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Open Culture
Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intelligent Person Should Read Image via Wikimedia Commons A number of years ago, a Reddit user posed the question to Neil deGrasse...
18 hours ago
2
18 hours ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons A number of years ago, a Reddit user posed the question to Neil deGrasse Tyson: “Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?” Below, you will find the book list offered up by the astrophysicist, director of the Hayden...
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
26
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...
Seth's Blog
Bullies Bullies use intimidation and power to force others to act against their best interests. Bullies...
11 months ago
62
11 months ago
Bullies use intimidation and power to force others to act against their best interests. Bullies blame the victim, assuring everyone that they wouldn’t have to use force if people would simply go along with what they want. Effective bullies organize a small mob to enforce their...
Seth's Blog
The MVP and fear The minimum viable product is a powerful way to find out if your solution is going to find a market....
a year ago
23
a year ago
The minimum viable product is a powerful way to find out if your solution is going to find a market. Bean-to-bar chocolate in the US didn’t happen because someone raised millions of dollars, built a factory and got shelf space at the A&P. It happened because John Scharffenberger...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Lorenzo Davitti Originally from Florence, Italy, I'm a printmaker and tutor now based in London for the past 10...
a year ago
107
a year ago
Originally from Florence, Italy, I'm a printmaker and tutor now based in London for the past 10 years. I work mainly on abstract art, and I am especially interested in the possibilities that printmaking offers when experimenting with colour, shapes and textures.   Describe your...
Seth's Blog
Raising the bar That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the...
a year ago
71
a year ago
That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the bar became well understood: If you can’t jump over the bar that the current leader cleared, you don’t win. But most of the innovations that change our culture don’t actually...
Seth's Blog
Finding the others Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Consider purple.space a new community for professionals to connect without hustle. Peer-to-peer support, brainstorming, community workshops, coaching, dailies and more. Distributed work doesn’t have to be disconnected work. Freelancing, creating, and leading can feel solitary,...
Seth's Blog
Summarize this… A great use of ChatGPT and other AI is to paste relevant text into the chat box and ask for a...
a year ago
17
a year ago
A great use of ChatGPT and other AI is to paste relevant text into the chat box and ask for a summary. I did this with 300 suggestions that came via a Google form and it did the work better, faster and with more clarity (and less bias) than a person would. Often, we’re clouded...
Seth's Blog
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...
Anarchy Unfolds
One Year on Substack Writing the upside-down, plus Pride Myths & Recs
a year ago
Open Culture
Hear Leo Tolstoy Read From His Last Major Work in Four Languages, 1909 In years past, we’ve brought you rare recordings of Sigmund Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in...
a year ago
103
a year ago
In years past, we’ve brought you rare recordings of Sigmund Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in English. Today we present a remarkable series of recordings of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy reading a passage from his book, Wise Thoughts for Every Day, in four...
Seth's Blog
Spam 3.0 Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Any fully open system of digital communication will corrode over time. Bad messages will crowd out the good ones. The new normal: Someone finds a database of every residential property, then another of cell phones. An AI is trained to call every homeowner, every day, asking if...
Open Culture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Puts 490,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic...
8 months ago
74
8 months ago
Update: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put online 492,000 high-resolution images of artistic works. Even better, the museum has placed the vast majority of these images into the public domain, meaning they can be downloaded directly from the museum’s website for...
Seth's Blog
Nothing to ad A recent discussion about the challenges of direct-to-consumer marketing of a skincare product ended...
a year ago
27
a year ago
A recent discussion about the challenges of direct-to-consumer marketing of a skincare product ended with one participant describing the hard part with, “nothing to ad.” She was referring to how much the thread had covered, but the pun wasn’t lost on us. Social media offered an...
Seth's Blog
Further vs. faster Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
Sprints and marathons are both foot races, but they have very little in common. The training is different, and so is the technique. Which one are you signing up for? What about the thing you sell? Are we trying to get there faster, or do we promise to go further?
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #127 New Glenn, Mechazilla, Moon, Varda W-2, Wooly Mammoths, AI Tutors, MatterGen, Anduril
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
A new cooperative workshop My colleague Ava Morris is running her Song of Significance Workshop on Friday, October 6. It’s...
a year ago
23
a year ago
My colleague Ava Morris is running her Song of Significance Workshop on Friday, October 6. It’s powerful, effective and personal. It runs worldwide, in Zoom, and it’s completely interactive–every participant participates. This will be the third session… the first two got rave...
Seth's Blog
Repeat happy accidents Those three words unlock our understanding of innovation and of biological evolution. Successful...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
Those three words unlock our understanding of innovation and of biological evolution. Successful outcomes often follow unpredicted actions. If we allow ourselves to do things that might not work, we’re far more likely to discover the things that do. And then we can repeat them.
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker - Rebecca Perdue Hello! I'm Rebecca Perdue. I am a printmaker and artist based in a small garden studio in Wiltshire....
a year ago
83
a year ago
Hello! I'm Rebecca Perdue. I am a printmaker and artist based in a small garden studio in Wiltshire. I work primarily in linocut and monoprint, but also paint and make occasional silver jewellery pieces and textiles. I'm very interested in linking work across several...
Seth's Blog
It’s not easy …to make it look easy. Sometimes, you don’t need to bother. Making it look hard might be a plus. The...
over a year ago
76
over a year ago
…to make it look easy. Sometimes, you don’t need to bother. Making it look hard might be a plus. The important part is how it makes the recipient feel.
Open Culture
The First Animation That Hayao Miyazaki Directed on His Own: Watch Footage from the Pilot of Yuki’s... Hayao Miyazaki began his career as an animator in 1963, getting in the door at Toei Animation not...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
Hayao Miyazaki began his career as an animator in 1963, getting in the door at Toei Animation not long before the company ceased to hire regularly. Miyazaki’s equally retirement-resistant contemporary Tetsuya Chiba, already well on his way to fame as a mangaka, or comic artist,...
Open Culture
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....
Handprinted - Blog
The Endless Possibilities of a Square Block Repeat Using a simple square block can create a myriad of possibilities of pattern. We have used Speedy...
over a year ago
102
over a year ago
Using a simple square block can create a myriad of possibilities of pattern. We have used Speedy Carve and Versafine inks for this project. Cut a square from the Speedy Carve using a scalpel. Draw a quarter circle curve on the block using a pencil. Above the curve draw some...
Prolost
Mac Studio and Studio Display Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and Apple Studio Display, running Cinema 4D and Redshift. In October of...
over a year ago
43
over a year ago
Mac Studio with M1 Ultra and Apple Studio Display, running Cinema 4D and Redshift. In October of 2021 I got to test a 14″ MacBook Pro with M1 Max processor. It performed so well, that I, along with many Mac power-users, questioned whether it could replace my desktop Mac. Last...
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,...
Open Culture
Explore and Download 14,000+ Woodcuts from Antwerp’s Plantin-Moretus Museum Online Archive We appreciate illuminated manuscripts and historical books here on Open Culture, adhere though we do...
7 months ago
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7 months ago
We appreciate illuminated manuscripts and historical books here on Open Culture, adhere though we do to a much more restrained aesthetic style in our own texts. But that’s not to deny the temptation to start this paragraph with one of those oversized initial letters that grew...
Open Culture
The Medieval Masterpiece, the Book of Kells, Is Now Digitized and Available Online If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book...
9 months ago
46
9 months ago
If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book of Kells. “One of Ireland’s greatest cultural treasures” comments Medievalists.net, “it is set apart from other manuscripts of the same period by the quality of its artwork and the...
Open Culture
Get $160 Off a Year of Coursera Plus & Gain Unlimited Access to Courses in Data Analytics,... A heads-up on a Black Friday special: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40%...
7 months ago
37
7 months ago
A heads-up on a Black Friday special: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $239.40) gives you access to 7,000+ courses for one...
Stat Significant
What Makes a Movie Hateable? A Statistical Analysis What makes a movie bad, and what makes a review of a bad movie?
8 months ago
Open Culture
Watch the Original Nosferatu, the Classic German Expressionist Vampire Film, Before the New Remake... F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, far and away the most influential early vampire movie, came out 102 years...
7 months ago
67
7 months ago
F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, far and away the most influential early vampire movie, came out 102 years ago. For about ten of those years, Robert Eggers has been trying to remake it. He wouldn’t be the first: Werner Herzog cast Klaus Kinski as the blood-sucking aristocrat at the...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Rob Jones I am a textiles artist working with Japanese techniques such as Shibori, shaped resist and Katagami...
a year ago
87
a year ago
I am a textiles artist working with Japanese techniques such as Shibori, shaped resist and Katagami stencilling (using indigo to dye the fabric). I also work with formal Japanese embroidery techniques - Sashiko and Kogin (counted thread) embroidery as well as some Boro inspired...
Open Culture
Discover the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization... I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term of dread for the many government and corporate agencies that have an inordinate amount of power over our permanent records, and that seem as inscrutable and chillingly absurd as...
Seth's Blog
Reclaiming “fiasco” Usually modified with “total,” the failure might not be as bad as we fear. The origin of the word...
11 months ago
57
11 months ago
Usually modified with “total,” the failure might not be as bad as we fear. The origin of the word probably comes from Italian, a long time ago. The person who loses a round in a game has to buy the next bottle for the group (from: flask). Which means that there is going to be […]
Seth's Blog
Some simple rules for source control Collaborating on documents and projects has never been easier, which is why we screw it up so often....
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
Collaborating on documents and projects has never been easier, which is why we screw it up so often. Sharing and interacting with intent will save you heartache and wasted time. Some things to consider: Naming: Begin by naming your file with a digit and concept and a date....
Seth's Blog
The positive auction In 2023, I developed a new idea that transforms an old way of doing commerce. In traditional...
a year ago
35
a year ago
In 2023, I developed a new idea that transforms an old way of doing commerce. In traditional auctions, there are rounds of bidding and the high bidder pays to get the prize. The last bid is the amount paid, and no one else is charged anything. This is an interesting ‘game’ in...
escape the algorithm
For WIRED: Google's relentless search for answers I wouldn’t ordinarily email you twice in one week, but I have an essay in WIRED today about Google,...
a year ago
20
a year ago
I wouldn’t ordinarily email you twice in one week, but I have an essay in WIRED today about Google, its philosophy of information retrieval, and how its Search history may be a premonition of the future that generative AI is leading us towards.
