most of my designs with...
On the Arts
Do biographies need to start at the beginning? Alternatives to the predictably linear narratives of most biographies.
a year ago
On the Arts
What does Wabi-Sabi really mean? Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
The problem with marketing puffery It costs more than you think. Last month, I hit the old stock on the Avery labels in my office...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
It costs more than you think. Last month, I hit the old stock on the Avery labels in my office cabinet. I had a bunch of things to send out, and off they went. It turns out, who knew, that old labels stop sticking. It’s entirely possible some of my really important packages never...
Seth's Blog
The page-a-day calendar Time passes. And humans have always kept track. Distribution and technology combined to create a few...
11 months ago
71
11 months ago
Time passes. And humans have always kept track. Distribution and technology combined to create a few decades where the tear off daily calendar was nearly ubiquitous (read on for details on my new one, a collaboration with Debbie Millman). First, the industry needed to efficiently...
The Great Discontent...
Mira Nakashima In 1970, Mira Nakashima joined the family business run by her father, renowned furniture designer...
a year ago
12
a year ago
In 1970, Mira Nakashima joined the family business run by her father, renowned furniture designer and craftsman George Nakashima. Since his death in 1990, Mira has helmed Nakashima Woodworkers, now a 21-building complex and National Historic Landmark nestled among the trees in...
Seth's Blog
Long form AI The new version of Claude can read a document of up to 400 pages in about three minutes. You can...
a year ago
28
a year ago
The new version of Claude can read a document of up to 400 pages in about three minutes. You can then ask it for criticism, summaries or other insights. I wouldn’t use it on a piece of literature, but if you’re reading for work (aren’t we all), it will dramatically increase how...
Seth's Blog
Unaware If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak...
a year ago
42
a year ago
If you don’t realize that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organize, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’. It’s tempting to imagine we have less power...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
How does it feel to make generative art? I asked other generative artists how the process feels to them
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Time well spent Doing what? When we choose which job to apply for, what career to commit to, which business to...
4 months ago
36
4 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 […]
Handprinted - Blog
Separating Your Colour Layers for CMYK Screen Printing CMYK screen printing is a great way of bringing both your photographic and coloured art images to...
10 months ago
113
10 months ago
CMYK screen printing is a great way of bringing both your photographic and coloured art images to life through colour separation. This is achieved by layering four colours (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) on top of each other using only 4 screens. Photoshop plays a key role in...
Stat Significant
What's the Perfect Song Length? A Statistical Analysis Investigating the "ideal" song length, and whether such a thing exists.
3 months ago
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Midjourney takes on Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings Continuing my mission to use AI tools for things they really weren’t designed for and aren’t very...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
Continuing my mission to use AI tools for things they really weren’t designed for and aren’t very good at and then judging the results.
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
22
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...
The Great Discontent...
Rafael Espinal Rafael Espinal was just 26 when he became an elected official. For the next 10 years, he worked...
8 months ago
8
8 months ago
Rafael Espinal was just 26 when he became an elected official. For the next 10 years, he worked within the halls of government, first as a New York State Assemblymember and then as a New York City Councilmember, advocating for artists, independent workers, and underserved...
Seth's Blog
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.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Ian Phillips Hi, I’m Ian Phillips, a printmaker based in Mid Wales. I’m originally from Leicestershire and...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
Hi, I’m Ian Phillips, a printmaker based in Mid Wales. I’m originally from Leicestershire and studied illustration at Leicester Polytechnic. After graduation I attempted the life of a freelance Illustrator in London, but quite quickly, well after a few years, realised it wasn’t...
Open Culture
The Radical Artistic & Philosophical World of William Blake: A Short Introduction Over the years, we’ve featured the work of William Blake fairly often here on Open Culture: his own...
a year ago
60
a year ago
Over the years, we’ve featured the work of William Blake fairly often here on Open Culture: his own illuminated books; his illustrations for everything from the Divine Comedy to Mary Wollstonecraft’s Original Stories from Real Life to the Book of Job; pairs of Doc Martens made...
