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Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Suckered Yet Again Influencer boxing, BlueSky winning, and incredible calendar confessions
7 months ago
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
72
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...
Open Culture
Simone de Beauvoir Explains “Why I’m a Feminist” in a Rare TV Interview (1975) In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
In Simone de Beauvoir’s 1945 novel The Blood of Others, the narrator, Jean Blomart, reports on his childhood friend Marcel’s reaction to the word “revolution”: It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not meddle...
Seth's Blog
The first draft of your first non-fiction book Writing a book is good for you. It clarifies your thinking and it’s generous as well. You might not...
6 months ago
55
6 months ago
Writing a book is good for you. It clarifies your thinking and it’s generous as well. You might not publish it professionally, but sharing it with people you want to teach and lead is a useful practice. The first draft can be challenging. We’re facing a blank page, trying to find...
Seth's Blog
The Mona Lisa problem If you want to be a great painter, perhaps you could reverse engineer what made the Mona Lisa such...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
If you want to be a great painter, perhaps you could reverse engineer what made the Mona Lisa such an important painting. You could move to Italy. You could learn about shadows and light and technique. The problem is that the Mona Lisa isn’t the most famous painting in the world...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Caroline Whitehead I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with...
a year ago
47
a year ago
I’m a printmaker based in East London. For about eight years now, I’ve been obsessed with alternative forms of lithography (mokulito (wood litho), kitchen litho, prontoplate litho, waterless litho, gum transfer). I also make prints on clay. As well as making my own prints, I also...
Seth's Blog
Catastrophizing toward action A friend found a knobby growth near his knee. After a few doctor visits, it was diagnosed as cancer....
7 months ago
49
7 months ago
A friend found a knobby growth near his knee. After a few doctor visits, it was diagnosed as cancer. A cancer diagnosis is a self-sufficient catastrophe–few people need more than that to start taking immediate action. At the same time, we live in a media culture where catastrophe...
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
28
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
(Free) subscription drive Every four years, give or take, I make a big but cheap ask: Consider subscribing to this blog. If...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Every four years, give or take, I make a big but cheap ask: Consider subscribing to this blog. If you’re already a subscriber, please ask five colleagues or friends to subscribe. It’s free. You can subscribe by email by putting your email address in the little box. Click below if...
escape the algorithm
Live Near Friends I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m about to recommend that you subscribe to a product marketing...
12 months ago
16
12 months ago
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m about to recommend that you subscribe to a product marketing email.
Open Culture
Explore Burj Al Babas, Turkey’s Abandoned Town of 587 Disney-Style Castles Burj Al Babas might have been constructed expressly to attract the attention of the internet....
7 months ago
60
7 months ago
Burj Al Babas might have been constructed expressly to attract the attention of the internet. “Sitting near the Black Sea, the town is full of half-finished, fully abandoned mini castles — 587 of them to be exact,” write Architectural Digest’s Katherine McLaughlin and Jessica...
escape the algorithm
Artisinal white noise Shhhhhhhh
a year ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Hyperlegible 007: 50 Things Brian Potter Has Learned Writing Construction Physics Things are almost always more complicated than they seem.
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Ideas shared are exponential If everyone visits a factory and takes a sample, it goes out of business. But if everyone in the...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
If everyone visits a factory and takes a sample, it goes out of business. But if everyone in the community takes an idea, that idea goes up in value. The best marketing advice I have for someone writing a book is simple: Write a book that people want to share with others. And...
Anarchy Unfolds
Straight Talk About Being Gay Transcending orientation helps straight men and boys too
11 months ago
Open Culture
The Very First Coloring Book, The Little Folks’ Painting Book (Circa 1879) Funny how not that long ago coloring books were considered the exclusive domain of children. How...
2 weeks ago
14
2 weeks ago
Funny how not that long ago coloring books were considered the exclusive domain of children. How times have changed. If you are the sort of adult who unwinds with a big box of Crayolas and pages of mandalas or outlines of Ryan Gosling, you owe a debt of gratitude to the...
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
58
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 […]
Open Culture
Explore the World’s First 3D Replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Made with AI In the trailer below for the world’s first 3D replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Yves Ubelmann speaks...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
In the trailer below for the world’s first 3D replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Yves Ubelmann speaks of using “AI for Good,” which isn’t just an ideal, but also the name of a lab at Microsoft. Microsoft and Ubelman’s digital-preservation company Iconem were two of the participants...
Open Culture
Hear 2.5 Hours of the Classical Music in Haruki Murakami’s Novels: Liszt, Beethoven, Janáček, and... Haruki Murakami’s hit novel 1Q84 features a memorable scene in a taxicab on a gridlocked freeway...
8 months ago
53
8 months ago
Haruki Murakami’s hit novel 1Q84 features a memorable scene in a taxicab on a gridlocked freeway whose radio is playing Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta. “It is, as the book suggests, truly the worst possible music for a traffic jam,” writes Sam Anderson in a New York Times Magazine...
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...
a week ago
11
a week 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...
Open Culture
The First Recording of Allen Ginsberg Reading “Howl” (1956) Image by Michiel Hendryckx, via Wikimedia Commons Occasionally I slip into an ivory tower mentality...
a year ago
84
a year ago
Image by Michiel Hendryckx, via Wikimedia Commons Occasionally I slip into an ivory tower mentality in which the idea of a banned book seems quaint—associated with silly scandals over the tame sex scenes in James Joyce or D.H. Lawrence. After all, I think, we live in an age when...
Open Culture
Why You Can Never Tune a Piano Grab a cup of coffee, put on your thinking cap, and start working through this video from Minute...
10 months ago
35
10 months ago
Grab a cup of coffee, put on your thinking cap, and start working through this video from Minute Physics, which explains why guitars, violins and other instruments can be tuned to a tee. But when it comes to pianos, it’s an entirely different story, a mathematical impossibility....
Marian's Blog
3D printed model of my neighborhood I 3D printed a model of the street where I live. This post will explain how I prepared the data for...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
I 3D printed a model of the street where I live. This post will explain how I prepared the data for it. Update: I have now automated the entire process and published my code. You can find it here. I worked with aerial Lidar data that is provided by the state I live in to download...
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
84
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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Pretty much all I want in life… … is to make things and then have other people look at those things and be like “woah, cool”
over a year ago
Prolost
Visual Effects Compositing in Adobe After Effects: My IBC 2019 Talk Adobe graciously invited me to speak at their IBC 2019 booth about visual effects compositing in...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
Adobe graciously invited me to speak at their IBC 2019 booth about visual effects compositing in After Effects — something I’ve been doing against all advice for many (many!) years. You can watch the entire talk here:
Seth's Blog
“What’s next?” The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference. Leaders of every stripe make one...
over a year ago
63
over a year ago
The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference. Leaders of every stripe make one thing more than any other: decisions. In any environment with constraints (which is, actually, any environment), the decisions about time and resources–about what to do next–change...
Open Culture
Is Andrew Huberman Ruining Your Morning Coffee Routine? Andrew Huberman–the host of the influential Huberman Lab podcast–has gotten a lot of mileage out of...
10 months ago
54
10 months ago
Andrew Huberman–the host of the influential Huberman Lab podcast–has gotten a lot of mileage out of his recommended morning routine. His routine emphasizes the importance of getting sunlight within 30–60 minutes of waking; also engaging in light physical activity; hydrating well;...
Seth's Blog
Knowing your customers In the very small business, the freelancer knows each customer. By name, by volume, by preferences....
10 months ago
72
10 months ago
In the very small business, the freelancer knows each customer. By name, by volume, by preferences. And in the huge business, expensive software, data analysts and relentless margin seeking pushes organizations to increase their yield. But most businesses (and non-profits and...
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
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
79
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...
Rectangle
The first rectangle And the first of many
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Eight marketing maxims
a year ago
Open Culture
Patti Smith Reads Her Final Letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, Calling Him “the Most Beautiful Work of... If you go to hear Patti Smith in concert, you expect her to sing “Beneath the Southern Cross,”...
a year ago
68
a year ago
If you go to hear Patti Smith in concert, you expect her to sing “Beneath the Southern Cross,” “Because the Night,” and almost certainly “People Have the Power,” the hit single from Dream of Life. Like her 1975 debut Horses, that album had a cover photo by Robert...
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...
3 weeks ago
12
3 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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Ian O' Halloran My name is Ian O’Halloran. I am a professional Artist and Printmaker living and working in the...
a month ago
32
a month ago
My name is Ian O’Halloran. I am a professional Artist and Printmaker living and working in the Sussex Weald near Herstmonceux (UK). I am and always have been inspired by the British landscape. I came to art later in life than most, having had a career in civil engineering first...
John Reynolds -...
2024.04.14 2024.04.14
2 months ago
Open Culture
Watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the Influential German Expressionist Horror Film (1920) In early 1920, posters began appearing all over Berlin with a hypnotic spiral and the mysterious...
8 months ago
40
8 months ago
In early 1920, posters began appearing all over Berlin with a hypnotic spiral and the mysterious command Du musst Caligari werden — “You must become Caligari.” The posters were part of an innovative advertising campaign for an upcoming movie by Robert Wiene called The Cabinet of...
Neocha – Culture &...
Spectacular Skin
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Embracing externalities Freedom is something we desire. The freedom to choose, to speak up, to produce, to follow our...
5 months ago
63
5 months ago
Freedom is something we desire. The freedom to choose, to speak up, to produce, to follow our passions and our dreams. And organizations in search of efficiency, shortcuts or profits often argue for freedom as well. The freedom to organize their production and to go to market...
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
33
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 […]
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...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks 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...
Seth's Blog
Uphill and downhill challenges There’s a big hill near my house. Sometimes, a bicyclist will really pedal hard on the downhill....
a month ago
12
a month ago
There’s a big hill near my house. Sometimes, a bicyclist will really pedal hard on the downhill. It’s good for the ego. It’s also crazy dangerous, since braking and steering become much more difficult, and high speed gives you less time to react. And sometimes cars rev their way...
