Seth's Blog
“Not your best ever”
In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top...
6 months ago
In order to have a best ever, hearing this is part of the deal. Each thing is not going to top everything that came before it. Progress is rarely smooth.
Seth's Blog
Can you draw it on a graph?
Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport...
5 months ago
Explain it with quadrants? Translate it into Spanish? It’s easy to memorize a few words that purport to explain something, but all they do is relabel it. If you truly understand something, you can use different modalities to help someone else understand it. The magic of a good...
Seth's Blog
Modern apologies
The AI driven voice mail system said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.” Of course, there is no...
3 months ago
The AI driven voice mail system said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.” Of course, there is no “I” and by most definitions of sorry, it’s not. But it made me feel better. The overworked and slightly bitter front desk person who was the frontline flotsam in a poorly designed...
Seth's Blog
Confused about good
How often do we assume that popular things are good, and that good things become popular? If your...
2 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 Isolated Vocals of Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush in “Don’t Give Up”: The Power of Perseverance
Just by chance, could you use a song about perseverance and overcoming adversity? Something to give...
a month ago
Just by chance, could you use a song about perseverance and overcoming adversity? Something to give you a little encouragement and reassurance? Then we submit to you “Don’t Give Up,” featuring the isolated vocals of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. When he released the song on his...
Open Culture
Destino: The Salvador Dalí — Disney Collaboration 57 Years in the Making
In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a...
a month ago
In 2003, Disney released a six minute animated short called Destino, finally bringing closure to a project that began 57 years earlier. The story of Destino goes way back to 1946 when two very different cultural icons, Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, decided to work together on a...
Seth's Blog
Inconvenient!
That’s great news. The thing you need, the road ahead, the element that will transform your...
a year ago
That’s great news. The thing you need, the road ahead, the element that will transform your project–it appears to be inconvenient. That’s terrific, because it means that most other people can’t be bothered. It’s valuable because the very inconvenience of it makes it scarce. The...
Seth's Blog
Long form AI
The new version of Claude can read a document of up to 400 pages in about three minutes. You can...
a year ago
The new version of Claude can read a document of up to 400 pages in about three minutes. You can then ask it for criticism, summaries or other insights. I wouldn’t use it on a piece of literature, but if you’re reading for work (aren’t we all), it will dramatically increase how...
Seth's Blog
(Without the bad parts)
That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and...
a year ago
That makes it easy. “I’m in favor of unfiltered online commentary (without the misogyny, racism and mob manipulation.)” “I’d like to run a marathon (without getting tired).” “I’m in favor of strict copyright law (except for the endless © trolls and with just the right amount of...
Seth's Blog
The lens or the problem?
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around...
a year ago
We often see problems through the lens that we’re used to using. The banker sees a solution around money, the activist might see an opportunity for social justice. The technologist figures that a computer and more data might help, and the bureaucrat is looking for a system to put...
The Great Discontent...
The Legacy of Corita Kent
Corita Kent was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. She worked in the...
over a year ago
Corita Kent was an artist with an innovative approach to design and education. She worked in the Immaculate Heart College Art Department, above, c. 1955. (Photo/Fred Swartz, courtesy of the Corita Art Center) “Sometimes you can take the whole of the world in, and sometimes you...
Seth's Blog
Hope and expectations
They’re not the same thing. Hope can fuel us. Hope can be refilled. Hope opens the door to...
a year ago
They’re not the same thing. Hope can fuel us. Hope can be refilled. Hope opens the door to possibility. Expectations, on the other hand, are a trap. They make us brittle and lead to disappointment. When we raise our hopes and lower our expectations, we establish a resilient way...
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...
5 months 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...
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
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
Twin Peaks Actually Explained: A 4‑Hour Video Essay Demystifies It All
I don’t know about you, but my YouTube algorithms can act like a nagging friend, suggesting a video...
2 months ago
I don’t know about you, but my YouTube algorithms can act like a nagging friend, suggesting a video for days until I finally give in. Such was the case with this video essay with the tantalizing title: “Twin Peaks ACTUALLY EXPLAINED (No, Really)”. First of all, before, during,...
Open Culture
James Joyce Picked Drunken Fights, Then Hid Behind Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway seemed to feud with most of the prominent male artists of his time, from Wallace...
6 months ago
Ernest Hemingway seemed to feud with most of the prominent male artists of his time, from Wallace Stevens and T.S. Eliot to F. Scott Fitzgerald. He had a “very strange relationship” with Orson Welles—the two came to blows at least once—and he reportedly slapped Max Eastman in the...
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Something Wicked This Way Comes
Theater Kids, BlueSky momentum, and Kai Cenat's big month
3 weeks ago
Theater Kids, BlueSky momentum, and Kai Cenat's big month
Infinite Scroll
Flat Earthers and Belief in Belief
What flat earthers can teach us about politics
2 days ago
What flat earthers can teach us about politics
Handprinted - Blog
Toning Cyanotypes
Did you know that Cyanotype prints don't always have to be blue? They can be toned and even bleached...