Open Culture
How Art Conservators Restore Old Paintings & Revive Their Original Colors We tend to imagine old paintings as having a muted, yellow-brown cast, and not without reason. Many...
a week ago
5
a week ago
We tend to imagine old paintings as having a muted, yellow-brown cast, and not without reason. Many of the examples we’ve seen in life really do look that way, though usually not because the artist intended it. As Julian Baumgartner of Chicago’s Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration...
Open Culture
The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors... Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.” Featuring 825 colors, each associated with different types of mushrooms, the interactive atlas lets you appreciate the broad spectrum of colors latent in the...
Blog - Mac Pierce
10 Billion Minus 1 - Making a 10 digit 7 segment display for Lovepop The process and steps of making a multi-digit display.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Surprise and uncertainty Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic. Two...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Until just recently, a solar eclipse wasn’t a tourist event. It was the cause of real panic. Two reasons that are worth considering: Eliminate surprise and explain the circumstances and panic starts to fade.
Seth's Blog
Hobby mindset You might be fortunate enough to have a hobby. Something you are focused on and passionate about....
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
You might be fortunate enough to have a hobby. Something you are focused on and passionate about. You might read the journals, develop your skills, collect, connect with others in the field, and commit to getting better at it… Time spent on a hobby feels like time well spent....
Open Culture
How Editing Saved Ferris Bueller’s Day Off & Made It a Classic “In our salad days, we are ripe for a particular movie that will linger, deathlessly, long after the...
10 months ago
62
10 months ago
“In our salad days, we are ripe for a particular movie that will linger, deathlessly, long after the greenness has gone,” writes the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane in a recent piece on movies in the eighties. “When a friend turned to me after the first twenty minutes of Ferris...
Seth's Blog
Invention or discovery? We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit...
a year ago
90
a year ago
We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit for naming it and describing it. And Columbus definitely didn’t discover North America. There had been people living here for tens of thousands of years before he arrived. After...
Seth's Blog
Coercion One way to look at power is “you get to tell people what to do.” But an alternative is that the most...
a year ago
35
a year ago
One way to look at power is “you get to tell people what to do.” But an alternative is that the most powerful institutions, brands and people are the ones who are in alignment with their audience. Trust and the benefit of the doubt are more powerful and resilient than command and...
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
109
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...
Open Culture
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Creative Process: A Look Inside the Books & Techniques That Allowed His Art... The story of Jean-Michel Basquiat has its unfortunate aspects: not just his premature death, but...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
The story of Jean-Michel Basquiat has its unfortunate aspects: not just his premature death, but also the aggressive marketing of his work and persona in the years leading up to it. He became a vogue artist of the eighties in part because he could be taken as an unfiltered voice...
Neocha – Culture &...
Suit & Tiger
over a year 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
64
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
“I don’t like it” Everyone is entitled to their own taste. But this isn’t the helpful answer to the question, “is this...
a year ago
25
a year ago
Everyone is entitled to their own taste. But this isn’t the helpful answer to the question, “is this good?” Whether it suits your taste might be irrelevant. “It doesn’t resonate with me” is not the same as “No one will like this.” The professional understands that they need...
Seth's Blog
On the way to professionalism Professionals make choices. Including: Don’t exploit friends and family. Surgeons shouldn’t do...
6 months ago
51
6 months ago
Professionals make choices. Including: Don’t exploit friends and family. Surgeons shouldn’t do surgery on their kids, and investment advisors shouldn’t manage their dad’s retirement fund. It doesn’t matter if you’re sure you’re the best in the world. Swap with the person who’s...
Open Culture
This 392-Year-Old Bonsai Tree Survived the Hiroshima Atomic Blast & Still Flourishes Today: The... Image by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia Commons The beautiful bonsai tree pictured above–let’s call it the...
a year ago
35
a year ago
Image by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia Commons The beautiful bonsai tree pictured above–let’s call it the Yamaki Pine Bonsai–began its journey through the world back in 1625. That’s when the Yamaki family first began to train the tree, working patiently, generation after generation,...
Seth's Blog
Customer math for a new business How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much do you make from every interaction with that...
a year ago
46
a year ago
How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much do you make from every interaction with that customer? How long does the customer stick around? How many new customers will existing customers bring you over time?
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #136 Abundance, Nvidia GTC, Splashdown, Matic, Food Dyes, Biotech Commoditization
3 months ago
Anarchy Unfolds
May all roads lead to solarpunk Letters to an anarchist - Part 8
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Books (and more) Brad Feld has been contributing to and leading the tech community for more than thirty years. His...
4 weeks ago
9
4 weeks ago
Brad Feld has been contributing to and leading the tech community for more than thirty years. His books have always been inspiring and useful, but his new book takes it to a higher level. Adam Becker has written two books that I recently devoured. The first is philosophy, history...
Seth's Blog
Clarity about the benefits Work on climate problems is actually about efficiency. It’s easier and cheaper to avoid sloppiness...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
Work on climate problems is actually about efficiency. It’s easier and cheaper to avoid sloppiness and side effects than it is to clean the mess up later. And energy sources that don’t burn become cheaper over time. The investment in getting started pays off in cost, health and...
Seth's Blog
“Does it work?” That’s the first question. The second question is, “how do we make it work better?” These two...
6 months ago
50
6 months ago
That’s the first question. The second question is, “how do we make it work better?” These two questions, patiently repeated, lead to incremental improvement and an understanding of reality. The opposite approach is, “because I said so.” Reality might not care what you want.
Seth's Blog
Birthing tech No one knows the name of the maternity nurse who helped with the delivery of Marie Curie or...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
No one knows the name of the maternity nurse who helped with the delivery of Marie Curie or Esperanza Spaulding. You might grow up to be a genius, but the team that helped your mom give birth don’t have to be geniuses–they simply have to be pretty good at their craft. The same is...
Seth's Blog
A next frontier for spam and scams Please be on the alert for: Spam that includes your name, address, phone number and other personal...
9 months ago
65
9 months ago
Please be on the alert for: Spam that includes your name, address, phone number and other personal details. Phone calls that are from human-sounding bots that pretend to be from friends or trusted brands. Job offers. Video mashups that include AI-generated people that seem to be...
Anarchy Unfolds
Queer Folk Don't Need Orientation How decade-old discourse shows us a way out
9 months ago
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
29
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.
Seth's Blog
The best intern on the team A great intern brings positive energy, a relentless work ethic and doesn’t cost very much. They ask...
4 months ago
24
4 months ago
A great intern brings positive energy, a relentless work ethic and doesn’t cost very much. They ask a lot of questions, and the most useful questions will help you see an existing situation with fresh eyes. Of course, you’ll expect them to make mistakes, and a professional needs...
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
80
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
What do we do when it breaks? The unexpected happens. Systems fail, humans are unpredictable, interfaces aren’t perfect… The...
a month ago
10
a month ago
The unexpected happens. Systems fail, humans are unpredictable, interfaces aren’t perfect… The customer service professional demonstrates their strategic insight when they plan for eventual failure instead of denying it’s possible. The first step, of course, is to design things...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Jennie Ing Describe your printmaking process. I make linocut prints by the reduction method. This is where all...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Describe your printmaking process. I make linocut prints by the reduction method. This is where all the colours come from the same piece of lino with the successive cutting away of the lino block and printing a new colour over the top of the last. The edition size has to be...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Fabiola Knowles Originally from Sicily, I grew up in Australia; however, having settled in the UK in 1996, it has...
11 months ago
95
11 months ago
Originally from Sicily, I grew up in Australia; however, having settled in the UK in 1996, it has been my home for the largest part of my life. I love the outdoors and I am drawn to open landscapes with big skies. I am an artist working mainly with various forms of printmaking. I...
Open Culture
Download Issues of “Weird Tales” (1923–1954): The Pioneering Pulp Horror Magazine Features Original... We live in an era of genre. Browse through TV shows of the last decade to see what I mean: Horror,...
a year ago
73
a year ago
We live in an era of genre. Browse through TV shows of the last decade to see what I mean: Horror, sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, futuristic dystopias…. Take a casual glance at the burgeoning global film franchises or merchandising empires. Where in earlier decades, horror and...
On the Arts
The Meaning of Melancholy An Interview with Hans Maes
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Little dents Deciding to fix a big dent in a car isn’t perplexing. It’s an easy choice. There’s a huge dent, get...
8 months ago
66
8 months ago
Deciding to fix a big dent in a car isn’t perplexing. It’s an easy choice. There’s a huge dent, get it fixed. It’s the little dents that are a dilemma. But not fixing little dents means that pretty soon, we’re driving a car that we’re not happy with. Either that, or we define...
Seth's Blog
Reality as reassurance Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
Culture makes it tempting (and easy) to insulate ourselves from reality. Credit card debt is an invisible burden, until it’s not. Ignoring the changes in our climate makes our days easier, but not our years. We can avoid the bank balance, not work on the annual budget and ignore...
Open Culture
Édouard Manet Illustrates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edition Translated by Stephane... Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame during his lifetime after the publication of The...
7 months ago
44
7 months ago
Edgar Allan Poe achieved almost instant fame during his lifetime after the publication of The Raven (1845), but he never felt that he received the recognition he deserved. In some respects, he was right. He was, after all, paid only nine dollars for the poem, and he struggled...
Seth's Blog
The Pizza Principle Good pizza is rare, even though the method to create it is well known. Any efforts to make it more...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Good pizza is rare, even though the method to create it is well known. Any efforts to make it more convenient, cheaper or easier will almost always make it worse. If you think this post is about pizza, I’m afraid that we’re already stuck.
Seth's Blog
Simple and painless productivity On the factory floor, productivity increases are relentlessly implemented, often without regard for...
2 months ago
28
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...
John Reynolds -...
Mammoth Life - Lights Out Music Video Title: Lights OutArtist: Mammoth LifeYear: 2014 --
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Who pays? Supply and demand are always in a dance, with one outpacing the other from time to time. In the last...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Supply and demand are always in a dance, with one outpacing the other from time to time. In the last three years, the green tech revolution has accelerated dramatically. Countless companies are being created to change how food is grown, people are transported and energy is...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: BookTok Perverts Plus! Elon's mania, presidential crypto, and concerning turkey behavior
4 months ago
John Reynolds -...
at☉m at☉m
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Maybe it’s in how you tell it The plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey is pretty simple. You could write out a summary in three...