Stat Significant
How Many Episodes Should You Watch Before Quitting a TV Show? A Statistical Analysis When to quit a subpar TV show, according to the data.
4 months ago
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
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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...
Open Culture
14 Self-Portraits by Pablo Picasso Show the Evolution of His Style: See Self-Portraits Moving from... 15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic...
7 months ago
69
7 months ago
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic shifts of style as a kind of self-portraiture, an exercise in shifting consciousness and trying on of new aesthetic identities. The Spanish modernist made a career of sweeping...
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
83
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
Checking all the boxes The simplest way forward is to see which boxes your target market has and then check all of them....
5 months ago
56
5 months ago
The simplest way forward is to see which boxes your target market has and then check all of them. Unfortunately #1: The audience doesn’t publish their actual list of boxes, they conceal many of them. Unfortunately #2: They don’t all have the same boxes. Unfortunately #3: If it...
Open Culture
The Ark Before Noah: Discover the Ancient Flood Myths That Came Before the Bible The Lord said to Noah, there’s going to be a floody, floody; then to get those children out of the...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
The Lord said to Noah, there’s going to be a floody, floody; then to get those children out of the muddy, muddy; then to build him an arky, arky. This much we heard while toasting marshmallows around the campfire, at least if we grew up in a certain modern Protestant tradition....
Seth's Blog
How, why and hyperbole There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The...
a year ago
62
a year ago
There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The first two: Headlines with “why” for articles that don’t actually explain why. Headlines with “how” that don’t really teach you how. Explaining why is difficult, which is where the...
Seth's Blog
Reimagining cities in a few simple questions What would happen if public transportation were free? What if it were paid for by congestion...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
What would happen if public transportation were free? What if it were paid for by congestion pricing, digitally implemented? What if public toilets were safe, beautiful, well-appointed and consistently maintained? What if there were a tax on empty storefronts, payable after three...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Aurore Swithenbank Hiya, I’m Aurore Swithenbank, a printmaker living in South East London with my partner and cute cat....
2 months ago
35
2 months ago
Hiya, I’m Aurore Swithenbank, a printmaker living in South East London with my partner and cute cat. I moved to London when I was 10 from France and haven’t looked back since.  Describe your printmaking process.  My printmaking method is linocut. I plan most of my designs with...
Seth's Blog
The low-stakes argument It’s tempting and fun to argue about the logo. About the way the toilet paper is hung. About how to...
a year ago
22
a year ago
It’s tempting and fun to argue about the logo. About the way the toilet paper is hung. About how to load the trunk of the car. These sorts of arguments work precisely because they don’t matter. At all. And they distract us from the incredibly difficult work of discussing the...
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...
a week ago
10
a week 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...
Seth's Blog
The unsurprising confusion about ‘per capita’ A car cut me off on the highway the other day. The car was going nearly 100 mph. Was the car a new...
a year ago
23
a year ago
A car cut me off on the highway the other day. The car was going nearly 100 mph. Was the car a new Porsche 911 GT3 or a used Toyota Camry? The thing is, there are more than 1,000 times as many Camrys on the road. But our instinct is to pick the vivid and […]
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....
Blog - Mac Pierce
Understanding the work - Thoughts on one day with three art events. A few thoughts on a few art events that happened around Boston Feb. 22nd.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Focusing attention is a skill Where we choose to direct our gaze determines not only what we learn or believe, but how we choose...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Where we choose to direct our gaze determines not only what we learn or believe, but how we choose to see the world. Typing is a skill. Juggling is a skill. So is project management. It’s easy to overlook the fact that we can get better at what we think about, create and consume....
The Great Discontent...
Ophelia Chong Ophelia Chong has had a long and storied career in photography, art, and creative direction that...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Ophelia Chong has had a long and storied career in photography, art, and creative direction that spans from magazines and music labels to film festivals and book publishing. When a family member’s medicinal marijuana use inspired her to dip her toes into the world of weed, Chong...
Seth's Blog
Digital shortcuts and cognitive load I used to drive 200 miles to Boston once a week or so. After a few trips on the highway, my...
a year ago
136
a year ago
I used to drive 200 miles to Boston once a week or so. After a few trips on the highway, my subconscious figured out that getting behind a few trucks for the entire ride enabled me to spend four hours without using much conscious effort on driving. Every day, we make decisions....
Open Culture
The Internet Archive Rescues MTV News’ Web Site, Making 460,000+ of Its Pages Searchable Again Image via Internet Archive Last month, MTV News’ web site went missing. Or at least almost all of it...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Image via Internet Archive Last month, MTV News’ web site went missing. Or at least almost all of it did, including an archive of stories going back to 1997. To some of us, and especially to those of us old enough to have grown up watching MTV on actual television, that won’t...
Haterade
Nostalgia Pizza The virtues (and limitations) of the Soggy School Lunch Square
over a year ago
Open Culture
Learn Data Analytics & AI with Google, and Fast-Track Your Career ?si=azZbGLEr_9EFWypL We’re living in the age of data and artificial intelligence (AI). Every second,...
8 months ago
49
8 months ago
?si=azZbGLEr_9EFWypL We’re living in the age of data and artificial intelligence (AI). Every second, vast amounts of data are being generated, processed, and analyzed. And increasingly AI plays a central role in how that data gets managed. For companies, governments, and...
Seth's Blog
Your project is important But that’s not why it’s your project. Lots of things are important. Countless problems need to be...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
But that’s not why it’s your project. Lots of things are important. Countless problems need to be solved, people need to be connected, a living needs to be made. But this work you’re doing now, the work you’re doing instead of everything else–it’s your project. When we talk about...
Open Culture
Behold James Sowerby’s Strikingly Illustrated New Elucidation of Colours (1809) James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was...
11 months ago
47
11 months ago
James Sowerby was an artist dedicated to the natural world. It thus comes as no surprise that he was also enormously interested in color, especially given the era in which he lived. Born in 1757, he made his professional start as a painter of flowers: a viable career path in...
Seth's Blog
Ensemble stars Over the last 50 years, 167 different people have been part of the Saturday Night Live ensemble...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Over the last 50 years, 167 different people have been part of the Saturday Night Live ensemble cast. Some of them went on to become comedy superstars, others lasted a less than a season and are fairly obscure in the cultural pantheon. But if you were tasked of creating an...
Prolost
Skate Warrior 1992, 1999, 2020 You May Have Seen This Image Before. In The DV Rebel’s Guide, I used this still frame as an example...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
You May Have Seen This Image Before. In The DV Rebel’s Guide, I used this still frame as an example of guerrilla filmmaking taken too far. Which may also be an apt description of the entire film from which it was taken. In the summer of 1992, while I was home in Minnesota between...
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...
a year ago
97
a year 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...
The Last...
Hunger Games Catching Fire: Badass Body Count sorry old man, I have a dress fitting to go to Number of people killed: 15 Number of...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
sorry old man, I have a dress fitting to go to Number of people killed: 15 Number of people Katniss kills: 1 Number of times she is saved by someone else: 6 Number of times she saves someone else: 0 But boy oh boy, wasn't she spectacular at practice, 9 targets in 30...
Handprinted - Blog
In the Studio 2024 What a busy year in the studio! Thank you to everyone who has joined us for a workshop, event or...
6 months ago
88
6 months ago
What a busy year in the studio! Thank you to everyone who has joined us for a workshop, event or open access studio session. Let's take a look at what's being going on in the Handprinted Studio in 2024: WORKSHOPS 2024 has been packed with workshops, taught by our team as well as...
escape the algorithm
A complete guide to pretending you saw the total solar eclipse I cannot relate to you
a year ago
Open Culture
Watch Animations Showing How Humans Migrated Across the World Over the Past 60,000 Years Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the...
a year ago
81
a year ago
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Attributed to various luminaries of antiquity, that saying (the probable inspiration for Isak Dinesen’s poem “Ex Africa,” itself the probable inspiration for her memoir Out of Africa, which in turn was loosely adapted into Sydney Pollack’s...
Seth's Blog
The stories we tell ourselves If it happened to us, our memory of it is a story, our record of it with us at the center. Even if...
6 months ago
63
6 months ago
If it happened to us, our memory of it is a story, our record of it with us at the center. Even if it’s on video, even if other people were there, our narrative and the context and the play by play belong to us. The useful question might be: “Is my story helpful?” And […]
Infinite Scroll
Flat Earthers and Belief in Belief What flat earthers can teach us about politics
6 months ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #132 Curing Blindness, Genetic Womb Treatment, Evo 2, AI co-scientist, Topological Qubits, Robots
4 months ago
Open Culture
37 Hitchcock Cameo Appearances Over 50 Years: All in One Video Early in his career, Alfred Hitchcock began making small appearances in his own films. The cameos...
11 months ago
72
11 months ago
Early in his career, Alfred Hitchcock began making small appearances in his own films. The cameos sometimes lasted just a few brief seconds, and sometimes a little while longer. Either way, they became a signature of Hitchcock’s filmmaking, and fans made a sport of seeing whether...
escape the algorithm
The Scan Artist What it means to copy the world
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Taxonomy as a service When the truck makes a delivery at the nearby True Value hardware store, Danny needs to figure out...
6 months ago
55
6 months ago
When the truck makes a delivery at the nearby True Value hardware store, Danny needs to figure out which shelf to put it on. Should the extension cords go next to the hoses? After all, they both do the same thing, one with electricity and one with water… The purpose of putting...
Seth's Blog
Amazon Smile gets a frown I’m pretty sure how the first meetings went almost a decade ago: “Well, we’re paying our affiliates...
over a year ago
86
over a year ago
I’m pretty sure how the first meetings went almost a decade ago: “Well, we’re paying our affiliates 5% for referrals. If we pay charities a tenth of that and call it a donation, it’ll be great PR and we’ll also make a profit on every sale because we won’t need to pay a full...