8 months ago
Did you know that Cyanotype prints don't always have to be blue? They can be toned and even bleached to alter their colour. The key is to use anything with a high tannin content. Tannins are commonly found in the bark of trees, leaves, buds, stems, fruits, seeds, roots, and plant...
Seth's Blog
Anti-smart
There’s a difference between intellectual and smart. A plumber is smart, they know how to do a...
a year ago
There’s a difference between intellectual and smart. A plumber is smart, they know how to do a skilled and effective job on the task at hand. Intellectualism isn’t about practical results, it’s a passion for exploring what others have said, though this approach is sometimes...
Seth's Blog
Belief is contagious
Placebos work and placebos spread. We’re wired to believe something, but the specifics of what we...
a year ago
Placebos work and placebos spread. We’re wired to believe something, but the specifics of what we believe often come from other people. When there were a limited number of channels, mainstream ideas were the focus of our conversations, because the mainstream was all that was...
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...
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...
Anarchy Unfolds
Met Gala meets Hunger Games
#Blockout and beyond
6 months ago
Seth's Blog
Heavy Lemon Tuna
It’s easy to smirk at the ridiculous images one can make in twenty seconds with AI. People used to...
a year ago
It’s easy to smirk at the ridiculous images one can make in twenty seconds with AI. People used to smirk at photographs in the 1800s. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” is no longer a useful thing to say. Truth is real, photos are not.
Seth's Blog
Explaining it to a kid
It can be difficult. Explaining atoms or molecules, or decision making, or what you do at your job…...
a year ago
It can be difficult. Explaining atoms or molecules, or decision making, or what you do at your job… The reason that it’s difficult is that in order to explain something, we need to really understand it first. Not simply be able to do the task or ace the test. But understand. And...
Seth's Blog
Full circle with myopia
In 1983, an old article from the Harvard Business Review changed my life. In 1960, Ted Levitt, a...
2 months ago
In 1983, an old article from the Harvard Business Review changed my life. In 1960, Ted Levitt, a professor at HBS, wrote the most popular article in the Review’s history. Called Marketing Myopia, it described a different way of thinking about change and marketing. I was a (very)...
Seth's Blog
Just looking
Lots of people go to the beach but very few get in the water. 3,000 students go to the football game...
a year ago
Lots of people go to the beach but very few get in the water. 3,000 students go to the football game to watch 20 of their peers play. And we go to a conference to meet people and connect, and then spend most of our time hoping someone else will see us and care enough […]
Open Culture
When Samuel Beckett Drove Young André the Giant to School
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort...
4 months ago
Are your idle moments spent inventing imaginary conversations between strange bedfellows? The sort of conversation that might transpire in a pickup truck belonging to Samuel Beckett, say, were the Irish playwright to chauffeur the child André Rene Roussimoff—aka pro wrestler...
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...
6 months 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...
Handprinted - Blog
The Endless Possibilities of a Square Block Repeat
Using a simple square block can create a myriad of possibilities of pattern.
We have used Speedy...
a year ago
Using a simple square block can create a myriad of possibilities of pattern.
We have used Speedy Carve and Versafine inks for this project.
Cut a square from the Speedy Carve using a scalpel.
Draw a quarter circle curve on the block using a pencil. Above the curve draw some...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Magic Wheelchair - a Frozen sled for Angelle
Working on a Frozen themed costume for Angelle.
over a year ago
Working on a Frozen themed costume for Angelle.
Seth's Blog
More is More
More hope. More health. More security. More innovation. More breakthroughs. More connection. More...
a year ago
More hope. More health. More security. More innovation. More breakthroughs. More connection. More creation. More joy. The climate movement doesn’t have to be about asking individuals to bear the burden of systemic problems. It’s not about living with less. It’s about demanding...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of points
Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your...
a month ago
Points aren’t just for games. Points are how we keep score and decide what to do next. Pick your scorekeeping wisely. Too much focus on the score can bend us or break us, pushing us to engage with too much focus and without regard for balance. And our attachment to obvious points...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Evelyn Polk
I'm a full time abstract artist who primarily uses a range of printmaking techniques to make art and...
a year ago
I'm a full time abstract artist who primarily uses a range of printmaking techniques to make art and sometimes I mix it up a bit by adding paint or collage to my prints. I teach printmaking classes from my studio at home in Suffolk.
Describe your printmaking process.
I love to...
Open Culture
eanuts Creator Charles Schulz Shares with a 10-Year-Old Kid the True Meaning of Good Citizenship
In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Linton asked Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, “What do you...
2 months ago
In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Linton asked Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, “What do you think makes a good citizen?” Schulz sent the youngster a short but pithy reply: Dear Joel: I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever...
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...
8 months 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,...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Duncan Tattersall
I’m an artist and maker from southern Scotland, designing and hand printing bespoke textiles for...
10 months ago
I’m an artist and maker from southern Scotland, designing and hand printing bespoke textiles for interiors. My work focuses on the relationship between pattern & place; all of my designs are inspired by a particular location and aim to interpret the story of their surroundings....
Seth's Blog
The third impossibility
The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their...
6 months ago
The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their waking hours consuming audio and video recordings of other people. The second was the internet. Five to ten hours a day interacting, in real time, with other people, many of them...