3 months ago
22
3 months ago
The plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey is pretty simple. You could write out a summary in three paragraphs. That’s not what made it one of the most revered movies of all time, and also one of the most difficult to make. Blurting out the plot of what we’re offering seems like the...
Open Culture
How Filmmakers Make Cameras Disappear: Mirrors in Movies If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges...
9 months ago
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9 months ago
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges are the creation of effects-laden spectacles: starships duking it out in space, monsters stomping through major cities, animals speaking and dancing like Broadway stars, that sort...
Seth's Blog
Perfect Nothing is perfect… But everything can get better. There’s never enough time… But there’s time...
a week ago
7
a week ago
Nothing is perfect… But everything can get better. There’s never enough time… But there’s time enough to make a difference. Someone will always be opposed to the change we seek to make. And there’s always someone who wants to help. Anything can happen… But something will.
Stat Significant
What Are the Greatest Sequels of All Time? A Statistical Analysis What are the best movie sequels, and why?
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
The Weekly World News version of the future What if someone is just making stuff up? Years ago, I worked with the supermarket tabloid to make an...
4 weeks ago
9
4 weeks ago
What if someone is just making stuff up? Years ago, I worked with the supermarket tabloid to make an ironic, shouty, somewhat funny book that has turned out to match much of the discourse we find surrounding us. When we flew down to Florida to meet their team, I was amazed to...
Seth's Blog
The braid out of balance There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
There are three strands, present for most everyone: Power (sometimes seen as status, or the appearance of status) Safety (survival and peace of mind) Meaning (hope and the path forward) The changes in our media structure, public health and economy have pushed some people to...
Seth's Blog
A good business Just because it’s useful, needed or worthwhile doesn’t mean it’s a good business. E-bikes are...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Just because it’s useful, needed or worthwhile doesn’t mean it’s a good business. E-bikes are transforming cities and offering mobility to those who previously couldn’t afford it. But they’re a commodity, and it’s difficult to make a significant profit producing them. A good...
Seth's Blog
Orange cars In a given neighborhood, just about all the cars are the same. There are few that are pink, orange...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
In a given neighborhood, just about all the cars are the same. There are few that are pink, orange or purple, for example. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those frequencies of light. Nothing that modern paint technology can’t deliver, nothing that offends the rods and cones...
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
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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.
On the Arts
How to Write a Proper Haiku A Starter's Guide to the Deceptively Simple Poetic Form
a year ago
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
Communications hygiene (and the demise of texting) Attention is scarce. Decisions are difficult. Searching takes effort. For thirty years, texting has...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Attention is scarce. Decisions are difficult. Searching takes effort. For thirty years, texting has been a powerful medium. It’s the thing that vibrates in our pocket. It promises something urgent, and a reply that’s demanded equally urgently. “I’m running ten minutes late,” is a...
Seth's Blog
The paradigm flip Paradigm shifts are appealing but rarely well executed. A paradigm is our mental model of the world....
a year ago
30
a year ago
Paradigm shifts are appealing but rarely well executed. A paradigm is our mental model of the world. We’re surrounded by people who share a similar model, and as long as the model is working, we live our lives without thinking much about it. If you lived in a space station, the...
Handprinted - Blog
Prepping your Plate for Etching For a successful etch, there is a little bit of care and attention you need to give to your metal...
a year ago
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a year ago
For a successful etch, there is a little bit of care and attention you need to give to your metal plate first. There are surface impurities and grease pockets within the metal that will need to be removed before coating your plate with grounds. This blog is part of a series...
Open Culture
Martin Scorsese Plays Vincent Van Gogh in a Short, Surreal Film by Akira Kurosawa The idea of the auteur director has been a controversial one at times given the sheer number of...
11 months ago
59
11 months ago
The idea of the auteur director has been a controversial one at times given the sheer number of people required at every stage to produce a film. But it hangs together for me when you look at the films of say, Martin Scorsese or Akira Kurosawa, both directors with very...
Seth's Blog
The new way of work Amazon is the last one. They are probably the last huge company where hundreds of thousands of...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Amazon is the last one. They are probably the last huge company where hundreds of thousands of people will be surveilled, measured and ordered to follow the rule book. The pandemic didn’t create distributed work, the laptop did. Human interaction is critical, but the office isn’t...
Seth's Blog
Brakes and acceleration Every driver benefits from good brakes. It makes driving safer. Only a few skilled drivers benefit...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Every driver benefits from good brakes. It makes driving safer. Only a few skilled drivers benefit from better acceleration. Our habit is to compare top speed, horsepower, short-term returns and status. In every field, not just cars. But it probably pays to make sure that there...
cabel.com
My GDC ’24 Talk: The Playdate Story In January, I was invited to GDC, the Game Developers Conference, to give a talk about Playdate....
a year ago
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a year ago
In January, I was invited to GDC, the Game Developers Conference, to give a talk about Playdate. That talk — “The Playdate Story: What Was it Like to Make Handheld Video Game System Hardware?” — has been made available free for all to view. Now, it’s been 10 years since my last...
Open Culture
Bruce Springsteen Endorses Kamala Harris & Makes the Case Against Donald Trump The Boss speaks the truth in a dinner. Find it on Instagram.
9 months ago
Seth's Blog
The first person “I” is first person. “You” is second person. “She” “They” “It” are all third person. So far, so...
over a year ago
81
over a year ago
“I” is first person. “You” is second person. “She” “They” “It” are all third person. So far, so good. But how can ChatGPT use the word “I”? And when we talk about ChatGPT, is it “he” or “she” or “they” or “it”? Because anything that is an “it” shouldn’t be able to say “I”. We […]
Marian's Blog
Quadrocopter Lichtsystem Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Dies ist ein Arduinoprojekt, das vier RGB-LED-Streifen an den vier Armen des Quadrocopters ansteuert. Das Ziel war, bei möglichst geringen Materialkosten möglichst viele Möglichkeiten bei der Beleuchtung des Quadrocopters zu haben. Verwendete Teile: 1m RGB-LED Streifen, jeweils...
Open Culture
The History of Electronic Music in 476 Tracks (1937–2001) Photo of Karlheinz Stockhausen by Kathinka Pasveer via Wikimedia Commons You may hear the phrase...
a week ago
10
a week ago
Photo of Karlheinz Stockhausen by Kathinka Pasveer via Wikimedia Commons You may hear the phrase “electronic music” and think of superstar dubstep DJs in funny helmets at beachside celebrity parties. Alternatively, you may think of the mercurial compositions of Karlheinz...
Marian's Blog
Adversarial Generation of Continuous Implicit Shape Representations This article provides an overview of the paper "Adversarial Generation of Continuous Implicit Shape...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
This article provides an overview of the paper "Adversarial Generation of Continuous Implicit Shape Representations", which I co-authored with Matthias Fey. While the paper focuses on the theoretical aspects, I'll provide a higher level explanation and and some visualizations...
Seth's Blog
Analyzing the last move When the deal falls apart, or the team loses the game, or a partnership hits the rocks, it’s easy to...
a year ago
32
a year ago
When the deal falls apart, or the team loses the game, or a partnership hits the rocks, it’s easy to focus our energy on what just happened. “What if they had called a different play?” This overlooks the real issue. It’s the first move, or the fifth, that led to this problem, not...
Seth's Blog
The intentional stance Dan Dennett explained that it began as a survival mechanism. It’s important to predict how someone...
a year ago
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a year ago
Dan Dennett explained that it began as a survival mechanism. It’s important to predict how someone else is going to behave. That tiger might be a threat, that person from the next village might have something to offer. If we simply wait and see, we might encounter an unwelcome or...
Open Culture
When the State Department Used Dizzy Gillespie and Jazz to Fight the Cold War (1956) It’s been said that the United States won the Cold War without firing a shot — a statement, as P. J....
4 weeks ago
8
4 weeks ago
It’s been said that the United States won the Cold War without firing a shot — a statement, as P. J. O’Rourke once wrote, that doubtless surprised veterans of Korea and Vietnam. But it wouldn’t be entirely incorrect to call the long stare-down between the U.S. and the Soviet...
Seth's Blog
The other choices The intentional, noticed choices are obvious. “Vanilla or chocolate?” But most of the choices we...
a year ago
79
a year ago
The intentional, noticed choices are obvious. “Vanilla or chocolate?” But most of the choices we live with are unseen. They’re expensive, challenging and invisible. When we plan an event with an outdoor component, we’re choosing to be anxious about the weather in the week leading...
Seth's Blog
Which sort of sinecure? Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That sort of foundation can give us peace of mind and open the door to possibility. But, it’s possible that we can turn it into a trap as well. A situation so perfectly created that...
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...
Open Culture
How Zaha Hadid Revolutionized Architecture & Drew Inspiration from Russian Avant-Garde Art Zaha Hadid died in 2016, at the age of 65. She certainly wasn’t old, by the standards of our time,...
2 months ago
32
2 months ago
Zaha Hadid died in 2016, at the age of 65. She certainly wasn’t old, by the standards of our time, though in most professions, her best working years would already have been behind her. She was, however, an architect, and by age 65, most architects are still very much in their...
Marian's Blog
Work in progress: Location based online game This is a game prototype I’m currently working on. The game is played online, on a real world map...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
This is a game prototype I’m currently working on. The game is played online, on a real world map and the location of the player is also the location ingame, just like in Ingress. I know that making an online game like this is an ambitious goal and it will probably never be...
Seth's Blog
What’s the right size? There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the...
a year ago
32
a year ago
There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the driver’s effort if we put in a few more seats, but add too many and the bus is too big to make a turn–and soon we’d have to add conductors and cleaners and then the bus […]
Seth's Blog
Avert your eyes There are things we avoid looking at too closely. If we looked, really saw what was happening, we’d...
over a year ago
44
over a year ago
There are things we avoid looking at too closely. If we looked, really saw what was happening, we’d have to change our minds, admit we were mistaken, refactor our priorities or take action. It’s so frightening that we even hesitate to make a list of the things we don’t want to...