Seth's Blog
Good instincts Sometimes, in the absence of data or useful experience, we’re left to act on our instincts. It’s...
2 months ago
37
2 months ago
Sometimes, in the absence of data or useful experience, we’re left to act on our instincts. It’s worth noting that other people have instincts as well. And in a given situation, their instincts might prove to be as right as often as ours. Just because it’s your instinct doesn’t...
Seth's Blog
Pleasant We often use words like “beautiful” or “stunning” or “perfect” when we actually mean “popular” or...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
We often use words like “beautiful” or “stunning” or “perfect” when we actually mean “popular” or “pleasant.” Every day is beautiful in its own way. But the weather yesterday was pleasant. Hit songs are hits. But they’re rarely perfect. I’m a big fan of pleasant. And I often like...
Open Culture
Buckminster Fuller’s Map of the World: The Innovation That Revolutionized Map Design (1943) In 2017, we brought you news of a world map purportedly more accurate than any to date, designed by...
11 months ago
72
11 months ago
In 2017, we brought you news of a world map purportedly more accurate than any to date, designed by Japanese architect and artist Hajime Narukawa. The map, called the AuthaGraph, updates a centuries-old method of turning the globe into a flat surface by first converting it to a...
Seth's Blog
Leverage It’s almost impossible to remove a screw with your bare hands, but easy with a screwdriver. The...
a year ago
33
a year ago
It’s almost impossible to remove a screw with your bare hands, but easy with a screwdriver. The handle might only add a little torque, but it’s more than enough. If someone is succeeding at something you find difficult, it might be because they realized they needed a screwdriver....
Seth's Blog
The Mississippi River paradox There’s no water in that river that was there ten years ago. The boundaries have shifted in that...
11 months ago
47
11 months ago
There’s no water in that river that was there ten years ago. The boundaries have shifted in that time as well, there’s no riverbank that’s exactly where it was. And the silt and the fish have all moved too. So, what’s “the Mississippi River”? It’s a label, a placeholder, and a...
Seth's Blog
Three sheet metaphors Here’s a large blue bedsheet, queen sized. If we’re going to pull it taut, it will take the...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Here’s a large blue bedsheet, queen sized. If we’re going to pull it taut, it will take the coordinated effort of eight people, each pulling just the right amount, from each corner and edge. If we’re going to billow it up and down, like a parachute, we’re going to need those...
Open Culture
Medievalist Professor Answers Medieval Questions From Twitter: Why Is It called the “Middle” Ages?,... From Wired comes this: “Professor of English and Medieval Literature Dr. Dorsey Armstrong answers...
a year ago
93
a year ago
From Wired comes this: “Professor of English and Medieval Literature Dr. Dorsey Armstrong answers your questions about the Middle Ages from Twitter. Why is it called the “Middle” Ages? [What did medieval English sound like?] What activities did people do for fun? Why were animals...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Loading, please wait... Starting the 1A2A3D project. Starting out on a project looking at the first amendment, second amendment, and 3-D printing.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The big sort The phone book was a groundbreaking innovation. For the first time, you could actually look up the...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
The phone book was a groundbreaking innovation. For the first time, you could actually look up the person you were seeking to reach. At about the same time, the department store arrived. You could actually have a shot at finding what you were hoping to buy. TV Guide was, at one...
Seth's Blog
What does the world owe us? This question is a trap. It’s based on scarcity and entitlement, and most of all, the world isn’t...
a year ago
93
a year ago
This question is a trap. It’s based on scarcity and entitlement, and most of all, the world isn’t listening. When more and more people focus on this question, it simply pushes us apart. On the other hand, “what do I owe the world?” opens the door for endless opportunity. When...
Open Culture
The First “Selfie” In History Taken by Robert Cornelius, a Philadelphia Chemist, in 1839 In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that “selfie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
In 2013, the Oxford Dictionaries announced that “selfie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The term, whose first recorded use as an Instagram hashtag occurred on January 27, 2011, was actually invented in 2002, when an Australian chap posted a picture of himself on an...
Open Culture
World Religions Explained with Useful Charts: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity &... It doesn’t take an expert in the field to know that, around the world, there is much disagreement on...
a year ago
79
a year ago
It doesn’t take an expert in the field to know that, around the world, there is much disagreement on the subject of religion. But as explained in the UsefulCharts video above by Matt Baker, whose PhD in Religious Studies makes him an expert in the field, every source does agree...
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
The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse: Rick Beato Explains Earlier this month, a North Carolina man was charged with generating songs using an...
9 months ago
48
9 months ago
Earlier this month, a North Carolina man was charged with generating songs using an artificial-intelligence system and configuring bots to stream them automatically, thus racking up some $10 million in illegal royalties. Though that amount no doubt startles many of us, in this...
Neocha – Culture &...
A Life Laid Bare
a month ago
Seth's Blog
Time, consquences and opportunities Dreams have consequences Hisham Matar Time passes, decisions are made, we face the consequences or...
a year ago
30
a year ago
Dreams have consequences Hisham Matar Time passes, decisions are made, we face the consequences or enjoy the benefits. A few books for this moment, about navigating our days, and the possibility of light. It bends toward justice. The Return, by Hisham Matar. A beautiful and...
Handprinted - Blog
In the Studio 2023 We've been looking back on all our studio highlights for 2023, and what a year it's been! If you...
a year ago
91
a year ago
We've been looking back on all our studio highlights for 2023, and what a year it's been! If you took part in one of our Fab Fridays, attended a workshop, or used the studio for open access - thanks for being a part of our studio! We hope to see you back again in 2024! Workshops...
Seth's Blog
The community orchestra There are people who get paid to play the flute or bassoon. There are far more people who volunteer...
a year ago
24
a year ago
There are people who get paid to play the flute or bassoon. There are far more people who volunteer to participate in a community orchestra. For many, rehearsals or performances are the high points of their day. The metaphor is powerful, because it teaches us that we all benefit...
Open Culture
9‑Year-Old Edward Hopper Draws a Picture on the Back of His 3rd Grade Report Card In a 2017 press release, the Edward Hopper House announced that it would receive over 1,000...
a year ago
93
a year ago
In a 2017 press release, the Edward Hopper House announced that it would receive over 1,000 artifacts and memorabilia documenting Edward Hopper’s family life and early years. The collection “consists of juvenilia and other materials from the formative years of Hopper’s life and...
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
109
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Moïra Swann Bonjour everyone! Moïra Swann is an English and Proustian adaptation from my real name Anne-Marie:...
over a year ago
58
over a year ago
Bonjour everyone! Moïra Swann is an English and Proustian adaptation from my real name Anne-Marie: while Anne-Marie lives in France and works full-time in a wonderful museum dedicated to the French painter Anne-Louis Girodet, Moïra Swann does lino printing whenever she can, as an...
Seth's Blog
The seduction of “why” It’s classic linkbait. Headlines that explain why something is happening. Questions to AI about why...
a year ago
27
a year ago
It’s classic linkbait. Headlines that explain why something is happening. Questions to AI about why something happens. Even kids, asking their parents. Why is easy to sell. Why is hard to deliver. Consultants make a good living explaining the why. And media companies try to. But...
Seth's Blog
Wild Hope Now: The power of books for causes Non-profits and charities depend on the emotional and financial support of their backers. And that...
a year ago
29
a year ago
Non-profits and charities depend on the emotional and financial support of their backers. And that support is always based on a story. A story of possibility, of justice, of community. They serve to right wrongs, to fix problems, to shine a light and to make things better. I’ve...
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
81
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
The use (and design) of tools It’s hard to build a house without a hammer. The hammer has been around for a long time, and thanks...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
It’s hard to build a house without a hammer. The hammer has been around for a long time, and thanks to its intuitive design, a user can get 70% of the benefit after less than ten minutes of instruction. People who depend on hammers for their livelihood are probably at over 95%...
Seth's Blog
The color-coded wires Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was like? Neither have I. The Beatles recorded some of their best work there, and I have no idea if it was a rat’s nest of tangled wires, or if each wire was labeled, coded and perfectly...
Prolost
New Photography Shortcuts Using ToolBox Pro My love affair with Apple’s Shortcuts took a bit of a hit during the transition to iOS 13, but my...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
My love affair with Apple’s Shortcuts took a bit of a hit during the transition to iOS 13, but my fascination with this on-device development environment has been rekindled thanks to a new app called ToolBox Pro. ToolBox Pro is a free iOS/iPadOS app that adds powerful new actions...
Seth's Blog
Promises and our best There is a significant difference between, “I promise,” and “I’ll do my best.” Promises are...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
There is a significant difference between, “I promise,” and “I’ll do my best.” Promises are difficult to keep and ought to be offered with that in mind. Doing our best is assumed.
On the Arts
Do biographies need to start at the beginning? Alternatives to the predictably linear narratives of most biographies.
a year ago
Ian Betteridge
Weeknote, Sunday 10th November 2024 It’s been a while since I wrote a weeknote, although I’ve kept up with the other kinds of writing...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
It’s been a while since I wrote a weeknote, although I’ve kept up with the other kinds of writing that I do. But: I work now. I’m working at a small B2B publisher helping them sort out a few things. This was originally going to be an in-and-out job which would take nine months,...
Stat Significant
Have Movies Stopped Killing Their Main Character? A Statistical Analysis A data-driven investigation of movie hero mortality rates
2 months ago
Open Culture
An Introduction to George Orwell’s 1984 and How Power Manufactures Truth Soon after the first election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, George...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Soon after the first election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four became a bestseller again. Shooting to the top of the American charts, the novel that inspired the term “Orwellian” passed Danielle Steel’s latest opus, the...