Open Culture
The Olympics in the 2020s Versus 1912: See Side-by-Side Comparisons of the Athletes’ Performance...
The Olympic Games have their origins in antiquity, but their modern revival has also been going on...
4 months ago
The Olympic Games have their origins in antiquity, but their modern revival has also been going on longer than any of us has been here. Even the fifth Summer Olympics, which took place in Stockholm in 1912, has passed out of living memory. But thanks to the technology of the...
Seth's Blog
She’s here!
Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone...
7 months ago
Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone notices she’s in the building, everyone can up their game. And some musicians wait eagerly for A&R person to be in the crowd. If they really kill it tonight, a record deal might...
Open Culture
Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa Now Appears on Japanese Banknotes
If you’ve lived or traveled in Japan, you know full well how much of daily life in that...
5 months ago
If you’ve lived or traveled in Japan, you know full well how much of daily life in that cash-intensive society involves the use of thousand-yen bills. Once considered the equivalent of the American ten-spot, the yen’s lately having fallen to its lowest value in decades means that...
Seth's Blog
The long-range forecast keeps shifting
Exactly. That’s why it’s a forecast, not an accurate account of what’s going to happen in the...
a year ago
Exactly. That’s why it’s a forecast, not an accurate account of what’s going to happen in the future. This seems axiomatic, but our desire for certainty keeps letting us down. The shifting of forecasts is evidence that they’re merely forecasts.
Open Culture
How to Potty Train Your Cat: A Handy Manual by Jazz Musician Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus, the innovative jazz musician, was known for having a bad temper. He once got so...
a month ago
Charles Mingus, the innovative jazz musician, was known for having a bad temper. He once got so irritated with a heckler that he ended up trashing his $20,000 bass. Another time, when a pianist didn’t get things right, Mingus reached right inside the piano and ripped the strings...
Seth's Blog
The other choices
The intentional, noticed choices are obvious. “Vanilla or chocolate?” But most of the choices we...
7 months ago
The intentional, noticed choices are obvious. “Vanilla or chocolate?” But most of the choices we live with are unseen. They’re expensive, challenging and invisible. When we plan an event with an outdoor component, we’re choosing to be anxious about the weather in the week leading...
Open Culture
Face to Face with Carl Jung: ‘Man Cannot Stand a Meaningless Life’ (1959)
Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was...
5 months ago
Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology and explorer of the collective unconscious, was born on July 26, 1875 in the village of Kesswil, in the Thurgau canton of Switzerland. Above, we present a fascinating 39-minute interview of Jung by John Freeman for the BBC program...
Open Culture
The Brilliant Engineering That Made Venice: How a City Was Built on Water
Many of us have put off a visit to Venice for fear of the hordes of tourists who roam its streets...
4 months ago
Many of us have put off a visit to Venice for fear of the hordes of tourists who roam its streets and boat down its canals day in and day out. To judge by the most visible of its economic activity, the once-mighty city-state now exists almost solely as an Instagramming...
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...
5 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...
Open Culture
Behold the Oldest Written Text in the World: The Kish Tablet, Circa 3500 BC
Image by José-Manuel Benito, via Wikimedia Commons Some refer to the written Chinese language as...
a month ago
Image by José-Manuel Benito, via Wikimedia Commons Some refer to the written Chinese language as ideographic: that is, structured according to a system in which each symbol represents a particular idea or concept, whether abstract or concrete. That’s true of certain Chinese...
Open Culture
What Is Religion Actually For?: Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury Weigh In
In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to...
7 months ago
In the nineteen-sixties, the music media encouraged the notion that a young rock-and-roll fan had to side with either the Beatles or their rivals, the Rolling Stones. On some level, it must have made sense, given the growing aesthetic divide between the music the two world-famous...
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...
6 months 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,...
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...
3 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
Promises and our best
There is a significant difference between, “I promise,” and “I’ll do my best.” Promises are...
a month 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.
Infinite Scroll
Infinite Scroll x GiveDirectly
Read to the end for an AI cokehead
2 weeks ago
Read to the end for an AI cokehead
Handprinted - Blog
Glossary of Printmaking Terminology
Scroll through the list below to find definitions and explanations of common printmaking...
a year ago
Scroll through the list below to find definitions and explanations of common printmaking terms:
Acid-free – refers to papers that are made with an alkaline pulp, usually with calcium carbonate added. Acids contribute to the deterioration of paper and therefore of prints.
Aisuki –...
Handprinted - Blog
In the Studio 2022
We have had the pleasure of hosting lots of new and exciting Fab Friday workshops and wonderful...
over a year ago
We have had the pleasure of hosting lots of new and exciting Fab Friday workshops and wonderful Guest Tutors in 2022, exploring a variety of printmaking techniques. Take a look at this selection of work produced by students throughout the year:
Life Drawing - Mono Screen...
Open Culture
Stanford Continuing Studies Offering an Online Course Exploring the Music of the Grateful Dead
Image via Wikimedia Commons A quick heads up: On October 3rd, Stanford Continuing Studies will kick...