Open Culture
The Best Photographer You’ve Never Heard Of: An Introduction to Tseng Kwong Chi Once, the United States was known for sending forth the world’s most complained-about international...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Once, the United States was known for sending forth the world’s most complained-about international tourists; today, that dubious distinction arguably belongs to China. But it wasn’t so long ago that the Chinese tourist was a practically unheard-of phenomenon, especially in the...
Seth's Blog
Write for someone It’s so tempting to write for everyone. But everyone isn’t going to read your work, someone is. Can...
10 months ago
70
10 months ago
It’s so tempting to write for everyone. But everyone isn’t going to read your work, someone is. Can you tell me who? Precisely? What did they believe before they encountered your work? What do they want, what do they fear? What has moved them to action in the past? Name the...
Anarchy Unfolds
We Don't Need Conspiracies The real stories behind our problems are scary enough
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
Which inbox? It’s easier than ever to fall into an inbox mindset. There are things to do, and we do them. Inbox...
a month ago
10
a month ago
It’s easier than ever to fall into an inbox mindset. There are things to do, and we do them. Inbox zero is the unattainable goal that fills our days. But it avoids the real question, which is: which inbox are we emptying? There’s the inbox of urgent texts. Or the inbox of...
Seth's Blog
“Please create more tension” This rarely comes up in focus group data. It doesn’t come up when a school talks to students, or a...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
This rarely comes up in focus group data. It doesn’t come up when a school talks to students, or a conductor asks the orchestra. It doesn’t come up when the gym owner surveys potential members or when a chef or playwright thinks about building something new. But of course, that’s...
Seth's Blog
Did you see it in the theater? We’re in the middle of a huge and unusual shift. The magazine publisher acted like the best sales...
a year ago
86
a year ago
We’re in the middle of a huge and unusual shift. The magazine publisher acted like the best sales were newsstand sales, even though the profit came from subscriptions and most people simply visited the website. Book publishers and editors seem to focus on selling copies on paper,...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Zuck Kisses the Ring Plus! A collection of LA wildfire takes
5 months ago
Anarchy Unfolds
Met Gala meets Hunger Games #Blockout and beyond
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Who’s got the camera? For years, I’ve been using this picture of Neil Armstrong when I tell the story of meeting him and...
a year ago
32
a year ago
For years, I’ve been using this picture of Neil Armstrong when I tell the story of meeting him and hearing his talk at one of his last public appearances: I wasn’t there when this photo was taken, so I relied on a Google image search to find it: I compounded Google’s error....
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
Avoiding food waste confusion Everybody eats That’s the biggest problem. While plenty of people drive or play pickleball, eating...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
Everybody eats That’s the biggest problem. While plenty of people drive or play pickleball, eating is particularly widespread. Seven billion people multiplies into a big number… Creating the food we eat has significant climate impact. Some of the factors, in unranked order: Even...
Seth's Blog
The challenge of “a risky scheme” New ideas aren’t adopted all at once. A few people go first while the rest of us watch to see how it...
11 months ago
66
11 months ago
New ideas aren’t adopted all at once. A few people go first while the rest of us watch to see how it goes. “Look, Mikey, he likes it!” This is the story of tech innovations, dance crazes and even food. Ideas spread horizontally, and people who prefer the status quo will embrace...
Seth's Blog
My Big Fat Greek Wedding Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Among the top 500 grossing Hollywood movies of all time, this movie is the most profitable in return on investment. And among all Hollywood movies in the top 1,500 at the box office, Paranormal Activity is far and away the highest return, outperforming almost any investment the...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Angela Chalmers Hi, my name is Angela Chalmers. I am a visual artist living in North Yorkshire. I work with...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
Hi, my name is Angela Chalmers. I am a visual artist living in North Yorkshire. I work with cameraless photography techniques and the cyanotype process producing 2D and 3D artworks on paper and textiles. Cyanotype dates from the early days of photography and produces beautiful...
Seth's Blog
The drift to normal As an organization grows in scale, the idiosyncrasy and distinctiveness that was originally informed...
a year ago
43
a year ago
As an organization grows in scale, the idiosyncrasy and distinctiveness that was originally informed by the taste of the founders moves toward the mean. Over time, things get more average. That’s because each new customer, each new supplier and each new employee wants or needs...
Seth's Blog
Appropriate tension Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Growth usually feels risky. The feeling is a protection mechanism, a way to avoid failure or even the fear of failure. Of course, risk also feels risky (or at least it should). Differentiating between the two is difficult, which is why finding institutions, methods or coaches...
Open Culture
Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Cover for On the Road (1952) This falls under the category, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” In 1950,...
10 months ago
39
10 months ago
This falls under the category, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” In 1950, when Jack Kerouac released his first novel, The Town and the City, he was less than impressed by the book cover produced by his publisher, Harcourt Brace. (Click here to see why.) So,...
Seth's Blog
Everything costs But not all costs are the same. There are three kinds of costs that people get confused about, but...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
But not all costs are the same. There are three kinds of costs that people get confused about, but understanding them, really understanding them–in your bones–unlocks opportunity. Opportunity cost: If you eat the cupcakes, you can’t also eat the brownies. Every time we choose to...
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
89
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
But what if it’s voluntary? For more than 130 years, we’ve celebrated Labor Day in the US and Canada. And May Day has been...
a year ago
23
a year ago
For more than 130 years, we’ve celebrated Labor Day in the US and Canada. And May Day has been around about as long. Around here, it’s become mostly a seasonal marker, but it was founded to devote just a day to something that deserves much more… to commemorate and celebrate the...
Seth's Blog
The Net Promoter Score More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their...
a year ago
79
a year ago
More than two-thirds of the companies surveyed said that they used NPS methodology with their customers. Some are using it to measure employee satisfaction as well. The P stands for ‘promoter’, but of course, it doesn’t actually measure promotion. If that many of your customers...
Seth's Blog
Anonymity and Bugs Bunny I came across this (ironically) anonymous quote recently: “The offline world is full of sticks, but...
10 months ago
65
10 months ago
I came across this (ironically) anonymous quote recently: “The offline world is full of sticks, but the internet only has carrots.” When we come together in groups, it can bring out the best in people. When those groups are anonymous, porous and transient, though, the opposite...
Marian's Blog
Game prototypes I’d like to share two game prototypes I made a few years ago. The first one is based on Tetris: ...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
I’d like to share two game prototypes I made a few years ago. The first one is based on Tetris: It was written in C++ with bare-bones OpenGL. Once you press shift, the game enters a “fast mode”, where the down button takes a piece all the way down and if you...
On the Arts
How do you actually create AI art? A Walkthrough of Using Midjourney, a Popular AI Art Creation App
a year ago
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
64
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Cal Russell I'm an artist living in Edinburgh working mainly in papercutting and linocut printmaking. I studied...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
I'm an artist living in Edinburgh working mainly in papercutting and linocut printmaking. I studied Illustration at Falmouth School of Art and did a Masters in Contemporary Art at the Edinburgh College of Art. I mostly work independently and sell my prints and originals online or...
Seth's Blog
After the meteorite When it slams into your house and destroys it, we’re likely to pursue one of two lines of thinking:...
a year ago
32
a year ago
When it slams into your house and destroys it, we’re likely to pursue one of two lines of thinking: –How did I cause this? What choices did I make, what mistakes did I permit, why did I deserve to have this damage, or who can I blame? –Well, that happened, now what should I do?...
Seth's Blog
When the committee decides They’re almost always conservative. Whether it’s a governmental body, the strategy group at a big...
a year ago
25
a year ago
They’re almost always conservative. Whether it’s a governmental body, the strategy group at a big company or the membership panel at the local country club, we can learn a lot by seeing what they approve and when they stall. Of course, each of us know a lot about our offering,...
Seth's Blog
Trusting AI For generations, humans have been entrusting their lives to computers. Air Traffic Control,...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
For generations, humans have been entrusting their lives to computers. Air Traffic Control, statistical analysis of bridge resilience, bar codes for drug delivery, even the way stop lights are controlled. But computers aren’t the same as the LLMs that run on them. Claude.ai is my...
Seth's Blog
Secret recipes “You can try this at home…” But you probably won’t. The secret recipe isn’t the reason Coke is...
6 months ago
36
6 months ago
“You can try this at home…” But you probably won’t. The secret recipe isn’t the reason Coke is successful. And the recipe for KFC isn’t much of a recipe at all. The secret way you do the thing isn’t what keeps your clients coming back. It’s the part you do in public that matters.
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: New Popes and Cooked Kids Plus! Meme Wars and 16th Century TMZ
a month ago
Seth's Blog
Eight marketing maxims
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Transforming two-sided markets AI agents are going to overhaul the way we think about buying and selling. Uber already did this in...
a year ago
28
a year ago
AI agents are going to overhaul the way we think about buying and selling. Uber already did this in a small way. They organized the drivers, and now they organize the riders. Hailing a cab was already sort of anonymous, but with competition and structure, AI will continue to get...
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
83
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...
Seth's Blog
As hot as possible At sea level, water boils at 100 degrees C. It doesn’t matter how much more heat you use, steam is...
a week ago
7
a week ago
At sea level, water boils at 100 degrees C. It doesn’t matter how much more heat you use, steam is what you get. It turns out that water this hot makes lousy coffee. Tea too. And an amp turned up to 11 doesn’t sound that good. Just because we can send more emails, hustle a […]
Seth's Blog
Status (and the grass tax) Status shows up whenever humans do, and it is the invisible underpinning of our culture. The front...
3 weeks ago
11
3 weeks ago
Status shows up whenever humans do, and it is the invisible underpinning of our culture. The front lawn was only invented around the time of Columbus. The idea was to demonstrate that you had time and money to waste. You could take useful land and make it non-productive. You...
Prolost
Linear Light, Gamma, and ACES Imagine a digital 50% gray card. In 0–255 RGB values, it’s 127, 127, 127. On the RGB parade scope,...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Imagine a digital 50% gray card. In 0–255 RGB values, it’s 127, 127, 127. On the RGB parade scope, the card is a perfect plateau at 50%. Now imagine increasing the exposure of this scene by one stop. “Stops” of light are an exponential scale, meaning that subtracting one stop is...
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
53
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...
Infinite Scroll
There is No Plan. They're Just Morons. Trump doesn't have complex trade theories. He's just an idiot.