Seth's Blog
Willfully uninformed Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and...
a year ago
45
a year ago
Access to information used to be scarce. We ranked college libraries on how many books they had, and time at the microfilm reader was booked in advance. Today, if there’s something I don’t know, it’s almost certainly because I haven’t cared enough to find out. I don’t understand...
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,...
Seth's Blog
Cheaper than that The race to the bottom has been won. Anything cheaper than what’s on offer is a waste of the...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
The race to the bottom has been won. Anything cheaper than what’s on offer is a waste of the customer’s money, because it won’t get the job done. Once we’ve cut every corner, all that’s left is the brutality of less. One slogan is: You’ll pay less than you should have, and waste...
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
45
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Ariana Martin Hi, I’m Ariana - a pattern designer and printmaker from leafy Sheffield. I create joyful patterns...
a year ago
85
a year ago
Hi, I’m Ariana - a pattern designer and printmaker from leafy Sheffield. I create joyful patterns and illustrations, which are particularly inspired by 20th century design, and I produce my own range of stationery and homewares.     Describe your printmaking process. Screen...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Ghibli-fy Everything Plus: Elon's fake numbers and a Good Shrek Prediction
3 months ago
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Vance Memes Plus: Media Literacy (gone) and Production (still here)
4 months ago
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...
over a year ago
37
over 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...
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...
Seth's Blog
The grey goo If we take a big enough dataset… Add to it machine learning and autotune and the race to fit in and...
a year ago
28
a year ago
If we take a big enough dataset… Add to it machine learning and autotune and the race to fit in and reach the masses… We end up with a relentless march toward mediocrity. Mediocre is another word for average. It has always happened as industries matured (whether it’s Motown or...
Open Culture
Revisit Episodes of Liquid Television, MTV’s 90s Showcase of Funny, Irreverent & Bizarre Animation MTV stands for Music Television, and when the network launched in 1981, its almost entirely music...
9 months ago
74
9 months ago
MTV stands for Music Television, and when the network launched in 1981, its almost entirely music video-based programming was true to its name. Within a decade, however, its mandate had widened to the point that it had become the natural home for practically any exciting...
Handprinted - Blog
Batik on Paper Batik is a fun, dynamic way of creating bold and beautiful designs on cloth but did you know batik...
a year ago
103
a year ago
Batik is a fun, dynamic way of creating bold and beautiful designs on cloth but did you know batik can be made on paper too? We used some Tej Prakrtika paper (as well as testing some others) to create a colourful, abstract batik.  You'll find lots more batik projects here. Begin...
Neocha – Culture &...
Deep Baby Sleep Realm
over a year ago
Open Culture
A Japanese Zen Monk Explains What Zen Is Really About Despite developing in Asia, as the Chinese form of a religion originally brought over from India and...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
Despite developing in Asia, as the Chinese form of a religion originally brought over from India and later refined in Japan, Zen Buddhism has long appealed to Westerners as well. Some of that owes to the spare, elegant aesthetics with which popular culture associates it, and more...
Seth's Blog
The art of estimation If you’re a freelancer or a contractor of any kind, it’s typical to be asked for an estimate or a...
a year ago
28
a year ago
If you’re a freelancer or a contractor of any kind, it’s typical to be asked for an estimate or a quote. And if you’ve been doing business for a while, it’s likely that you’ve heard about price more than just about any other factor in losing an opportunity. So the pressure is on...
Seth's Blog
Paying attention to attention There are people and organizations that are working overtime to redirect and manipulate your...
a month ago
13
a month ago
There are people and organizations that are working overtime to redirect and manipulate your attention. The question is: Are they more aware and careful in how you spend your attention than you are? The act of focusing on what we focus on pays enormous dividends.
Seth's Blog
Choosing your problems Perhaps you only acknowledge and focus on problems where you know and are comfortable with the...
over a year ago
90
over a year ago
Perhaps you only acknowledge and focus on problems where you know and are comfortable with the appropriate response. Denying the existence of the other ones is easier than dealing with them. Or it might be that you only choose to see the problems that are actually situations,...
Seth's Blog
Productive assets and useful flows Assets are ownable. They are devices, skills, connections or properties that allow us to amplify our...
over a year ago
65
over a year ago
Assets are ownable. They are devices, skills, connections or properties that allow us to amplify our effort and do our work with more impact. A drill press is an asset, so is your law degree. The permission you have to talk with your customers, the benefit of the doubt you get...
John Reynolds -...
Mammoth Life - Lights Out Music Video Title: Lights OutArtist: Mammoth LifeYear: 2014 --
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Better pockets Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a...
10 months ago
55
10 months ago
Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a universal area for improvement. When in doubt, make the pockets better. The interesting work is in realizing that you might offer a product or service where there are non-universal...
Seth's Blog
Get/Want/Have To Get to, want to and have to are an endless braid. How much of our time do we spend on each? Have to...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
Get to, want to and have to are an endless braid. How much of our time do we spend on each? Have to is often up to someone else. The things we’re required to do by the system or the people in it. Get to is a matter of perspective. Trust and health and leverage […]
Seth's Blog
Confused about good How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your...
8 months ago
50
8 months ago
How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your work doesn’t catch on, does that mean it wasn’t good? In almost every field, people with insight, taste and experience admire and emulate good things that aren’t popular, and are...
Open Culture
Hear the Letter of Gratitude That Albert Camus Wrote to His Teacher After Winning the Nobel Prize,... When Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize, he wrote a letter to one of his old schoolteachers. “I let...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
When Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize, he wrote a letter to one of his old schoolteachers. “I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart,” the letter begins. “I have just been given far too great an honor, one I neither...
Stat Significant
How Long Does Music Stardom Last? A Statistical Analysis When do music stars achieve fame, and how long does fame typically last?
11 months ago
Open Culture
Frank Lloyd Wright Thought About Making the Guggenheim Museum Pink Image via The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives Seen today, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,...
10 months ago
36
10 months ago
Image via The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives Seen today, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, seems to occupy several time periods at once, looking both modern and somehow ancient. The latter quality surely has to do with its bright white...
Seth's Blog
The blank page Sometimes, we’re so afraid of creation that we don’t even leave blank pages around. If your...
a year ago
66
a year ago
Sometimes, we’re so afraid of creation that we don’t even leave blank pages around. If your workspace has a hole exactly the size of a creative idea in it, you’re more likely to fill the hole. When we decrease the number of steps to begin creating, and increase the expectation...
Open Culture
Tracking Pianist Yuja Wang’s Heartbeats During Her Marathon Rachmaninoff Performance The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene: On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The...
a year ago
56
a year ago
The Carnegie Hall YouTube Channel sets the scene: On January 28, 2023, pianist Yuja Wang joined The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall for a once-in-a-lifetime, all-Rachmaninoff marathon that featured the composer’s four piano concertos...
Seth's Blog
Explaining yourself The only reason we need to go into detail about our resume, the details of our new idea or the...
a year ago
35
a year ago
The only reason we need to go into detail about our resume, the details of our new idea or the features of a product is to cause action to happen. And action is the result of tension, status or affiliation, and these are based on trust. There are many ways to build that trust,...
Handprinted - Blog
Preparing your paper and press for etching When you’ve created an aluminium or zinc plate etching, you’ll want to have a go at pulling your...
a year ago
127
a year ago
When you’ve created an aluminium or zinc plate etching, you’ll want to have a go at pulling your first print. To do this, you’ll need to learn how to prepare your paper and how to set the correct pressure on your press. This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques...
On the Arts
Are wind turbines ugly? Could they be beautiful? How to make ugly things appear less ugly – or appear like something else entirely.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
The freedom loop We spend almost no time teaching toddlers about freedom. Instead, the lessons we teach (and learn)...
over a year ago
125
over a year ago
We spend almost no time teaching toddlers about freedom. Instead, the lessons we teach (and learn) for our entire lives are about responsibility. It’s easy to teach freedom, but important to teach responsibility. Because if you get the responsibility taken care of, often the...
Open Culture
J. G. Ballard Demystifies Surrealist Paintings by Dalí, Magritte, de Chirico & More Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard...
11 months ago
49
11 months ago
Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard published three apocalyptic novels, The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World. Each of those books offers a different vision of large-scale environmental disaster, and...
On the Arts
Generative AI and the Falling Costs of Art Creation For individual creators on a budget, the future is bright.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Important change is systems change Willpower is overrated. If you want to eat healthier, don’t work hard to avoid stopping at the...
11 months ago
44
11 months ago
Willpower is overrated. If you want to eat healthier, don’t work hard to avoid stopping at the cookie jar when you walk into the kitchen. Get rid of the cookie jar. Systems are long-lasting, widespread and resilient. We can push back on them with effort, but over time, the system...
Open Culture
The Isolated Bass Grooves of The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh (RIP) This past Friday, the bassist of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, passed away at age 84. Almost...
8 months ago
43
8 months ago
This past Friday, the bassist of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, passed away at age 84. Almost immediately the tributes poured in, most recognizing that Lesh wasn’t your ordinary bassist. As Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times, Phil Lesh held songs “aloft.” His “bass lines...
cabel.com
Firehouse Five and the Cinderella Surprise My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of an incredible Dixieland jazz band made...
a year ago
29
a year ago
My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of an incredible Dixieland jazz band made up of mostly Disney employees, the Firehouse Five Plus Two. But along the way, I accidentally discovered an incredible lost song that was cut from Walt Disney’s Cinderella. And...
Seth's Blog
If it were really important… Could we change our minds? When was the last time new information caused you to walk away from an...
over a year ago
85
over a year ago
Could we change our minds? When was the last time new information caused you to walk away from an idea you were confident in? It gets harder and harder to do, and more and more important.