3 months ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons A quick heads up: On October 3rd, Stanford Continuing Studies will kick off an 8‑week online course called Did It Matter? Does It Now? The Music and Culture of the Grateful Dead. Led by David Gans (author of Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual...
Open Culture
Google Launches a New Course Called “AI Essentials”: Learn How to Use Generative AI Tools to...
This week, Google announced the launch of Google AI Essentials, a new self-paced course designed to...
7 months ago
This week, Google announced the launch of Google AI Essentials, a new self-paced course designed to help people learn AI skills that can boost their productivity. Taught by Google’s AI experts, and assuming no prior knowledge of programming, the course ventures to show students...
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...
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...
Seth's Blog
The generosity of concealment
Human beings never reveal all of our emotions. We don’t simply blurt out the first thing that pops...
a year ago
Human beings never reveal all of our emotions. We don’t simply blurt out the first thing that pops into our head in a meeting, or insult someone upon meeting them. We’re able to give people the benefit of the doubt (which requires doubt before we can offer the benefit) and to...
Open Culture
Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zappa on His Cable TV Show, and Later Recalls, “I Hated Him More Than Ever”...
Had Andy Warhol lived to see the internet–especially social networking–he would have loved it,...
5 months ago
Had Andy Warhol lived to see the internet–especially social networking–he would have loved it, though it may not have loved him. Though Warhol did see the very beginnings of the PC revolution, and made computer art near the end of his life on a Commodore Amiga 1000, he was mostly...
Seth's Blog
Is it possible to care at scale?
After 25 years, I stopped using a certain credit card for business. It was easily millions of...
a year ago
After 25 years, I stopped using a certain credit card for business. It was easily millions of dollars worth of transactions over that period. Did anyone at the company notice? Did anyone care? I still remember losing a client in 1987. Small organizations pay attention and care...
Seth's Blog
Kinds of power
There’s the James Bond villian sort of power, based on division, dominance and destruction. This is...
a month ago
There’s the James Bond villian sort of power, based on division, dominance and destruction. This is the short-term power of bullies, trauma and mobs. And then there’s a more resilient form of power. This is power based on connection, discussion and metrics. A power based in...
Open Culture
Umberto Eco’s List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism
Creative Commons image by Rob Bogaerts, via the National Archives in Holland One of the key...
a month ago
Creative Commons image by Rob Bogaerts, via the National Archives in Holland One of the key questions facing both journalists and loyal oppositions these days is how do we stay honest as euphemisms and trivializations take over the discourse? Can we use words like “fascism,” for...
Open Culture
Sci-Fi Author J.G. Ballard Predicts the Rise of Social Media (1977)
Say you were a fan of Steven Spielberg’s moving coming-of-age drama Empire of the Sun, set in a...
6 months ago
Say you were a fan of Steven Spielberg’s moving coming-of-age drama Empire of the Sun, set in a Japanese internment camp during World War II and starring a young Christian Bale. Say you read the autobiographical novel on which that film is based, written by one J.G. Ballard. Say...
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...
2 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...
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...
4 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...
Handprinted - Blog
Designing a Repeat Block by Hand
Visualising what your design will look like when printed can be the hardest thing about designing a...
a year ago
Visualising what your design will look like when printed can be the hardest thing about designing a repeat pattern. We have a good method for sketching out your initial design to see how it will work when it has been printed.
For this project, we will be using a mounted lino...
Seth's Blog
The useful agreement
Contrary to expectations, written contracts don’t have to be adversarial. In fact, the effective...
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...
Seth's Blog
“Let’s face it”
In 1959, three years after Columbia Records spent a fortune rolling out stereo recording, a senior...
12 months ago
In 1959, three years after Columbia Records spent a fortune rolling out stereo recording, a senior A&R executive named Ward Botsman told the New York Times, “Let’s face it, the craze for stereo has not been as intense as expected,” writing off the format that would end up...
Open Culture
Inside the Beautiful Home Frank Lloyd Wright Designed for His Son (1952)
Being Frank Lloyd Wright’s son surely came with its downsides. But one of the upsides — assuming you...
8 months ago
Being Frank Lloyd Wright’s son surely came with its downsides. But one of the upsides — assuming you could stay in the mercurial master’s good graces — was the possibility of his designing a house for you. Such was the fortune of his fourth child David Samuel Wright, a Phoenix...
Open Culture
Why You Do Your Best Thinking In The Shower: Creativity & the “Incubation Period”
Image via Wikimedia Commons “The great Tao fades away.” So begins one translation of the Tao Te...
5 months ago
Image via Wikimedia Commons “The great Tao fades away.” So begins one translation of the Tao Te Ching’s 18th Chapter. The sentence captures the frustration that comes with a lost epiphany. Whether it’s a profound realization when you just wake up, or moment of clarity in the...
Seth's Blog
“Ready” vs. “Done”
Ready means that time is up, spec is met and the user can engage. Done might mean that you believe...
5 months ago
Ready means that time is up, spec is met and the user can engage. Done might mean that you believe it’s perfect and cannot be improved. We’ll settle for ready. In fact, meeting spec means we’re not settling. It’s just what you promised.