3 months ago
Open Culture
How 16th-Century Artist Joris Hoefnagel Made Insects Beautiful—and Changed Science Forever In English, most of the words we’d use to refer to insects sound off-putting at best and fearsome at...
2 days ago
3
2 days ago
In English, most of the words we’d use to refer to insects sound off-putting at best and fearsome at worst, at least to those without an entomological bent. Dutch, close a linguistic relation though it may be, offers a more endearing alternative in beestjes, which refers to all...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Frankie Brown I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic...
3 months ago
114
3 months ago
I’m an illustrator and printmaker based in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I’m inspired by nostalgic storybooks and I love to create whimsical hand-printed illustrations. I used to work part-time at Handprinted, but in November 2024 I decided to give being a full-time artist a try! It’s...
Open Culture
Watch Pablo Picasso’s Creative Process Unfold in Real-Time: Rare Footage Shows Him Creating Drawings... Pablo Picasso was born not long before the invention of the motion picture. With a different set of...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Pablo Picasso was born not long before the invention of the motion picture. With a different set of inclinations, he might have become one of the most daring pioneers of that medium. Instead, as we know, he mastered and then practically reinvented the much older art form of...
Not Boring by Packy...
Hyperlegible 006: Forsaking Industrialism Conrad Bastable on how China built its Industrial Platform and what it would take for the West to...
2 months ago
36
2 months ago
Conrad Bastable on how China built its Industrial Platform and what it would take for the West to reindustrialize (hint: tariffs aren't enough)
Seth's Blog
Two kinds of creative feedback If you’re the client or the boss, it’s possible that someone is going to create creative work for...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
If you’re the client or the boss, it’s possible that someone is going to create creative work for you. Sooner or later, you’ll get something that doesn’t work. You might want to explain why it’s not good enough. Perhaps you can demonstrate how it doesn’t fit the genre or meet...
On the Arts
Winter as Reading Season David Foster Wallace on the necessity of quiet time in order to read.
a year ago
Stat Significant
Which Movies Do People Love to Hate? A Statistical Analysis Which films and actors are famous for being bad?
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
The worst person on our team A common shortcut to cultural divisiveness is to find the single worst person in a different group...
a year ago
24
a year ago
A common shortcut to cultural divisiveness is to find the single worst person in a different group and highlight and attack their behavior. By making it clear and obvious that this is what THEY (the plural) want and who THEY are, it’s easy to walk away from a larger we. Their...
Seth's Blog
Survivor bias and the mistake of stability An asteroid has never destroyed the Earth, therefore an asteroid never will. This brand has been...
over a year ago
77
over a year ago
An asteroid has never destroyed the Earth, therefore an asteroid never will. This brand has been involved in scandals before, and it has always come back stronger, so there’s nothing to worry about. There have been technology changes before, but we’ve always managed to find...
Open Culture
Neuroscience Shows That Viewing Art in Museums Engages the Brain More Than Reproductions We may appreciate living in an era that doesn’t require us to travel across the world to know what a...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
We may appreciate living in an era that doesn’t require us to travel across the world to know what a particular work of art looks like. At the same time, we may instinctively understand that regarding a work of art in its original form feels different than regarding even the most...
Seth's Blog
Clarke’s Law (part 2) All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread. Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an...
a month ago
16
a month ago
All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread. Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an advantage over his adversaries. And Henry Ford had machines that allowed him to produce items far cheaper than the competition. Now, almost all technology magic is widely...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Creatively Bridge Hello! I’m Bridget. I'm a part time printmaker based on the south coast in Chichester. My love for...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
Hello! I’m Bridget. I'm a part time printmaker based on the south coast in Chichester. My love for printmaking was born in the print rooms of Bath School of Art and Design where I studied Graphic Communication. This is where I first got a taste for Screen Printing, Linocut,...
Seth's Blog
Take good notes Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes)...
7 months ago
41
7 months ago
Facts are important, but facts don’t create learning. Stories do. A story fits into (and changes) our understanding of the world. Good teachers are storytellers, and storytellers are teachers. Notes, then, aren’t recitations of facts. They’re story prompts. A good note reminds...
Seth's Blog
Every tactic… Has a strategy behind it. Often unsaid, undiscussed and hidden. It’s easier to simply play with the...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
Has a strategy behind it. Often unsaid, undiscussed and hidden. It’s easier to simply play with the tactic of the moment. Tell me what your tactic is trying to accomplish and I’ll be halfway to understanding what your strategy is. But it makes a lot more sense to announce your...
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
114
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...
On the Arts
The Necrologs of Bulgaria Remembering the Dead in Daily Life
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Discovery and invention Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was there all along. He simply named and explained it. The...
9 months ago
71
9 months ago
Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was there all along. He simply named and explained it. The same is true for planets, continents and obscure species. They’re discovered, not invented. Michelangelo talked about removing all the parts of the marble that weren’t the statue on...
Stat Significant
Which Old Movies Stand the Test of Time? A Statistical Analysis An exploration of "timeless" films.
4 months ago
Seth's Blog
… or the highway Our instincts might not be as good as we hope. Going with your gut is thrilling. It’s personal,...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Our instincts might not be as good as we hope. Going with your gut is thrilling. It’s personal, vulnerable and brave. And if it’s getting you what you seek, keep at it. But often, our instincts are a way of hiding, undermined by a lack of knowledge. If you haven’t done the...
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
27
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
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
74
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
Revisiting stamps for email I started agitating for this in 1997 and wrote about it in 2006. The problem with the magical medium...
over a year ago
83
over a year ago
I started agitating for this in 1997 and wrote about it in 2006. The problem with the magical medium of email is that it’s an open API. Anyone with a computer can plug into it, without anyone’s consent. This creates an asymmetric attention problem. The selfish,...
Seth's Blog
Phrenology For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge...
a year ago
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a year ago
For thousands of years, and as recently as the 1930s, phrenology was seen as a useful proxy to judge someone’s character. Carefully charting the bumps on someone’s head, along with the slope of their forehead and other telltale signs was seen as a thoughtful and proven way to...
Stat Significant
Which Countries Have the Most Unique Taste in Music? A Statistical Analysis Which nations have the most distinct music tastes?
3 months ago
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
19
over a year ago
This year I participated in my first game jam, the Global Game Jam 2018. With a team of artists, programmers and a sound designer, we made a video game within 48 hours. You play the game as a virus that infiltrates a company’s headquarters. The virus can not move on its own, it...
Handprinted - Blog
Sue Brown Paper Lithography Book Review Our good friend Sue Brown has recently released her new book Paper Lithography! In this step-by-step...
over a year ago
91
over a year ago
Our good friend Sue Brown has recently released her new book Paper Lithography! In this step-by-step guide Sue takes us through the process of making paper lithography prints using the humble photocopy as your plate. Paper lithography is a quick and straightforward process that...
Prolost
The M1 Max MacBook Pros Apple opened their October event with a young musician creating an Apple-inspired music track in a...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
Apple opened their October event with a young musician creating an Apple-inspired music track in a dingy garage filled with gear worth tens of thousands of dollars. Some viewers commented on the unrealistic portrayal of a creative professional. But I felt like I was looking in a...
Seth's Blog
Professionals are consistent Authenticity is for amateurs. We want the surgeon, the broadcaster or the musician to show up fully,...
9 months ago
54
9 months ago
Authenticity is for amateurs. We want the surgeon, the broadcaster or the musician to show up fully, as the best version of themselves. We know you might be tired from an overnight shift, and authentically feel like phoning it in, but hey, this is the only aorta I’ve got, and I’d...
Seth's Blog
True/useful Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Here’s a simple grid that might change the way you think about internal stories: When we believe in something that’s useful but not true, it can serve a helpful purpose. The tooth fairy, perhaps. When we act on something that’s useful and also true, we’ve found a resilient path...
Seth's Blog
Scaffolds and talent Kindergarten teachers matter more than you think. Chess isn’t a talent, it’s a learned practice....
a year ago
24
a year ago
Kindergarten teachers matter more than you think. Chess isn’t a talent, it’s a learned practice. We’re sorting for head starts, not growth. And that’s just the first chapter. I think Hidden Potential is the most important book in Adam Grant’s career. The indoctrination around...
Seth's Blog
The 2 x 4 lessons You’ll need two 8-foot boards and six five-gallon buckets. Each board is a standard 2 x 4, about two...
a year ago
32
a year ago
You’ll need two 8-foot boards and six five-gallon buckets. Each board is a standard 2 x 4, about two inches by four inches in size. And the bucket is about two feet deep. The first lesson is simple: Put the board on the floor and have a colleague walk from one end to the other....
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...
4 weeks ago
12
4 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...
On the Arts
The Sea Has Always Looked the Same A View of the Ocean as a Connection to the Past
a year ago
Haterade
Thoroughly Modern Mämmi Bake off your sparge water for this finicky Finnish dessert
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
And then that happened The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
The world changes and we have a choice: • Fight hard to keep it the way it was. • Notice what happened and then decide to do something with that insight. Thirty years ago, AOL was my company’s biggest client. They charged users $3 an hour to use their precursor to the internet,...
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
8
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....
Open Culture
Ancient Greek Armor Gets Tested in an 11-Hour Battle Simulation Inspired by the Iliad By Greek law, every male citizen over the age of eighteen must spend from nine months to a year in...
a year ago
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a year ago
By Greek law, every male citizen over the age of eighteen must spend from nine months to a year in the Hellenic Armed Forces. As in every country with such a policy of mandatory conscription, this is surely not a prospect relished by most conscripts-to-be. But then, it can’t be...
Open Culture
Leonardo da Vinci’s Elegant Design for a Perpetual Motion Machine Is perpetual motion possible? In theory… I have no idea…. In practice, so far at least, the answer...
a month ago
21
a month ago
Is perpetual motion possible? In theory… I have no idea…. In practice, so far at least, the answer has been a perpetual no. As Nicholas Barrial writes at Makery, “in order to succeed,” a perpetual motion machine “should be free of friction, run in a vacuum chamber and be totally...
Seth's Blog
The challenge of nonprofit fundraising When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise...
a year ago
34
a year ago
When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise funds and get it off the ground. After that, though, the purpose of the business is completely aligned with the idea of not running out of money. We run a business to make money, not...