Open Culture
How Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton & Harold Lloyd Pulled Off Their Spectacular Stunts During Silent... It can be tempting to view the box office’s domination by visual-effects-laden Hollywood spectacle...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
It can be tempting to view the box office’s domination by visual-effects-laden Hollywood spectacle as a recent phenomenon. And indeed, there have been periods during which that wasn’t the case: the “New Hollywood” that began in the late nineteen sixties, for instance, when the...
Seth's Blog
The interaction cascade Walk into an office, and the person behind the desk begins an interaction. You respond (or react)....
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Walk into an office, and the person behind the desk begins an interaction. You respond (or react). They respond (or react) in turn. Answer the phone. Caller ID tells you who it is–are you smiling? How much enthusiasm or disdain or annoyance or delight comes through? The caller...
Seth's Blog
Organizing for urgent There are many ways to prioritize our time and focus, but the easiest and most vivid way is to do...
5 months ago
43
5 months ago
There are many ways to prioritize our time and focus, but the easiest and most vivid way is to do the urgent things first. If we wait until a house plant is sick before we take care of it, though, it’s too late. Deadlines, loud requests and last-minute interventions are crude...
Marian's Blog
Arduino-Wetterstation mit Bluetooth, Datalogging und Android-App Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen Schülerwettbewerb (ILC) bekommen und zusammengesetzt habe. Auf dem Board rechnet ein ATxmega128A3U. Temperatur, Luftfeuchte, Luftdruck, Helligkeit, Regenmenge und Windgeschwindigkeit werden...
Open Culture
Every Frame a Painting Returns to YouTube & Explores Why the Sustained Two-Shot Vanished from Movies Video essayists don’t normally retire; in most cases, they just drift into inactivity. Hence the...
10 months ago
59
10 months ago
Video essayists don’t normally retire; in most cases, they just drift into inactivity. Hence the surprise and even dismay of the internet’s cinephiles when Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos declared the end of their respected channel Every Frame a Painting in 2016. We here at Open...
Open Culture
The 11 Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Cartoons That Haven’t Been Aired Since 1968 For decades and decades, Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons have served as a...
10 months ago
69
10 months ago
For decades and decades, Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons have served as a kind of default children’s entertainment. Originally conceived for theatrical exhibition in the nineteen-thirties, they were animated to a standard that held its own against the...
Seth's Blog
The two bicycle errors Momentum activities like public speaking, board sports and leadership all share an attribute with...
11 months ago
59
11 months ago
Momentum activities like public speaking, board sports and leadership all share an attribute with riding a bicycle: It gets easier when you get good at it. The first error we often make is believing that someone (even us) will never be good at riding a bike, because riding a bike...
Seth's Blog
Getting clear about brand value Consulting firms rank brands on value. Marketers promise to increase it. But brand value has little...
5 months ago
146
5 months ago
Consulting firms rank brands on value. Marketers promise to increase it. But brand value has little to do with whether a company is famous or even profitable. The accurate measure of brand value is the premium that consumers will spend over the generic. What time, money or risk...
Infinite Scroll
13 Things I Learned Reading a 225 Page Report About the Gaming Industry A quick poll for readers before we get started - you may have noticed there’s a lot of politics...
5 months ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #135 Solar, LNG, SphereX, Newsom, Packy in Austin, TBPN
3 months ago
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Opens for The Monkees on a 1967 Tour; Then Flips Off the Crowd and Quits It’s easy to dismiss The Monkees. Critics and listeners have been doing it since the sixties,...
11 months ago
72
11 months ago
It’s easy to dismiss The Monkees. Critics and listeners have been doing it since the sixties, although the band has also come in for its share of reappraisals, particularly for their psych-rock album Head. (That’s the soundtrack from the 1968 Jack Nicholson-directed art film of...
Open Culture
Meet Fanny, the First Female Rock Band to Top the Charts: “They Were Just Colossal and Wonderful,... When the Beatles upended popular music, thousands of wannabe beat groups were born all over the...
a year ago
84
a year ago
When the Beatles upended popular music, thousands of wannabe beat groups were born all over the world, and many of them–for the first time ever, really–were all-female groups. This Amoeba Records article has a fairly exhaustive list of these girl bands, with names like The...
Seth's Blog
Typist/Hypist Not that long ago, you could make a living as a typist. Technology keeps changing the world. Now,...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
Not that long ago, you could make a living as a typist. Technology keeps changing the world. Now, you’re more likely to find a job doing something that seems a lot less mechanized. But that too will be programmatic soon enough. PS here’s an important new book about perfectionism.
Open Culture
Beautiful 19th Century Maps of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise & More Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do...
7 months ago
56
7 months ago
Even the least religious among us speak, at least on occasion, of the circles of hell. When we do so, we may or may not be thinking of where the concept originated: Dante’s Divina Commedia, or Divine Comedy. We each imagine the circles in our own way — usually filling them with...
Seth's Blog
Jump in the lake The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a...
a year ago
87
a year ago
The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a swim. But it’s also a hassle. You need to change your clothes, find someone to guard, bring a towel and most of all, gasp at the transition when the cold water hits. And yet… no one...
Not Boring by Packy...
Us Against Spacetime On the improbability and promise of being alive on Earth in 2025
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
You might not get a third chance The first impression is vitally important. It positions us, establishes the tone of our relationship...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
The first impression is vitally important. It positions us, establishes the tone of our relationship and earns trust. But we’re human, and it’s unlikely that every first impression will be as useful as we’d like. Fortunately, people can speak up and let us know, particularly if...
Infinite Scroll
Crisis PR for Dummies You too can avoid being cancelled!
2 months ago
Seth's Blog
Small doses If you go to a health food store and buy some pills with selenium, colloidal silver or other...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
If you go to a health food store and buy some pills with selenium, colloidal silver or other mysterious substances in them, it’s possible that they’ll make you feel a bit better. On the other hand, if you take a large dose, you’ll get sick or possibly die. In very small doses,...
Seth's Blog
The generous ask “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That’s problematic advice. Taken to an extreme, it turns us into...
a year ago
31
a year ago
“If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That’s problematic advice. Taken to an extreme, it turns us into hustlers. The alternative is to realize that the best asks are actually offers. When we offer to help someone get to where they were going, we’re approaching the relationship with...
Marian's Blog
Raspberry Pi Wetterstation Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich entschieden, das Projekt jetzt mit einem Raspberry Pi weiterzuführen. Die Sensordaten werden wieder vom ILC-Board geliefert, das ich für den Schülerwettbewerb Intel Leibniz Challenge...
Anarchy Unfolds
One Year on Substack Writing the upside-down, plus Pride Myths & Recs
a year ago
Infinite Scroll
Podcast: What should we do about sports betting? ft. Isaac Rose Berman As a follow up to my article from a few weeks ago Should We Ban Gambling on Smartphones?, I’ve...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
As a follow up to my article from a few weeks ago Should We Ban Gambling on Smartphones?, I’ve invited Isaac Rose-Berman on the show to talk about gambling policy.
Seth's Blog
The obligation of “none of the above” As we continue to face difficult choices and work to make things better, it’s quite likely that the...
over a year ago
84
over a year ago
As we continue to face difficult choices and work to make things better, it’s quite likely that the alternatives being presented aren’t ideal or even appealing. Many organizations and communities are stuck because “none of the above” is the majority’s opinion, or perhaps the...
Seth's Blog
I fixed it for you Creativity is about hope and possibility. It gives us a chance to make things better. Plenty has...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Creativity is about hope and possibility. It gives us a chance to make things better. Plenty has been written about the sad iPad ad that Apple just apologized for. It wasn’t just out of character for the story Apple tells, it was a cheap hack, taking the nihilism and helplessness...
Seth's Blog
Launching GOODBIDS Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Over the next few days, I’m going to feature a new project we launched today. A small and mighty team has been working on this for a year. I want to share the highlights along with some of the critical design choices we made along the way Each year, charities in the US raise...
Open Culture
What It Takes to Pass “the Knowledge,” the “Insanely Hard” Exam to Become a London Taxicab Driver Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab...
11 months ago
64
11 months ago
Anyone who’s followed the late Michael Apted’s Up documentaries knows that becoming a London cab driver is no mean feat. Tony Walker, one of the series’ most memorable participants, was selected at the age of seven from an East End primary school, already distinguished as a...
Not Boring by Packy...
Base Power Company: Chapter 2 Violently Executing to Build America's Next Generation Power Company
2 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
30
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
Pavlonian coincidence There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the...
a year ago
22
a year ago
There are two kinds of coincidences. The first is the one that we often talk about. It’s the make-believe magic of two things occurring that we didn’t expect to occur. When you and your long-lost college roommate end up randomly sharing adjacent bowling lanes when you’re...
Haterade
Tiny Hot Dogs for the Modern Man Introducing: Smoke Sheaths
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
“But what if I’m wrong? If we’re going to come together and invest the time in conversation, in research or in analysis, we...
a year ago
48
a year ago
If we’re going to come together and invest the time in conversation, in research or in analysis, we should begin by understanding what would be required for you or I to change our minds. If you’re not willing to consider that you’re wrong, then, in the words of a Dan Dennett,...
Open Culture
The Invisible Horror of The Shining: How Music Makes Stanley Kubrick’s Iconic Film Even More... Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy...
3 days ago
4
3 days ago
Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy the work of Stanley Kubrick. But even his most steadfast non-appreciators have to hand it to him for The Shining, his 1980 Stephen King adaptation widely considered one of the...
Handprinted - Blog
Neocolor Pastels for Mono Screen Printing Monoprinting using an open screen is a wonderfully creative way of using your screen printing...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
Monoprinting using an open screen is a wonderfully creative way of using your screen printing equipment for speedy, painterly prints. Neocolor Pastels are a great material to use when mono screen printing - you can draw directly onto the mesh and print your drawing through the...
Rectangle
The Linear effect Is everything looking the same?
over a year ago
escape the algorithm
The New Turing Test Changing the AI conversation
a year ago
Not Boring by Packy...