Blog - Mac Pierce
Bits and bobs, some of the small projects I've been working on.
Rounding up a few smaller projects I’ve been working on here and there.
over a year ago
Rounding up a few smaller projects I’ve been working on here and there.
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
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...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Maplands
Maplands is a long-form generative art project I released on fxhash on 5th
Jan 2022. It sold out...
over a year ago
Maplands is a long-form generative art project I released on fxhash on 5th
Jan 2022. It sold out 256 pieces in exactly 2 minutes.
The Great Discontent...
Brian Eno
From pioneering ambient music and ever-evolving light paintings to innovating production styles,...
a year ago
From pioneering ambient music and ever-evolving light paintings to innovating production styles, installations, and strategies of surrender, Brian Eno’s work occupies a rare space in this world with an imprint as deep as it is wide. For the Roxy Music founder, art is the kind of...
Open Culture
The Radical Artistic & Philosophical World of William Blake: A Short Introduction
Over the years, we’ve featured the work of William Blake fairly often here on Open Culture: his own...
6 months ago
Over the years, we’ve featured the work of William Blake fairly often here on Open Culture: his own illuminated books; his illustrations for everything from the Divine Comedy to Mary Wollstonecraft’s Original Stories from Real Life to the Book of Job; pairs of Doc Martens made...
Seth's Blog
“How can I help?”
If you have a series of tasks to do, it’s easier to ignore this question and simply get back to...
3 months ago
If you have a series of tasks to do, it’s easier to ignore this question and simply get back to work. Doing the tasks is more efficient than coordinating the help. But if your work is a project, a bigger mission that involves making a change happen, it’s much more productive to...
Open Culture
How Upside-Down Models Revolutionized Architecture, Making Possible St. Paul’s Cathedral, Sagrada...
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems...
a month ago
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems to be doing, as its ongoing construction realizes ever more fully a host of forms that look and feel not quite of this earth. It makes a kind of sense to learn that, in designing...
Seth's Blog
Twelve days until the first worldwide strategy meetup
There are now 280 cities being organized. You can find the list and all the details by clicking...
2 months ago
There are now 280 cities being organized. You can find the list and all the details by clicking here. It’s free, and it works better when you become a part of it. Find the others. Connect, inspire and lead. It’s a great excuse to organize some friends and colleagues and have a...
Seth's Blog
Small groups, well organized
And those are the two challenges of anyone seeking to make an impact. First, we get distracted by...
a year ago
And those are the two challenges of anyone seeking to make an impact. First, we get distracted by the inclination to make the group as big as we can imagine. After all, the change is essential, the idea is a good one. It’s for everyone. Except that’s a trap. Because a group...
Handprinted - Blog
Testing your Copper Sulphate Solution
When you’ve mixed a fresh batch of copper sulphate mordant, or if you have an old batch that you...
a year ago
When you’ve mixed a fresh batch of copper sulphate mordant, or if you have an old batch that you haven’t used for a few months, it’s good practice to test the strength of your solution.
By creating some test strips for both line and tones, you’ll create yourself a reference point...
Seth's Blog
Dreams and roadblocks
The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to...
a year ago
The first step is to imagine what the people you serve want and care about it. The second is to figure out why they don’t have it yet. If you can help people get to where they seek to go, when they’re ready to get there, the stuff called marketing gets significantly easier.
Seth's Blog
The defensive arrogance of TL;DR
Every since there has been high school, there has been the instinct to read the Cliffs Notes. The...
7 months ago
Every since there has been high school, there has been the instinct to read the Cliffs Notes. The internet took this idea, added a gratuitous semicolon and perfected Too Long; Didn’t Read. This is the mistakenly proud assertion that we are far too busy and too important to read...
Seth's Blog
Throwing shade or throwing light?
One takes a little more effort than the other. While throwing shade might be more fun, it eventually...
a year ago
One takes a little more effort than the other. While throwing shade might be more fun, it eventually runs out of energy. It’s designed to end conversations, not start them, to intimidate, not encourage. Turning on lights helps everyone.
Anarchy Unfolds
Straight Talk About Being Gay
Transcending orientation helps straight men and boys too
4 months ago
Transcending orientation helps straight men and boys too
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...
12 months 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...
Blog - Mac Pierce
The making of A Scanner Darkly
How and why I made A Scanner Darkly, an art piece that reads off text using
spotlights in the...
over a year ago
How and why I made A Scanner Darkly, an art piece that reads off text using
spotlights in the shape of security cameras.
Seth's Blog
The question book
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that...
9 months ago
In the old days, companies had a suggestion box. It was immortalized in cartoons, but the idea that an employee could anonymously submit a suggestion to make things better is a first step in engagement. Some companies took this much further and paid employees for suggestions that...
Seth's Blog
Useful assumptions for teachers
Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment....
a year ago
Not simply in the classroom, but anywhere we hope to inform, inspire or educate: Assume enrollment. Either someone is committed to learning or they’re not. While many situations place people into a spot where they are compelled to show up (exhibit A: learning arithmetic in grade...