Seth's Blog
Grandiosity as a form of hiding A business that says its mission is to, “reinvent local commerce to better serve our customers and...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
A business that says its mission is to, “reinvent local commerce to better serve our customers and neighborhoods,” can spend a lot of time doing not much of anything before they realize that they’re not actually creating value. A non-profit that seeks to create “fairness and...
Seth's Blog
The Zoom stretch There are a lot of structural reasons why in-person meetings don’t involve a break every 12 minutes....
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
There are a lot of structural reasons why in-person meetings don’t involve a break every 12 minutes. It takes too long to stop and start. But those rules don’t apply to Zoom. Screens off! Stand up. We’ll be back in 60 seconds. If it’s not worth coming back, the meeting should...
Stat Significant
How Have Song Lyrics Changed Since the 1960s? A Statistical Analysis How have song lyrics evolved over time?
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Across and within Media theory pioneer Harold Innis saw it 70 years ago: Some cultures and ideas are built to spread...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Media theory pioneer Harold Innis saw it 70 years ago: Some cultures and ideas are built to spread across SPACE. And some spread across TIME. It’s the tension between space and time that lead to the rise and fall of societies and cultures, and they’re worth understanding. Clay...
Seth's Blog
Productivity week: Bonus In an economy built on skill, knowledge, and attitude, the single most powerful way to improve your...
a year ago
33
a year ago
In an economy built on skill, knowledge, and attitude, the single most powerful way to improve your productivity is to learn something. You put in the effort once and it pays off for decades. There are more ways for an adult to learn now than at any time in our history, and all...
Seth's Blog
Toward leggerio We might not seek it out often enough in our work. It’s a musical term, but we can use it too. The...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
We might not seek it out often enough in our work. It’s a musical term, but we can use it too. The light touch. A way to make a sound without making a commotion. Delicate and graceful. Showing up with care and with just enough extra, but not more than that. see also: sprezzatura
Open Culture
An Oscar-Winning Animation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” Painted on 29,000 Frames... Ernest Hemingway’s romantic adventure of man and marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, has perhaps spent...
11 months ago
48
11 months ago
Ernest Hemingway’s romantic adventure of man and marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, has perhaps spent more time on high school freshman English reading lists than any other work of fiction, which might lead one to think of the novel as young adult fiction. But beyond the book’s...
Open Culture
Carl Sagan Issues a Chilling Warning About the Decline of Scientific Thinking in America: Watch His... Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along —...
2 months ago
23
2 months ago
Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934–1996) continued doing what he did all along — popularizing science and “enthusiastically conveying the wonders of the universe to millions of people on television and in books.” Whenever Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny...
Handprinted - Blog
Using Hawthorn Process Colours We've been stocking Hawthorn Stay Open Inks for 6 years now! These inks are oil based inks and work...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
We've been stocking Hawthorn Stay Open Inks for 6 years now! These inks are oil based inks and work beautifully for relief printing. We have a fantastic range of colours including the process range. Process colours are inks specially formulated to create a full spectrum of...
Open Culture
Behold the Oldest Written Text in the World: The Kish Tablet, Circa 3500 BC Image by José-Manuel Benito, via Wikimedia Commons Some refer to the written Chinese language as...
7 months ago
65
7 months ago
Image by José-Manuel Benito, via Wikimedia Commons Some refer to the written Chinese language as ideographic: that is, structured according to a system in which each symbol represents a particular idea or concept, whether abstract or concrete. That’s true of certain Chinese...
Seth's Blog
The Pinocchio protocol He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did. Gas-powered leaf blowers...
a year ago
52
a year ago
He had a hard time lying because his nose got longer every time he did. Gas-powered leaf blowers would disappear if the smoke they belched out was black instead of invisible. And few people would start smoking if the deposits on their lungs ended up on their face instead. We’re...
Open Culture
See Albert Camus’ Historic Lecture, “The Human Crisis,” Performed by Actor Viggo Mortensen Back in 2016, New York City staged a month-long festival celebrating Albert Camus’ historic visit to...
a year ago
60
a year ago
Back in 2016, New York City staged a month-long festival celebrating Albert Camus’ historic visit to NYC in 1946. One event in the festival featured actor Viggo Mortensen giving a reading of Camus’ lecture,“La Crise de l’homme” (“The Human Crisis”) at Columbia University–the very...
Seth's Blog
Charged by the word In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
In a hurried world with infinite content, it’s worth considering that you’re no longer paid by the word when you write, in fact, you should pay for every extra word you use. Be as brief as is useful.
Seth's Blog
The thing about Hobson People talk about Hobson’s choice as if it’s always a bad thing. A liveryman in pre-industrial...
a year ago
37
a year ago
People talk about Hobson’s choice as if it’s always a bad thing. A liveryman in pre-industrial London, he rented horses. And every customer was allowed to take the horse closest to the door. Hobson’s choice is no choice at all. Of course, this system meant that the horses were...
Seth's Blog
Promo creep Hustle harder. Run more ads. Spam people. Interrupt. Make the logo bigger. Post again. Post again....
over a year ago
77
over a year ago
Hustle harder. Run more ads. Spam people. Interrupt. Make the logo bigger. Post again. Post again. Add more blurbs. Push the press release to irrelevant people. Do one more ad. Use AI to create faux intimacy. Get the word out. Burn trust. Get more attention. In the last forty...
Marian's Blog
Aquarium Innensicht mit Gopro Wegen meinem Quadrocopter habe ich eine Gopro, die ja auch wasserfest ist. Da war es naheliegend,...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Wegen meinem Quadrocopter habe ich eine Gopro, die ja auch wasserfest ist. Da war es naheliegend, die mal im Aquarium auszuprobieren. Bei dem Aquarium stand einiges an Arbeit an, da das Glasbecken undicht war, und alles komplett ausgeräumt werden muss, um das Becken...
Seth's Blog
The good china Once you use your plates every day, they cease to be the good china. Of course, the plates didn’t...
over a year ago
113
over a year ago
Once you use your plates every day, they cease to be the good china. Of course, the plates didn’t change. Your story did. The way you treat them did. The same goes for the red carpet. If you roll it out for every visitor or every customer, it ceases to be red.
Infinite Scroll
The New Age of Thought Crime Conservatives raged against woke cancellations. Now they're eagerly doing it themselves.
2 months ago
Prolost
Kino: My New Favorite iPhone Video App The new Kino app recording ProRes Log with a custom preview LUT. Yes we’re still talking about...
a year ago
123
a year ago
The new Kino app recording ProRes Log with a custom preview LUT. Yes we’re still talking about shooting video on iPhones. But I also want to talk about digital cinema shooting in general, in a world where top camera makers are battling to give filmmakers everything we want in a...
Seth's Blog
Noticed There’s a delay between the time something goes wrong and when we notice it. Sometimes, it can take...
4 months ago
48
4 months ago
There’s a delay between the time something goes wrong and when we notice it. Sometimes, it can take years. Part of the art of project management is noticing things more quickly. And it helps to acknowledge that by the time we notice something, it’s probably too late to easily...
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
36
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 swag is here To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and...
over a year ago
37
over a year ago
To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and independent craftspeople. You can find them all at seths.store. I went to Brooklyn and worked with Dan at the Arm to create a set of five handmade letterpress posters. They’re 12...
Open Culture
When the CIA Studied Psychic Techniques to Alter Human Consciousness & Unlock Time Travel: Discover... By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of...
a year ago
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a year ago
By now, it’s widely known that the Central Intelligence Agency ran a decades-long program of experiments involving LSD and other psychoactive drugs called MKUltra from the nineteen-fifties to the seventies. As one might suspect, that wasn’t the only research project into the...
Open Culture
Spin the 17th-Century Death Roulette Wheel & Find Out What Would Have Killed You in 1665 A common historical misconception holds that, up until a few centuries ago, everyone died when they...
8 months ago
64
8 months ago
A common historical misconception holds that, up until a few centuries ago, everyone died when they were about 40. In fact, even in antiquity, one could well make it to what would be considered an advanced age today — assuming one survived the great mortal peril of childhood, and...
Seth's Blog
Books and more, winter 2024 They’re a gift that lasts forever, because your friend will remember what they learned and how they...
7 months ago
44
7 months ago
They’re a gift that lasts forever, because your friend will remember what they learned and how they felt… and they can keep it on their bookshelf or hard drive as a reminder in case they forget… Amazon chose This is Strategy for a Kindle deal today. It’s only $4. Also, the...
Seth's Blog
Customer service is a choice It’s either part of your strategy or you’re paying for your mistake. 800 numbers changed the way...
a year ago
29
a year ago
It’s either part of your strategy or you’re paying for your mistake. 800 numbers changed the way large brands dealt with the public. Instantly, and for free, a consumer could contact a company about a product or service and they would work to make it right. It was more than...
Open Culture
Ken Burns’ New Documentary on Leonardo da Vinci Streaming Online (in the US) for a Limited Time A quick heads up: The filmmaker Ken Burns has just released his new documentary on Leonardo da...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
A quick heads up: The filmmaker Ken Burns has just released his new documentary on Leonardo da Vinci. Running nearly four hours, the film offers what The New York Times calls a “thorough and engrossing biography” of the 15th-century polymath. Currently airing on PBS, the film can...
Seth's Blog
Naming is part of marketing A name is a hook for us to hang a story on. We need to begin with empathy and a useful story… useful...
a year ago
43
a year ago
A name is a hook for us to hang a story on. We need to begin with empathy and a useful story… useful to the people who want to believe it, spread it, and use it to accomplish their goals. But then, the story needs firm footing and a way to stick with us. Patagonia […]
Seth's Blog
Good advice The cult of consulting suggests that if you simply had better advice from someone who knew more than...
5 months ago
52
5 months ago
The cult of consulting suggests that if you simply had better advice from someone who knew more than you, your problems could be solved. Generally, the advice isn’t really the hard part. There’s endless good advice just a click away. The art is in creating the conditions for...
Seth's Blog
Learning, connecting, deciding (and amazing) My new short LinkedIn class on project management just launched, and I’ll be discussing it live...
a year ago
34
a year ago
My new short LinkedIn class on project management just launched, and I’ll be discussing it live today with Amanda Ruud … we’ll be there if you want to bring your questions. Sooner or later, all important work becomes project work. After the extraordinary feedback from her last...