Seth's Blog
Is it possible to care at scale? After 25 years, I stopped using a certain credit card for business. It was easily millions of...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
After 25 years, I stopped using a certain credit card for business. It was easily millions of dollars worth of transactions over that period. Did anyone at the company notice? Did anyone care? I still remember losing a client in 1987. Small organizations pay attention and care...
Seth's Blog
Sudare sette camicie Sweating through seven shirts… That was the definition of work when work was the same thing as...
11 months ago
91
11 months ago
Sweating through seven shirts… That was the definition of work when work was the same thing as physical labor. For many of us, the physical labor is no longer the way we add value. And it’s tempting to imagine that we simply have to show up for the coffee. But it’s still called...
Seth's Blog
Learning in August What better time? An hour a day for a month and you can learn a skill you’ll have forever. Beach...
11 months ago
63
11 months ago
What better time? An hour a day for a month and you can learn a skill you’ll have forever. Beach reads are a fine way to chill out, but a month spent to learn a skill is a fine way to take advantage of a quiet time. My brand new course on Strategy is now […]
Seth's Blog
Amplifying the fringes Culture is: “People like us do things like this.” We might even have a chance to choose our group....
8 months ago
55
8 months ago
Culture is: “People like us do things like this.” We might even have a chance to choose our group. Hipsters do this, hippies do that. People in this town wear this outfit, students at this school hang out here on Saturdays… We might be born into a culture. Less agency, but just...
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Arrives in London in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clapton Away:... Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues...
10 months ago
68
10 months ago
Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues guitarist to pieces the instant they saw him play. As vocalist Terry Reid tells it, when Hendrix played his first showcase at the Bag O’Nails, arranged by Animals’ bassist Chas...
Open Culture
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
18
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...
Neocha – Culture &...
Family First
a year ago
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...
9 months ago
34
9 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....
Seth's Blog
The reality of meliorism Nearly 150 years ago, George Eliot gave us a name for our project. She pointed out that we could...
6 months ago
54
6 months ago
Nearly 150 years ago, George Eliot gave us a name for our project. She pointed out that we could ameliorate the problems of the human condition, day by day, year by year, toward better. Max Roser highlighted three sentences that seem like they can’t all be true: “The world is...
Handprinted - Blog
CMYK Screen Printing! CMYK screen printing is a great way of bringing both your photographic and coloured art images to...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
CMYK screen printing is a great way of bringing both your photographic and coloured art images to life through colour separation. This is achieved by layering four colours (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) on top of each other using only 4 screens.  To start, you will need to...
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
18
over a year ago
I had pictured something quite bold, graphical and geometric but I ended with gradients and floatiness.
Open Culture
Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television...
9 months ago
79
9 months ago
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective? Sadly, no, but he had the makings of a great one, at least as cut together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. Some 35 years after...
Infinite Scroll
How the Internet Changed Gen Z Humor "Soup Time", says Standing Frog
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
Culture, care and typography I’ve been fascinated by the way we set type since I did my first packaging forty years ago. It’s a...
over a year ago
77
over a year ago
I’ve been fascinated by the way we set type since I did my first packaging forty years ago. It’s a combination of tech, art, systems, culture and most of all, deciding to put in the effort to get it right. [This is a long post, it would have been a podcast, but it doesn’t really...
escape the algorithm
Not your usual subscription confirmation Or why you shouldn't ignore the back catalog
a year ago
Open Culture
Leonard Bernstein: The Greatest 5 Minutes in Music Education We’ve previously written about one of Leonard Bernstein’s major works, The Unanswered Question, the...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
We’ve previously written about one of Leonard Bernstein’s major works, The Unanswered Question, the staggering six-part lecture that the multi-disciplinary artist gave as part of his duties as Harvard’s Charles Eliot Norton Professor. Over 11 hours, Bernstein attempts to explain...