Marian's Blog
No Man’s Starfield
This is a shader I made that renders a flight through a starfield. It’s meant to look like the...
over a year ago
This is a shader I made that renders a flight through a starfield. It’s meant to look like the galactic map that you can see in No Man’s Sky. Here is a link to the project on shadertoy:
No Man’s Starfield
The cool thing about this is that it runs inside a shader. A shader is a...
Seth's Blog
Real and apparent risk
Roller coasters are one of the safest ways to travel (they end up where they begin, but that’s a...
a year ago
Roller coasters are one of the safest ways to travel (they end up where they begin, but that’s a different story). People pay to ride on them because they feel risky, even if they’re not. Air travel is really safe, and the airlines work overtime to reduce the perception of risk...
Open Culture
The Longest Drivable Distance in the World: Discover the Ultimate Road Trip
No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road...
3 months ago
No matter what country we live in, we’ve all fantasized about taking our own great American road trip, considering a variety of the infinitely many possible routes. The most obvious would be driving between Los Angeles and New York, a distance of 2,800 miles that would take a bit...
Open Culture
Watch a Japanese Artisan Hand-Craft a Cello in 6 Months
Cellists unwilling to settle for any but the finest instrument must, sooner or later, make a...
5 months ago
Cellists unwilling to settle for any but the finest instrument must, sooner or later, make a pilgrimage to Cremona — or rather, to the Cremonas. One is, of course, the city in Lombardy that was home to numerous pioneering master luthiers, up to and including Antonio Stradivari....
Open Culture
Watch The Idea, the First Animated Film to Deal with Big, Philosophical Ideas (1932)
A vague sense of disquiet settled over Europe in the period between World War I and World War II. As...
3 months ago
A vague sense of disquiet settled over Europe in the period between World War I and World War II. As the slow burn of militant ultranationalism mingled with jingoist populism, authoritarian leaders and fascist factions found mounting support among a citizenry hungry for...
Open Culture
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Explained in One of the Earliest Science Films Ever Made (1923)
Albert Einstein developed his theory of special relativity in 1905, and then mentally mapped out his...
6 months ago
Albert Einstein developed his theory of special relativity in 1905, and then mentally mapped out his theory of general relativity between 1907 and 1915. For years to come, the rest of the world would try to catch up with Einstein, trying to understand the gist, let alone the full...
On the Arts
Plastic palm trees and inflatable pineapples
An Interview with Max Ryynänen on the Tropical Kitsch
a year ago
An Interview with Max Ryynänen on the Tropical Kitsch
Seth's Blog
Noodling for professionals
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the...
7 months ago
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the recording studio. They created one of the bestselling and most important jazz albums of all time in less than a week. Of course, they’d been exploring for months. In clubs, in front of...
Seth's Blog
Better than Google
I haven’t done a Google search in months. Perplexity is more powerful, more pleasant and more...
6 months ago
I haven’t done a Google search in months. Perplexity is more powerful, more pleasant and more effective. Instead of being corrupted by invasive ads, surveillance and sneaky dark patterns, it presents you with a simple, footnoted explanation of exactly what you’re looking for....
On the Arts
Link List: 20 Articles + Websites About the Arts
A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and...
a year ago
A wide-ranging collection of links on ballet, ugly architecture, Soviet Control rooms, Hokusai, and nifty CSS tools.
Open Culture
RIP Paul Auster: Hear the Master of the Postmodern Page-Turner Discuss How He Became a Writer
In the Louisiana Channel interview clip from 2017 above, the late Paul Auster tells the story of how...
7 months ago
In the Louisiana Channel interview clip from 2017 above, the late Paul Auster tells the story of how he became a writer. Its first episode had appeared more than twenty years earlier, in a New Yorker piece titled “Why Write?”: “I was eight years old. At that moment in my life,...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Keith A. Pettit
I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex....
a month ago
I am Keith A. Pettit an artist, printmaker and sculptor, born and bred in a small corner of Sussex. I left school and started work with a signwriter. I thought I was learning a trade for life - alas I was unaware of the digital revolution that was sweeping all before it.
I've...
Open Culture
Eno: The New “Generative Documentary” on Brian Eno That’s Never the Same Movie Twice
Brian Eno once wrote that “it’s possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say,...
5 months ago
Brian Eno once wrote that “it’s possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say, ‘You mean you used to listen to to exactly the same thing over and over again?’ ” That speculation comes from an essay on what he calls “generative music,” which is automatically...
Seth's Blog
Shields down
Michael Lopp helped coin an important term. When you’re a skilled craftsperson with high market...
9 months ago
Michael Lopp helped coin an important term. When you’re a skilled craftsperson with high market value, there may be recruiters knocking on your door. An employee who has ‘shields up’ doesn’t even bother to answer the door. When shields are down, you’re open to at least hearing...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Coding my Handwriting
Coding my handwriting in Javascript - how I did it and what I’m doing with
it.
7 months ago
Coding my handwriting in Javascript - how I did it and what I’m doing with
it.
Handprinted - Blog
Blind Embossing with Lino
Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds...
8 months ago
Blind embossing is a beautiful way in which to add light and shadow to your prints. Embossing adds subtle texture and interest. Emboss prints ‘blind’ (without ink) or combine with inked lino for a complex final print.