Seth's Blog
The opposite of a good idea… might also be a good idea. The hard part isn’t finding proof before you begin. The hard part is...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
might also be a good idea. The hard part isn’t finding proof before you begin. The hard part is beginning, knowing you might not succeed.
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
9
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...
Anarchy Unfolds
No Futures We don't have to think of the children
a year ago
Handprinted - Blog
Creating Cyanotypes using the Speedball UV Lamp Cyanotypes are made using a light sensitive solution to create designs on fabric and paper. Prints...
a year ago
42
a year ago
Cyanotypes are made using a light sensitive solution to create designs on fabric and paper. Prints are typically created using direct sunlight. Unfortunately here in the UK, sunshine is often in short supply! But we have discovered a work around using the Speedball UV Lamp, a...
Open Culture
Hunter S. Thompson’s Harrowing, Chemical-Filled Daily Routine E. Jean Carroll’s 1993 memoir of Hunter S. Thompson opens like this: I have heard the biographers of...
a year ago
114
a year ago
E. Jean Carroll’s 1993 memoir of Hunter S. Thompson opens like this: I have heard the biographers of Harry S. Truman, Catherine the Great, etc., etc., say they would give anything if their subjects were alive so they could ask them some questions. I, on the other hand, would give...
Seth's Blog
Perfect pavement Paving the ground might be an option. Pavement is invisible to the driver. It’s expected, smooth,...
a year ago
61
a year ago
Paving the ground might be an option. Pavement is invisible to the driver. It’s expected, smooth, resilient and gets out of the way. You only notice a road when it’s not paved well. Nature, on the other hand, is never perfect. All untouched forests are natural, yet each is...
Open Culture
An Introduction to The Babylonian Map of the World–the Oldest Known Map of the World Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it is. But then again, few of us are anything like the British Museum Middle East department curator Irving Finkel, whose vast knowledge (and ability to share it compellingly) have...
Seth's Blog
Is it a skill? If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care...
a year ago
27
a year ago
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care of it. Coding is a skill. But it’s not clear that the person who knows how to code should be doing your design. Teaching is a skill. But simply because someone is good at […]
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Rachael Haggerty Hello, I’m Rachael and I am a printmaker based in Bath, UK. I generally work with linocut and mainly...
over a year ago
93
over a year ago
Hello, I’m Rachael and I am a printmaker based in Bath, UK. I generally work with linocut and mainly print in monochrome or bright primary colours. My work celebrates family life, nature and the local area. Describe your printmaking process. I normally sketch out a composition...
Seth's Blog
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
30
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...
Seth's Blog
Customer traction is the hard part A new business is complicated. It involves weaving together suppliers, partners, customers,...
a year ago
39
a year ago
A new business is complicated. It involves weaving together suppliers, partners, customers, processes, technology, leases, employees, logos, capital and more. Along the way, it’s easy to get distracted, but focusing on the hard parts is a useful way to move forward. You could...
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
52
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...
Haterade
The Haterade Help Desk Is Now Taking Calls The mailbag returns (soon)
over a year ago
Open Culture
Enter a Huge Archive of Amazing Stories, the World’s First Science Fiction Magazine, Launched in... If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula,...
a year ago
58
a year ago
If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula, it’s the most prestigious of science fiction prizes, bringing together in its ranks of winners such venerable authors as Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Neil...
Seth's Blog
The thing about decay One reason we have so much trouble fixing chronic degenerative conditions is that we need to remove...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
One reason we have so much trouble fixing chronic degenerative conditions is that we need to remove elements before we can start building new functions. If we simply put effort on top of a shaky foundation, it’ll all be wasted. The best way forward might be to take a few steps...
Haterade
Tiny Hot Dogs for the Modern Man Introducing: Smoke Sheaths
over a year ago
The Great Discontent...
Britt Reilly Britt Reilly's work lives at the intersection of immersive visual arts, historic architecture and...
7 months ago
11
7 months ago
Britt Reilly's work lives at the intersection of immersive visual arts, historic architecture and preservation, and modernist design. Britt is the executive director and collections curator at the Irving & Aaronel deRoy Gruber Foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and when we...
Seth's Blog
Lulled Selfish is easy. Short term is easy. Complacent is easy. Turning our head and ignoring the problem...
5 months ago
51
5 months ago
Selfish is easy. Short term is easy. Complacent is easy. Turning our head and ignoring the problem is easy. Going along to get along is easy. But easy isn’t the point. Better is. Challenging the status quo is difficult, and worth it. Happy Birthday.
Blog - Mac Pierce
The Whys and Hows of the Opt-Out Cap. Why I built the Opt-Out Cap cap, and how it all came together.
over a year ago
Anarchy Unfolds
Not today, pink elephants of doom Blue Bulletin #1
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Expectations We might deserve something. We might be entitled to it. But expectations are a story we tell...
a month ago
18
a month ago
We might deserve something. We might be entitled to it. But expectations are a story we tell ourselves, and that story is up to us. The simple life hack is to lower your expectations, regardless of what you’re entitled to. Create the conditions for the outcome you seek, but leave...
Seth's Blog
Simple techniques for complex projects Warm up the machines that take a long time first. Stress test the go/no go parts of the project as...
over a year ago
82
over a year ago
Warm up the machines that take a long time first. Stress test the go/no go parts of the project as early as possible. If the cost is low, replace dependent processes with parallel ones. Do the difficult parts when energy is high and the budget hasn’t been depleted. Ship before...
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
25
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...
escape the algorithm
Be specific Ode to ᵗᶦⁿʸ ᵗᵒᵒˡˢ
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Understanding pricing The money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was...
7 months ago
56
7 months ago
The money we exchange for a service or item isn’t based on how much it cost to make, how hard it was to produce or how much the producer likes it. That’s hard to hear, because when we make something, we spend most of our time thinking about those very things. Price is based on...
Seth's Blog
Here to please Please who? If you’re on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
Please who? If you’re on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the owners of the tech stock or your personal goals? If you’re publishing a book, are you working for the book or is the book working for you? You might be able to get the folks in the...
Open Culture
The Romans Stashed Hallucinogenic Seeds in a Vial Made From an Animal Bone What’s popular in the metropolis sooner or later makes its way out into the provinces. This...
a year ago
40
a year ago
What’s popular in the metropolis sooner or later makes its way out into the provinces. This phenomenon has become more difficult to notice in recent years, not because it’s slowed down, but because it’s sped way up, owing to near-instantaneous cultural diffusion on the internet....
Seth's Blog
I was wrong about sun tea The story is a good one: put some tea bags in a mason jar filled with fresh, cold water. Put it in...
a year ago
92
a year ago
The story is a good one: put some tea bags in a mason jar filled with fresh, cold water. Put it in the sun. Four hours later, smooth and delicious tea is waiting for you. The photons from the sun go through the clear glass and the water, strike the leaves and transfer radiant...
Seth's Blog
Wrestling, fighting or dancing? We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we...
a year ago
29
a year ago
We can wrestle with a challenge or a problem and find energy and possibility while doing it. And we can dance with someone else as we seek a mutual way forward. Fighting tends to be more brutal, final and hurtful than is often productive. You don’t want to spend your days...
Open Culture
The Big Map of Who Lived When Shows Which Cultural Figures Walked the Earth at the Same Time: From... We could call the time in which we live the “Information Age.” Or we could describe it more vividly...
9 months ago
42
9 months ago
We could call the time in which we live the “Information Age.” Or we could describe it more vividly as the era of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, Beyoncé and Bob Dylan. Whatever you think of the work of any of...
Seth's Blog
Versions of reality A sea slug sees far more colors than you do, and you probably see more than a profoundly color-blind...
3 days ago
2
3 days ago
A sea slug sees far more colors than you do, and you probably see more than a profoundly color-blind person. Who’s right? We each carry our own version of reality, our own story about what happened, what’s around us and how things work. Our chosen reality serves two useful...
On the Arts
What does Wabi-Sabi really mean? Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
a year ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Meter: The Internet Utility A Deep Dive on Vertical Integration, Networking, and How to Win the Internet
5 months ago
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
88
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...
Seth's Blog
Headwinds When it’s tough going and it feels fraught, it’s easy to imagine that the headwinds will never end....
a year ago
33
a year ago
When it’s tough going and it feels fraught, it’s easy to imagine that the headwinds will never end. And yet, when all is going well and the wind is at our back, it’s tempting to imagine that this is the way it’s going to stay. Neither is true. The reason we see them as headwinds...
Seth's Blog
Bye now The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a...
9 months ago
54
9 months ago
The difference between ‘buy now’ and ‘bye now’ is very thin. Sometimes, when we push very hard for a commitment, we break the trust we’ve earned. For a while, you might not notice the broken trust, because we’re encouraged to keep pushing, treating every individual as a walking...
Seth's Blog
And it can also do that If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that...
a year ago
31
a year ago
If you were around when the Model T was first announced, you could have built the organizations that became Disney, McDonald’s and Holiday Inn, all of which were powered by cheap, plentiful cars. You could have become a major developer of suburbs, mortgage banking and even pop...
Seth's Blog
Kinds of courage Courage is a generous act that involves risk. It’s not courageous to hang out with friends and make...
a year ago
38
a year ago
Courage is a generous act that involves risk. It’s not courageous to hang out with friends and make a crank phone call. The risk involved might be actual risk (it took courage to go to the moon) or it might feel risky (raising your hand at a meeting to ask a useful question...
Seth's Blog
Sharp tools Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know...
9 months ago
46
9 months ago
Professional woodworkers rarely have to be reminded to sharpen their tools. Of course they know this. The rest of us, on the other hand, regularly use digital tools we don’t understand, don’t maintain and haven’t optimized. Sometimes, our lack of care in the choice and use of...
Not Boring by Packy...
Primer: From Software to Schools Watch now (47 mins) | To fix the school system, build schools
4 months ago
Open Culture
A Bicycle Trip: Watch an Animation of The World’s First LSD Trip in 1943 On August 16, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann was synthesizing a new compound called lysergic...
a year ago
51
a year ago
On August 16, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann was synthesizing a new compound called lysergic acid diethylamide-25 when he got a couple of drops on his finger. The chemical, later known worldwide as LSD, absorbed into his system, and, soon after, he experienced an intense...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #140 K2-18b, o3 and o4-mini, Parkinson’s Research, GLP-1 Pill, Precision, Neuroscience, Abundance...