Primer: From Software to Schools Watch now (47 mins) | To fix the school system, build schools
4 months ago
Blog - Mac Pierce
Decreasing the F.Q. - A talk on Facial Recognition and the Opt Out Cap Links to a talk I gave on the Opt-Out cap and the state of surveillance via facial recognition.
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Project resistance In Steven Pressfield’s classic The War of Art, he introduces the idea of Resistance. It’s the...
a year ago
33
a year ago
In Steven Pressfield’s classic The War of Art, he introduces the idea of Resistance. It’s the internal force that keeps us from doing our most important creative work. If an instinct, a habit or a feeling gets in the way of the work, it’s Pressfield’s Resistance. Things we would...
Seth's Blog
A treaty Successful treaties calm things down and let us get back to what’s really important. Sometimes, the...
over a year ago
86
over a year ago
Successful treaties calm things down and let us get back to what’s really important. Sometimes, the fight becomes the entire point. Not surprisingly, when we’re busy fighting a war in our head about a previous injustice or slight, we can effectively consummate a treaty without...
Seth's Blog
The prevailing conditions It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’re not going to change the direction of the wind. That...
10 months ago
66
10 months ago
It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’re not going to change the direction of the wind. That doesn’t mean you can’t get good at sailing, though. And yes, if we do try, we can change the conditions in our household, community or workplace. It might feel like wind, but it’s...
Seth's Blog
Consequences Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi....
a year ago
41
a year ago
Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi. One hundred years later, it’s more relevant and more urgent than ever. Wealth without work.Pleasure without conscience.Knowledge without character.Commerce without morality.Science...
escape the algorithm
I did retail theft at an Apple Store I hope Jane Appleseed is okay
a year ago
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....
2 months ago
10
2 months 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....
Seth's Blog
Two ways to defend the status quo Neither is true, helpful or generous. Both happen all the time. Call it out when you see it.
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Chasing cool The cool thing is always a little out of reach. And for most of us, once we get it, it’s not seen as...
a year ago
27
a year ago
The cool thing is always a little out of reach. And for most of us, once we get it, it’s not seen as cool any more. This is not an accident. One definition of cool are things that are just out of reach.
Anarchy Unfolds
Genshin Impact & the appeal of open-world games I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact lately.
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
“How do I get the most of out my people?” Alas, this is the wrong question for a leader or manager to ask. It’s more productive to wonder,...
a month ago
18
a month ago
Alas, this is the wrong question for a leader or manager to ask. It’s more productive to wonder, “how do we create the conditions for our people to get to where they’re heading?”
Haterade
Thoroughly Modern Mämmi Bake off your sparge water for this finicky Finnish dessert
over a year ago
Open Culture
Watch the 1896 Film The Pistol Duel, a Startling Re-Creation of the Last Days of Pistol Dueling in... One sometimes hears lamented the tendency of movies to depict Mexico — and in particular, its...
11 months ago
50
11 months ago
One sometimes hears lamented the tendency of movies to depict Mexico — and in particular, its capital Mexico City — as a threatening, rough-and-tumble place where human life has no value. Such concerns turn out to be nearly as old as cinema itself, having first been raised in...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Pia Bramley I’m an artist, illustrator and printmaker. Having left London after a decade of city life I now live...
a year ago
61
a year ago
I’m an artist, illustrator and printmaker. Having left London after a decade of city life I now live and work in The New Forest, squeezing in drawing and printing around caring for a three year old. How and where did you learn to print? I did my foundation at KIAD (formerly...
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...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #139 Dire Wolves, Base Power, ZBB Regulation, Zipline, Amca, Solano Shipyard
3 months ago
Anarchy Unfolds
Age of Empires but make it Solarpunk My favorite strategy game re-imagined
6 months ago
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...
Haterade
RECIPE: The Cucumber Shark Harvey Rosen's gift to the world
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Learning from the Amazon gift card snafu Millions of people got this email last night: It’s legitimate, but it’s a mistake. A mistake...
a year ago
61
a year ago
Millions of people got this email last night: It’s legitimate, but it’s a mistake. A mistake because: We can learn a lot about what not to do from this. First, if you make a mistake by email, fix it. Fix it by email AND fix it on your site. Let everyone who got the wrong […]
Open Culture
When the Grateful Dead Played at the Egyptian Pyramids, in the Shadow of the Sphinx (1978) In September of 1978, the Grateful Dead traveled to Egypt and played three shows at the Great...
11 months ago
99
11 months ago
In September of 1978, the Grateful Dead traveled to Egypt and played three shows at the Great Pyramid of Giza, with the Great Sphinx looking over their shoulders. It wasn’t the first time a rock band played in an ancient setting. Pink Floyd performed songs in the middle of the...
Open Culture
An Introduction to the Astonishing Book of Kells, the Iconic Illuminated Manuscript Whatever set of religious or cultural traditions you come from, you’ve probably seen a Celtic cross...
7 months ago
62
7 months ago
Whatever set of religious or cultural traditions you come from, you’ve probably seen a Celtic cross before. Unlike a conventional cross, it has a circular ring, or “nimbus,” where its arms and stem intersect. The sole addition of that element gives it a highly distinctive look,...
Not Boring by Packy...
Weekly Dose of Optimism #128 Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline,...
5 months ago
14
5 months ago
Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline, Contrary Tech Trends, Sacca on Ferriss
Seth's Blog
Noticed There’s a delay between the time something goes wrong and when we notice it. Sometimes, it can take...
5 months ago
50
5 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...
Seth's Blog
Out to get you It’s easy to believe that in some moments, the world is out to get you. This is unlikely. The world...
a year ago
37
a year ago
It’s easy to believe that in some moments, the world is out to get you. This is unlikely. The world hardly knows you exist. There is injustice and trauma and systems of caste. There are tiny pockets of humanity that hold a grudge. But most of the time, in most situations, what...
Prolost
What Does and Doesn’t Matter about Apple Shooting their October Event on iPhone 15 Pro Max A still from Apple’s “Behind the scenes: An Apple Event shot on iPhone” video Apple Shot Their...
a year ago
50
a year ago
A still from Apple’s “Behind the scenes: An Apple Event shot on iPhone” video Apple Shot Their “Scary Fast” October Event Video on iPhones And We Had Feelings You’re somewhere on the spectrum of occasionally shooting video on your iPhone to a professional-ish video maker with...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker - Angela Hall My name is Angela Hall, I’m an artist and silkscreen printer based in North Yorkshire, and I have...
a year ago
93
a year ago
My name is Angela Hall, I’m an artist and silkscreen printer based in North Yorkshire, and I have been making and selling my limited-edition prints for the last 5 years from my studio, specialised print events and regional galleries.   My creative journey started with a degree in...
Seth's Blog
“Be yourself” Really? Which self? The self you were when you were two years old, almost out of diapers? The self...
3 months ago
23
3 months ago
Really? Which self? The self you were when you were two years old, almost out of diapers? The self you were when you were screaming with the fans at the big game? The self you were after a long night? How about this: Become the self you’d be proud to be. Hang out with people […]
Seth's Blog
Sudare sette camicie Sweating through seven shirts… That was the definition of work when work was the same thing as...
a year ago
93
a year ago
Sweating through seven shirts… That was the definition of work when work was the same thing as physical labor. For many of us, the physical labor is no longer the way we add value. And it’s tempting to imagine that we simply have to show up for the coffee. But it’s still called...
Open Culture
How the Ancient Greeks & Romans Made Beautiful Purple Dye from Snail Glands Much has been written about the loss of color in the twenty-first century. Our environments offered...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Much has been written about the loss of color in the twenty-first century. Our environments offered practically every color known to man not so very long ago — and in certain eras, granted, it got to be a bit much. But now, everything seems to have retreated to a narrow palette...
Seth's Blog
The two-minute warning Once life gets busy, it’s sort of inevitable that we begin to sort the work to be done. And the most...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
Once life gets busy, it’s sort of inevitable that we begin to sort the work to be done. And the most natural sort is to focus on the urgent. After all, if that plate is about to break, it’s hard to watch it fall when you’ve decided to work on something less urgent instead. Which...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Angie Lewin I'm a printmaker working in linocut, wood engraving and silk screen. I also exhibit my watercolours...
a year ago
106
a year ago
I'm a printmaker working in linocut, wood engraving and silk screen. I also exhibit my watercolours and create collages of printed Japanese papers applied to objects collected on walking and sketching trips. In 2005, I set up St Jude's, along with my husband Simon, to produce...
Seth's Blog
The useful agreement Contrary to expectations, written contracts don’t have to be adversarial. In fact, the effective...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Contrary to expectations, written contracts don’t have to be adversarial. In fact, the effective ones rarely are. When you hand someone a release, a royalty agreement or even a partnership document, it pays to point out the gnarly parts, the controversial bits and the ones that...
Open Culture
Why Medieval Bologna Was Full of Tall Towers, and What Happened to Them Image by Toni Pecoraro, via Wikimedia Commons Go to practically any major city today, and you’ll...
a year ago
100
a year ago
Image by Toni Pecoraro, via Wikimedia Commons Go to practically any major city today, and you’ll notice that the buildings in certain areas are much taller than in others. That may sound trivially true, but what’s less obvious is that the height of those buildings tends to...
Open Culture
The Steampunk Clocks of 19th-Century Paris: Discover the Ingenious System That Revolutionized... A middle-class Parisian living around the turn of the twentieth century would have to budget for...
11 months ago
54
11 months ago
A middle-class Parisian living around the turn of the twentieth century would have to budget for services like not just water or gas, but also time. Though electric clocks had been demonstrated, they were still a high-tech rarity; installing one in the home would have been...