Prepare the design. These white pencils are brilliant for...
Seth's Blog
There are no stupid mistakes
There are mistakes. These are moments when reality teaches us something. And there’s stupid. This is...
a year ago
There are mistakes. These are moments when reality teaches us something. And there’s stupid. This is what happens when we refuse to learn from our mistakes. “Don’t be stupid” is a fine mantra. It’s particularly apt when talking about cultural forces, political agendas and our...
Seth's Blog
Optimized or maximized?
Engineers can optimize a bridge. There are some bridge designs that satisfy aesthetic, financial,...
10 months ago
Engineers can optimize a bridge. There are some bridge designs that satisfy aesthetic, financial, durability, safety and efficiency needs better than others. The work of optimization is finding the best set of tradeoffs. Maximization, on the other hand, seeks the solution that...
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...
11 months 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...
Seth's Blog
Redefining a profession
Pharmacists used to mix chemicals by hand to create prescriptions. Opticians used to grind lenses...
3 months ago
Pharmacists used to mix chemicals by hand to create prescriptions. Opticians used to grind lenses from scratch. Lawyers used to start with an empty page. Graphic designers needed to know how to draw. All of these jobs are still important. None of them are the same as they were...
Seth's Blog
All customers are the same
[and all customers are different.] Customers are why you’re here. They pay the bills and they are...
10 months ago
[and all customers are different.] Customers are why you’re here. They pay the bills and they are the primary driver of your growth. But each adds a different amount of value to your organization and the journey you’re on. The customer who spends 100x as much as the average...
Handprinted - Blog
Monotype with Natural Materials
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut...
a month ago
Like monoprint, a monotype is a print that is one of a kind but does not use a matrix like a cut block or plate. For this project we're using this simple technique to produce beautifully delicate prints using natural materials and found objects. You can also combine this with...
Open Culture
Thousands of Pablo Picasso’s Works Now Available in a New Digital Archive
If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Pablo Picasso, you might start at the Museo Picasso...
5 months ago
If you want to immerse yourself in the world of Pablo Picasso, you might start at the Museo Picasso Málaga, located in the artist’s Spanish birthplace. But to understand how his work developed throughout his life, you’ll have to get out of Spain — which is just what Picasso did...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Jessie de Salis
I am Jessie de Salis. I run a screen printing textile business with my cousin, Alice. We print...
4 months ago
I am Jessie de Salis. I run a screen printing textile business with my cousin, Alice. We print colourful patterned fabrics from a Somerset barn, a space we share with the sparrows and house-martins.
What inspires you?
I love bold and bright design. I always seem to come back to...
Seth's Blog
The hierarchy of insight
It looks like this: Which do we measure the most, spend the most obtaining and argue about most...
3 months ago
It looks like this: Which do we measure the most, spend the most obtaining and argue about most often? We might have it backwards. HT Russ Ackoff.
Seth's Blog
Get/Want/Have To
Get to, want to and have to are an endless braid. How much of our time do we spend on each? Have to...
a year ago
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
The problem with shock design
If attention is what you seek and attention is what you measure, it’s likely you’ll create drama....
2 weeks ago
If attention is what you seek and attention is what you measure, it’s likely you’ll create drama. And drama is inherently short-lived. The managing director of Jaguar said, “We’ve certainly gathered an awful lot of attention over the last few weeks.” Choosing the word “awful” was...
Open Culture
An Architect Breaks Down the 5 Most Common Styles of College Campus
Every now and again on social media, the observation circulates that Americans look back so fondly...
4 months ago
Every now and again on social media, the observation circulates that Americans look back so fondly on their college years because never again do they get to live in a well-designed walkable community. The organization of college campuses does much to shape that experience, but so...
Open Culture
Behold a Creative Animation of the Bayeux Tapestry
In previous centuries, unless you were a member of the nobility, a wealthy religious order, or a...
3 months ago
In previous centuries, unless you were a member of the nobility, a wealthy religious order, or a merchant guild, your chances of spending any significant amount of time with a Medieval tapestry were slim. Though “much production was relatively coarse, intended for decorative...
Seth's Blog
On building a cathedral
If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks...
9 months ago
If you’re in need of a gathering place, a dry, functional, centrally located facility for your folks to meet, a cathedral is probably way more than you need. It’s far more expensive to build and maintain and not optimal in delivering what’s required. But what if this building...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Readymade Thermal Obfuscation - A few quick tests with a consumer product.
Using the Ikea FREKVENS Raincoat to hide from thermal imaging.
over a year ago
Using the Ikea FREKVENS Raincoat to hide from thermal imaging.
Stat Significant
Unpacking Vinyl's Remarkable Revival: A Statistical Analysis
The fall and rise of vinyl and record stores.
3 months ago
The fall and rise of vinyl and record stores.
Handprinted - Blog
Drypoint with Aluminium Plates
Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plate with a...
a year ago
Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plate with a pointed tool. These lines create a burr that holds ink, meaning that the print reveals the drawing.
Drypoint is an easy technique to get to grips with and is a great method if you...