2 months ago
Open Culture
When Samuel Beckett Drove Young André the Giant to School Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort...
10 months ago
55
10 months ago
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort of conversation that might transpire in a pickup truck belonging to Samuel Beckett, say, were the Irish playwright to chauffeur the child André Rene Roussimoff—aka pro wrestler...
Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll on Offline with Jon Favreau A chat about online media ecosystems
7 months ago
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
30
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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
AI Generations: ChatGPT-3 vs ChatGPT-4 on Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings I asked GPT-3 & GPT-4 to follow instructions to create drawings in p5js and compared the results
over a year ago
Open Culture
Bringing Tsarist Russia to Life: Vivid Color Images from 1905–1915 History escapes us. Events that changed the world forever, or should have, slide out of collective...
10 months ago
41
10 months ago
History escapes us. Events that changed the world forever, or should have, slide out of collective memory. If we’re pointing fingers, we might point at educational systems that fail to educate, or at huge historical blind spots in mass media. Maybe another reason the recent past...
Seth's Blog
Now in Spanish The Carbon Almanac is now available in Spanish. For free. Free to download, free to share and free...
a year ago
24
a year ago
The Carbon Almanac is now available in Spanish. For free. Free to download, free to share and free to print a copy at home. While the book has been traditionally published around the world (in Italian, Czech, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Dutch), no Spanish-language publisher was...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “stoically facing the end times” edition 1. When is AI coding not AI coding? You might have heard something about how Google now creates a...
8 months ago
33
8 months ago
1. When is AI coding not AI coding? You might have heard something about how Google now creates a quarter of its code using AI. But as with most things concerning everyone’s favourite hot tech, the devil is in the details. And the details, according to this poster on Hacker News,...
Handprinted - Blog
Mark Making - Using Resists Using tools on your plate isn’t the only way you can create marks within an etching. You can also...
a year ago
39
a year ago
Using tools on your plate isn’t the only way you can create marks within an etching. You can also use resists to stop the mordant from reaching the surface of your plate. Resists can help achieve more subtle marks and washes, and they can also be applied using a brush to control...
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets of 2024 - Dishonorable Mentions All of the most horrifying posts on Twitter that didn't make the final bracket
6 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Making a Multi-Block Linocut A multi-block linocut uses more than one piece of lino to create a layered image. Usually, each...
over a year ago
101
over a year ago
A multi-block linocut uses more than one piece of lino to create a layered image. Usually, each block is inked with a separate colour. Where the colours overlap, another colour can be achieved. Multi-block linocuts allow you to partially print an edition and create complete...
Handprinted - Blog
Introduction to Linocut Tools As printmakers, we know that having good tools can be a game changer when it comes to your...
a year ago
100
a year ago
As printmakers, we know that having good tools can be a game changer when it comes to your printmaking practice. There are lots of lino and wood cutting tools to choose from so read on for a breakdown of the different options available. All our linocut tools can be found here. We...
Seth's Blog
Allocating scarcity If we’re lucky, we invent something that’s going to be in high demand. Reservations at a hot...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
If we’re lucky, we invent something that’s going to be in high demand. Reservations at a hot restaurant. Limited edition trading cards. Concert tickets… How to decide who gets them? One attractive option is “first-come-first-served.” It feels fair, after all. The theory is that...
Seth's Blog
Boring to who? Sometimes, marketers, musicians or speakers dig themselves into a solipsistic rabbit hole. They’ve...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
Sometimes, marketers, musicians or speakers dig themselves into a solipsistic rabbit hole. They’ve heard their stuff before. They think everyone else has too. So they bury the lede, look for new laughs and most of all, try to avoid boring themselves. Which often leads to...
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
99
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
Aldous Huxley Explains How Man Became “the Victim of His Own Technology” (1961) Just a couple of days ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted out a video promoting, “the new iPad Pro: the...
a year ago
91
a year ago
Just a couple of days ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted out a video promoting, “the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created.” The response has been overwhelming, and overwhelmingly negative: for many viewers, the ad’s imagery of a hydraulic press crushing a heap of...
Seth's Blog
Non-professional writers Nobody asks you to design a bridge, write a sonnet or do open heart surgery. We leave these...
10 months ago
59
10 months ago
Nobody asks you to design a bridge, write a sonnet or do open heart surgery. We leave these essential tasks to trained professionals. But many job descriptions carry the unstated addendum, “and write.” Write memos, proposals, and even instruction manuals. The local supermarket is...
Seth's Blog
“We used to do that” When electricity came along, there was a swath of industries that were trapped in an old way of...
a year ago
31
a year ago
When electricity came along, there was a swath of industries that were trapped in an old way of thinking. The only ones that thrived were able to walk away from what they used to do and eagerly embrace something new. When the internet was young, the major book publishers had...
Seth's Blog
What do you need more of? If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: …we know where to get it. If not, then...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: …we know where to get it. If not, then why are we spending our magical attention there?
Open Culture
Oh My God! Winston Churchill Received the First Ever Letter Containing “O.M.G.” (1917) Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the...
a year ago
65
a year ago
Winston Churchill is one of those preposterously outsized historical figures who seemed to be in the middle of every major event. Even before, as Prime Minister, he steeled the resolve of his people and faced down the Third Reich juggernaut; even before he loudly warned of the...
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
80
9 months ago
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective? Sadly, no, but he had the makings of a great one, at least as cut together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck. Some 35 years after...
Open Culture
Take The Near Impossible Literacy Test Louisiana Used to Suppress the Black Vote (1964) In William Faulkner’s 1938 novel The Unvanquished, the implacable Colonel Sartoris takes drastic...
8 months ago
68
8 months ago
In William Faulkner’s 1938 novel The Unvanquished, the implacable Colonel Sartoris takes drastic action to stop the election of a black Republican candidate to office after the Civil War, destroying the ballots of black voters and shooting two Northern carpetbaggers. While such...
Open Culture
Roger Federer’s Dartmouth Commencement Address: “Effortless Is a Myth” & Other Life Lessons from... In 2006, David Foster Wallace published a piece in the New York Times Magazine headlined “Roger...
a year ago
62
a year ago
In 2006, David Foster Wallace published a piece in the New York Times Magazine headlined “Roger Federer as Religious Experience.” Even then, he could declare Federer, “at 25, the best tennis player currently alive. Maybe the best ever.” Much had already been written about “his...
Open Culture
Stanley Kubrick’s Annotated Copy of Stephen King’s The Shining The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
The web site Overlook Hotel has posted pictures of Stanley Kubrick’s personal copy of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. The book is filled with highlighted passages and largely illegible notes in the margin—tantalizing clues to Kubrick’s intentions for the movie. The site...
Stat Significant
What Are the Most Commonly Used Movie Clichés? A Statistical Analysis Exploring the cliché phrases that dominate movies.
6 months ago
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Elon's Endgame Plus! Livestreamers in jail, confused Catholics, and the Immigrant Song
7 months ago
Seth's Blog
Four-word advice When there’s a complex situation that feels foreboding, you might need a manual, a coach and even a...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
When there’s a complex situation that feels foreboding, you might need a manual, a coach and even a system to move forward. Or, it’s possible you simply need someone to tell you, “you’ll figure it out.”
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
Marian's Blog
Quadcopter Lightpainting Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung...
over a year ago
18
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: ...
Not Boring by Packy...
Hyperlegible 002: Utsav Mamoria How to live an intellectually rich life
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
New decisions based on new information More than ever, we’re pushed to have certainty. Strong opinions, tightly held and loudly proclaimed....
over a year ago
135
over a year ago
More than ever, we’re pushed to have certainty. Strong opinions, tightly held and loudly proclaimed. And then, when reality intervenes, it can be stressful. The software stack, business model, career, candidate, policy, or even the social network habits that we had as part of our...
Seth's Blog
“What will I tell my boss?” If you can’t answer that six-word question, you’re selling a commodity. Organizations don’t buy...
a year ago
88
a year ago
If you can’t answer that six-word question, you’re selling a commodity. Organizations don’t buy things, people do. And people at companies aren’t spending their own money, so this is the only question on the table. A cogent story, based on affiliation and status, one that sees...
Seth's Blog
Early next week… It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so you can plan ahead… there are five more for the end of the week, but here we go: Linda Rottenberg is joining me on LinkedIn on Monday. She’s built an extraordinary organization...
Open Culture
The Evolution of Hokusai’s Great Wave: A Study of 113 Known Copies of the Iconic Woodblock Print The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai,...
a year ago
49
a year ago
The most widely known work by the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai, 神奈川沖浪裏, is usually translated into English as The Great Wave off Kanagawa. That version of the title reflects the iconic scene depicted in the image well enough, though I can’t help but...
Seth's Blog
What spoiled wrecks There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: As a...
a year ago
78
a year ago
There’s nothing wrong with abundance and joy. But being spoiled causes two real problems: As a community increases in wealth, the number of spoiled citizens increases as well. It’s often the acid that corrodes the magic that created the wealth in the first place. Whining is a...
Seth's Blog
The second time through One way to understand creative work is to think about the time and effort required to do something...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
One way to understand creative work is to think about the time and effort required to do something the first time versus doing it again. A novel might take five years to write. Retyping it takes a day. A company could easily expend 10,000 hours of effort before launching a new...
Seth's Blog
It just barely works This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers have ever created. The first Wright Bros. plane just barely flew. The first version of VisiCalc was just barely useful. The earliest bridges were shaky, unreliable and made of vines....
escape the algorithm
Not your usual subscription confirmation Or why you shouldn't ignore the back catalog
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Fire inspectors Running into a burning building is heroic work. Keeping buildings from burning down in the first...
10 months ago
59
10 months ago
Running into a burning building is heroic work. Keeping buildings from burning down in the first place is actually just as important. And it scales more reliably.
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
Two sides of “a big deal” Many businesses thrive by helping people deal with projects that feel like they have high stakes. A...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Many businesses thrive by helping people deal with projects that feel like they have high stakes. A kid’s first haircut, the offsite storage of data backup, an upcoming family reunion, a medical procedure or the inscription on a sentimental piece of jewelry or watch. But, if the...