Seth's Blog
When the media is ready (Bongo part 2) Media isn’t a magazine or a website. It’s a system. We can learn to see the system and contribute to...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
Media isn’t a magazine or a website. It’s a system. We can learn to see the system and contribute to it with leverage. There are three elements to consider in a media system that’s worth a professional creator’s time: Systems are changed by technology. When desktop publishing...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Idiot Plots Plus! Gavin's podcast, morning routines, and a good chickpea post
3 months ago
Seth's Blog
What are you thinking about? A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making...
11 months ago
64
11 months ago
A philosopher can spend a month, a year or a career thinking about one knotty problem. Making assertions, testing theories, understanding how others are thinking about it as well. But this exercise shouldn’t be reserved for academics. What are you working on? When will you change...
Seth's Blog
Market insulation It’s possible that your day will be more enjoyable if you are insulated from the market. If you have...
a year ago
49
a year ago
It’s possible that your day will be more enjoyable if you are insulated from the market. If you have a boss who has a boss… If you don’t have to review the sales numbers for the products you created or edited… If you have raised a ton of venture investment… If you are embracing...
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
36
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...
Handprinted - Blog
Jigsaw Block Printing on Fabric Block printing onto fabric is such a fun way to create your own designs. Jigsaw printing allows you...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Block printing onto fabric is such a fun way to create your own designs. Jigsaw printing allows you to carve just one block to print a multi-coloured design. By cutting our carved block into jigsaw pieces we can ink them up separately and print onto the fabric, knowing they'll...
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
52
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...
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...
a month ago
15
a month 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...
Seth's Blog
Replacing bad systems with bad systems A metaphor involving parking meters. Over the years, parking meters in town have evolved into a...
over a year ago
88
over a year ago
A metaphor involving parking meters. Over the years, parking meters in town have evolved into a cumbersome, awkward system. Coins are heavy and you need to have them handy, meters need to be reinforced against theft and breakage, town employees have to empty the coins and...
Neocha – Culture &...
Unorthodox Means
over a year ago
Seth's Blog
Daydream fatigue Spend enough time inventing possible futures in your head and you won’t have any time to build the...
a week ago
9
a week ago
Spend enough time inventing possible futures in your head and you won’t have any time to build the future we will all share. Time to get to work.
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
88
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...
Anarchy Unfolds
The Weariness of Work Why I've been away; why I'm anti-work as well as pro-labor
a year ago
Open Culture
The Heavy-Metal Band Disturbed Covered Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” Ten Years Ago, and... “The Sound of Silence” Is the Most Metal Song of the Past Decade”: imagine that headline, and the...
2 months ago
17
2 months ago
“The Sound of Silence” Is the Most Metal Song of the Past Decade”: imagine that headline, and the contrarian culture piece practically writes itself. Not so long ago, Slate was notorious for publishing that kind of thing, but it seems they’ve now put that sensibility behind them...
Stat Significant
The Rise of Faith-Based Films: A Statistical Analysis The economics and origins of the faith-based film industry.
9 months ago
Seth's Blog
Who do you want to become? Emotional enrollment is at the heart of performance, learning and connection. A coach can quickly...
9 months ago
43
9 months ago
Emotional enrollment is at the heart of performance, learning and connection. A coach can quickly tell when someone is committed to changing their approach in order to change the outcome–it’s easy to tell this person apart from someone who simply wants what they’re already doing...
Open Culture
The Amazing Engineering of Roman Baths Few depictions of ancient Roman life neglect to reference all the time ancient Romans spent at the...
a year ago
94
a year ago
Few depictions of ancient Roman life neglect to reference all the time ancient Romans spent at the baths. One gets the impression that their civilization was obsessed with cleanliness, in contrast to most of the societies found around the world at the time, but that turns out...
Seth's Blog
When in doubt, look for the fear When someone acts in a surprising way, we can begin to understand by wondering what they might be...
a year ago
20
a year ago
When someone acts in a surprising way, we can begin to understand by wondering what they might be afraid of.
Open Culture
How an Ancient Roman Shipwreck Could Explain the Universe In a 1956 New Statesman piece, the British scientist-novelist C. P. Snow first sounded the alarm...
10 months ago
37
10 months ago
In a 1956 New Statesman piece, the British scientist-novelist C. P. Snow first sounded the alarm about the increasingly chasm-like divide between what he called the “scientific” and “traditional” cultures. We would today refer to them as the sciences and the humanities, while...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Fei Fei I’m Fei, a printmaker and designer working in Beijing. I make cards, prints, and run workshops in...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
I’m Fei, a printmaker and designer working in Beijing. I make cards, prints, and run workshops in the city.  I have a day job as a brand designer, and I use my spare time to grow my printmaking practice.  Describe your printmaking process. I start with simple sketches in my head...
Marian's Blog
LED Matrix Software I wrote two programs that run on my LED matrix. They have different approaches and different...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I wrote two programs that run on my LED matrix. They have different approaches and different aims. This post describes one of them.  The app offers a web interface where users can write simple programs that are then compiled and started instantly from the website. The concept is...
Marian's Blog
Uni-Timer Ich bin seit diesem Semester Student und in der Uni dauern Vorlesungen immer 90 Minuten, von...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Ich bin seit diesem Semester Student und in der Uni dauern Vorlesungen immer 90 Minuten, von “viertel nach” bis “viertel vor”. Da kam mir die Idee, dass man eine Uhr bräuchte, die nicht den Fortschritt der aktuellen Stunde, sondern den der aktuellen Vorlesung zeigt. Dazu habe ich...
Open Culture
George Orwell’s Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea: A Short Animation Several years back, Colin Marshall highlighted George Orwell’s essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” which...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Several years back, Colin Marshall highlighted George Orwell’s essay, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” which first ran in the Evening Standard on January 12, 1946. In that article, Orwell weighed in on a subject the English take seriously–how to make the perfect cup of tea. (According to...
Seth's Blog
At the speed of judgment Getting to the conference in Santa Fe isn’t difficult. Someone will drive/fly you there. The hard...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
Getting to the conference in Santa Fe isn’t difficult. Someone will drive/fly you there. The hard part is deciding to go. And yet, it might take 8 hours to arrive. If they invented teleportation and offered it for free, it would be very clear that where we went would simply...
escape the algorithm
Foreskin’s Comment What a Billie Eilish Youtube comment diarist can teach us about forging meaningful online rituals
a year ago
Seth's Blog
Culture, care and typography I’ve been fascinated by the way we set type since I did my first packaging forty years ago. It’s a...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
I’ve been fascinated by the way we set type since I did my first packaging forty years ago. It’s a combination of tech, art, systems, culture and most of all, deciding to put in the effort to get it right. [This is a long post, it would have been a podcast, but it doesn’t really...
escape the algorithm
Gift interfaces, an interview, and how you found me Some updates on things that have happened and that are coming in the escape the algorithm cinematic...
7 months ago
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Kathryn Green I am a textile artist and tutor, specialising in dye and print processes to create organic, layered...
a year ago
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a year ago
I am a textile artist and tutor, specialising in dye and print processes to create organic, layered and textural art textile pieces for exhibition, in addition to capsule collections of wearable art and interior accessories.  Having obtained a First-class degree in textiles, I...
Seth's Blog
To be well published Sooner or later, we benefit from being well-published. Publishing has nothing to do with printing....
a year ago
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a year ago
Sooner or later, we benefit from being well-published. Publishing has nothing to do with printing. It’s the act of taking risks to bring a new idea to people who want to embrace it. It’s the head of the lab who works behind the scenes to be sure the talented scientist gets a gig...
Seth's Blog
Finding a more useful umwelt Add up all the senses you use and the things you notice: that’s your umwelt. It’s pretty obvious...
a year ago
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a year ago
Add up all the senses you use and the things you notice: that’s your umwelt. It’s pretty obvious that your dog has a different one than you do. They see fewer colors and smell far more intelligently. Sea slugs see a much wider range of colors, and bats can sense vibrations. Among...
Seth's Blog
Pet quirks Peeves make lousy pets. They undermine us and put us on edge. But quirks? Little eccentricities we...
a year ago
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a year ago
Peeves make lousy pets. They undermine us and put us on edge. But quirks? Little eccentricities we see in the world that offer a cost-free smile. Habits or interactions that always make us a little lighter on our feet and open the door to better… They’re easy to find, not hard to...
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
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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
The leap In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there,...
a year ago
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a year ago
In action movies, there’s a lot of leaping. Brave shifts in which the hero gets from here to there, all at once. It’s easy to imagine that sudden leaps are how we make our impact. This is blog post #9000 (give or take). When did the leap happen? It wasn’t an external leap. The...
Seth's Blog
Commonplace technology Not all tech is new tech. The ballpoint pen was a revelation, and a bit controversial. Now, it’s...
a year ago
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a year ago
Not all tech is new tech. The ballpoint pen was a revelation, and a bit controversial. Now, it’s disposable and obvious. Different industries go through tech spurts. My desk is covered with items I use every day (a mouse, headphones, a solid-state drive, transparent tape, and...
Not Boring by Packy...
Hyperlegibility Trading Secrets for Attention
3 months ago
Infinite Scroll
Is a Progressive Joe Rogan Impossible? Why the online environment has broken sharply to the right
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
Hard to predict The outcome of our work can be easy or difficult to predict. It’s not hard to determine if a bridge...
2 weeks ago
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2 weeks ago
The outcome of our work can be easy or difficult to predict. It’s not hard to determine if a bridge is going to fall down or if code is going to compile. The scientific method and statistics do a great job of helping us foresee some dynamic events. On the other hand, it’s almost...
Open Culture
How to Enter a ‘Flow State’ on Command: Peak Performance Mind Hack Explained in 7 Minutes You can be forgiven for thinking the concept of “flow” was cooked up and popularized by yoga...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
You can be forgiven for thinking the concept of “flow” was cooked up and popularized by yoga teachers. That word gets a lot of play when one is moving from Downward-Facing Dog on through Warrior One and Two. Actually, flow — the state of  “effortless effort” — was coined by...
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
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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,...
Anarchy Unfolds
The rich don't have authority On the myth of power and money
5 months ago
Seth's Blog
The tactics trap You have a strategy. Perhaps you didn’t even choose it but you have one… and it’s not working. The...
4 months ago
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4 months ago
You have a strategy. Perhaps you didn’t even choose it but you have one… and it’s not working. The dominant question is, “what do I do now?” Which tactic do we use? How do we get the word out? How do we close this sale, solve the problem and succeed? Perhaps we should look to […]
Infinite Scroll
Worst Tweets 2024 - Preliminary Rounds Vote on which bad takes will make the 2024 bracket!
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
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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.”
Open Culture
“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the... There are some words out there that are brilliantly evocative and at the same time impossible to...
a year ago
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a year ago
There are some words out there that are brilliantly evocative and at the same time impossible to fully translate. Yiddish has the word shlimazl, which basically means a perpetually unlucky person. German has the word Backpfeifengesicht, which roughly means a face that is badly in...
Seth's Blog
An eroding sense of wonder We live in a science fiction universe. A $20 dose of penicillin was priceless a century ago. The...
3 months ago
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3 months ago
We live in a science fiction universe. A $20 dose of penicillin was priceless a century ago. The five cents (a nickel!) we spend to light our home might have been the sort of thing we needed to trade an hour of labor for a few generations ago. The ability to press a button and...
Neocha – Culture &...
Family First
a year ago
Open Culture
The World’s Oldest Cookbook: Discover 4,000-Year-Old Recipes from Ancient Babylon If asked about your favorite dish, you’d do well to name something exotic. Gone are the days when a...
21 hours ago
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21 hours ago
If asked about your favorite dish, you’d do well to name something exotic. Gone are the days when a taste for the likes of Italian, Mexican, or Chinese cuisine could qualify you as an adventurous eater. Even expeditions to the very edges of the menus at Peruvian, Ethiopian, or...
Seth's Blog
Informed consent (rarely is) Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice...
a year ago
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a year ago
Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice cream we prefer, or what career to choose. We’re good at knowing what we want. In practice, this works really well for certain kinds of decisions. But when we add the network effect,...
Open Culture
A Forgotten 16th-Century Manuscript Reveals the First Designs for Modern Rockets The Austrian military engineer Conrad Haas was a man ahead of his time — indeed, about 400 years...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
The Austrian military engineer Conrad Haas was a man ahead of his time — indeed, about 400 years ahead, considering that he was working on rockets aimed for outer space back in the mid-sixteenth century. Needless to say, he never actually managed to launch anything into the upper...
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
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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
Shields up Years and years ago, I helped the Weekly World News make a book. While their periodical was weekly,...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Years and years ago, I helped the Weekly World News make a book. While their periodical was weekly, it certainly wasn’t news. They were just four people in a small office in Florida. They gleefully made stuff up every week. They had a few filing cabinets of stock photos, and they...
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
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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
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
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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...
escape the algorithm
Folk search engines Strategies better than plain Google.
a year ago
Open Culture
A Visualization of the History of Technology: 1,889 Innovations Across Three Million Years “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So holds the third and most...
a week ago
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a week ago
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So holds the third and most famous of the “three laws” originally articulated by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Even when it was first published in the late nineteen-sixties, Clarke’s third law...
Seth's Blog
Ecosystems come and go Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers,...
a month ago
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a month ago
Your project doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the customers, competitors, marketplaces, systems and tech that make it all work. I used to make almanacs. Long, detailed, fact-checked reference books that might save a trip to the library....
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
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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
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
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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,...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: 2023 Round Up! What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put...
a year ago
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a year ago
What a fantastic array of makers we've had featured on our Meet the Maker blog this year. We've put together a round up for you with all of the wonderful advice our makers have given for creatives at any stage of their creative practice. Pop your feet up, grab yourself a nice...
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
10
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...
Seth's Blog
Cheating at golf Someone who cheats at a friendly game of golf when nothing much is at stake–how can you possibly...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
Someone who cheats at a friendly game of golf when nothing much is at stake–how can you possibly trust them with something important? And yet, organizations and individuals “cheat at golf” all the time. They put clever clauses in the fine print. Spam a media list. Conceal the...
Seth's Blog
Decoding the Knock Knock situation Novels, movies, even consulting, are based on a knock knock business model. Tom Cruise made a movie,...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
Novels, movies, even consulting, are based on a knock knock business model. Tom Cruise made a movie, and you need to buy a ticket to see it. Jane Collins is an engineering professional and you need to pay to get their insight about how to fix your bridge. This 300-page...
Seth's Blog
Avoiding technology Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric...
a year ago
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a year ago
Robert Caro never learned to type. He pecks out his books two fingers at a time on an electric typewriter. There are two reasons to avoid learning a proven new technology: You know what it can do and how it will change your life and you don’t want it. You don’t know what it can...
Seth's Blog
Hiding the ‘aha’ The most effective persuasion happens when we persuade ourselves. The purpose of the memo or the...
a year ago
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a year ago
The most effective persuasion happens when we persuade ourselves. The purpose of the memo or the table or the graph or the presentation is to create the conditions for someone to make up their own minds. Because it’s almost impossible to make up their mind for them. The aha is...
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....
a month ago
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a month 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...
Open Culture
Mark Twain & Helen Keller’s Special Friendship: He Treated Me Not as a Freak, But as a Person... Sometimes it can seem as though the more we think we know a historical figure, the less we actually...
11 months ago
70
11 months ago
Sometimes it can seem as though the more we think we know a historical figure, the less we actually do. Helen Keller? We’ve all seen (or think we’ve seen) some version of The Miracle Worker, right?—even if we haven’t actually read Keller’s autobiography. And Mark Twain? He can...
Seth's Blog
Self restaint vs systemic restraint It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the...
over a year ago
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over a year ago
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the restaurant to limit the number of trips that people take so that the restaurant can become sustainable. It’s possible to argue for systemic changes to cultural systems while also...
Open Culture
A New Analysis of Beethoven’s DNA Reveals That Lead Poisoning Could Have Caused His Deafness Despite the intense scrutiny paid to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven for a couple of...
a year ago
37
a year ago
Despite the intense scrutiny paid to the life and work of Ludwig van Beethoven for a couple of centuries now, the revered composer still has certain mysteries about him. Some of them he surely never intended to clarify, like the identity of “Immortal Beloved”; others he...
Seth's Blog
While standing on one foot Make it easy! they insist. One of the longest-running direct response ads of all time was for a...
a year ago
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a year ago
Make it easy! they insist. One of the longest-running direct response ads of all time was for a piano playing course. For more than forty years, people mailed in money for a simple, fast way to impress their friends by playing the piano. They sold a lot of manuals, but I’m...
Seth's Blog
Analysis = Facts + Interpretation If you fail to show us the facts, it’s difficult to accept your analysis. While it’s tempting to...
5 months ago
48
5 months ago
If you fail to show us the facts, it’s difficult to accept your analysis. While it’s tempting to simply share an interpretation of what’s happening, credibility and persuasion are based on showing your work.
Seth's Blog
Own it and label it This takes guts, and hustlers are afraid to do so. Thirty years ago, when the avalanche of email...
5 months ago
39
5 months ago
This takes guts, and hustlers are afraid to do so. Thirty years ago, when the avalanche of email spam was on the horizon, I proposed that any commercial email should have a $ in the subject line. A simple way for email programs to filter it out if you’re not looking for it....
Seth's Blog
Powerlessness Not a lack of power, but feeling as though we have none. Some people have been indoctrinated to...
2 months ago
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2 months ago
Not a lack of power, but feeling as though we have none. Some people have been indoctrinated to prefer a life with no agency, as it also brings no responsibility. At the other extreme, some folks have decided that they have more power than they actually do. Video games offer...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: MAGA's Civil War The MAGA Civil War and a recap of recaps
6 months ago
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
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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...
Open Culture
A 3D Model Reveals What the Parthenon and Its Interior Looked Like 2,500 Years Ago Standing atop the Acropolis in Athens as it has for nearly 2,500 years now, the Parthenon remains an...
a month ago
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a month ago
Standing atop the Acropolis in Athens as it has for nearly 2,500 years now, the Parthenon remains an impressive sight indeed. Not that those two and a half millennia have been kind to the place: one of the most famous ruins of the ancient world is still, after all, a ruin. But it...
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
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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...
Open Culture
The First Professional Footage of Pink Floyd Gets Captured in a 1967 Documentary (and the Band Also... British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with...
a year ago
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a year ago
British filmmaker and novelist Peter Whitehead has been credited with inventing the music video with his promo films for the Rolling Stones in the mid-60s. According to Ali Catterall and Simon Wells, authors of Your Face Here, a study of “British Cult Film since the Sixties,”...
Open Culture
Artificial Intelligence & Drones Uncover 303 New Nazca Lines in Peru If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
If you visit one tourist site in Peru, it will almost certainly be the ruined Incan city of Machu Picchu. If you visit another, it’ll probably be the Nazca Desert, home to many large-scale geoglyphs made by pre-Inca peoples between 500 BC and 500 AD. Many of these “Nazca lines”...
Open Culture
How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur... Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in...
a year ago
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a year ago
Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in 1863. Today, we might assume that the controversy surrounding the painting had to do with its containing a nude woman. But, in fact, it does not contain a nude woman — at least...
The Great Discontent...
Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor When Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor came up with the idea for Ear Hustle, the podcast they’ve hosted...
a year ago
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a year ago
When Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor came up with the idea for Ear Hustle, the podcast they’ve hosted together since 2017, Earlonne was serving a prison sentence of 31 years to life—the result of California’s three-strikes law. The two met at San Quentin State Prison where Nigel, a...