Open Culture
Hear Edgar Allan Poe Stories Read by Iggy Pop, Jeff Buckley, Christopher Walken, Marianne Faithful &...
In 1849, a little over 175 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was found dead in a Baltimore gutter under...
6 months ago
In 1849, a little over 175 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was found dead in a Baltimore gutter under mysterious circumstances very likely related to violent election fraud. It was an ignominious end to a life marked by hardship, alcoholism, and loss. After struggling for years as the...
Seth's Blog
Leverage is brittle
Debt is a financial miracle. If you buy a property for 20% down, with the bank financing the rest,...
a year ago
Debt is a financial miracle. If you buy a property for 20% down, with the bank financing the rest, and it goes up in value by just 10%, your profit is 50%. (I’ll wait while you do the math.) If you have a factory and can buy a machine that increases productivity, the money you...
Prolost
Slugline 2
From the Slugline Blog:
Slugline 2 is a new app that replaces the old Slugline for Mac. It has a...
over a year ago
From the Slugline Blog:
Slugline 2 is a new app that replaces the old Slugline for Mac. It has a slick new UI, which includes a lovely dark mode. Big new features include: a drag-and-drop outline, an awesome new timeline, color-coded notes, Final Draft import/export, and Live...
Seth's Blog
The pitfall of Big Game thinking
In the US, today is a major holiday. The Superb Owl, with nachos, commercials and beer. People who...
10 months ago
In the US, today is a major holiday. The Superb Owl, with nachos, commercials and beer. People who don’t even watch football watch this game, and it’s one of the largest audiences each year on TV. For a certain kind of mass marketer, a Super Bowl ad has been the gold standard for...
Seth's Blog
The 77% threshold
When the gas car was first introduced, it couldn’t compete with horses. After all, we’d had...
a year ago
When the gas car was first introduced, it couldn’t compete with horses. After all, we’d had thousands of years to optimize our systems around horseback, and this new technology was still nascent. Roads were rare, gas stations were scarce and the cars themselves were unreliable....
Open Culture
How a Bach Canon Works. Brilliant.
Brilliant. This moving manuscript depicts a single musical sequence played front to back and then...
6 months ago
Brilliant. This moving manuscript depicts a single musical sequence played front to back and then back to front. Give the video a little time to unfold and enjoy.
Seth's Blog
The fame/trust inversion
A generation ago, the Generals ruled. General Motors, General Foods, General Mills, General...
4 days ago
A generation ago, the Generals ruled. General Motors, General Foods, General Mills, General Dynamics… they were big, and they had a lot to lose. As a result, people trusted them to show up and keep their promises–it just wasn’t worth letting a few people down at the risk of their...
Seth's Blog
No thank you
Failing to acknowledge a favor or a courtesy is a triple mistake, and it’s becoming more common....
a year ago
Failing to acknowledge a favor or a courtesy is a triple mistake, and it’s becoming more common. ChatGPT is now promoting the idea that it can write a thank you note for you, and a text is a lot easier than a handwritten note, and yet, the level of ‘thank you’ seems to be...
Open Culture
The Night When Luciano Pavarotti & James Brown Sang “It’s a Man’s World” Together (2002)
Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown are remembered as larger-than-life performers with an almost...
2 months ago
Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown are remembered as larger-than-life performers with an almost mythical-seeming presence and distinctiveness. But it wasn’t so very long ago that both of them were active — and even active onstage together. In the video above, the King of the High...
Seth's Blog
Confusion and certainty
When facing a complex problem, it’s easy to become confused. Lately, it’s become socially acceptable...
a year ago
When facing a complex problem, it’s easy to become confused. Lately, it’s become socially acceptable to express your confusion with certainty. Untrained in the field, make a pronouncement that makes it clear that you have not just an understanding of what’s going on, but also...
Seth's Blog
For customers vs to customers
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for...
a year ago
In the life of every enterprise, the moment arises when a choice has to be made: Are you here for your customers, to give them what they seek, or are you trying to do something to your customers, to squeeze out extra income? This doesn’t mean that the only path is to keep...
Seth's Blog
Other people’s problems
It’s surprisingly easy to be generous and find solutions to our friend’s problems. Much easier than...
8 months ago
It’s surprisingly easy to be generous and find solutions to our friend’s problems. Much easier than it is to do it for ourselves. Why? There are two useful reasons, I think. FIRST, because we’re unaware of all the real and imaginary boundaries our friends have set up. If it were...
Marian's Blog
Quadcopter Lightpainting
Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung...
over a year ago
Die Fotos wurden mit einem beleuchteten Quadrocopter, einem Stativ und 15 Sekunden Belichtung aufgenommen.
Bei diesen Fotos stimmte die Einstellung noch nicht, sodass sie zu dunkel sind:
...
Blog - Amy Goodchild
Generating The Alphabet
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser...
9 months ago
My current generative artwork-in-progress includes text, but I don’t want to use a font. In browser based art work, using a “web safe” font could produce inconsistent results, while including a font file would mean a large file size. Additionally, I don’t want a visual element of...
Seth's Blog
Trouble in the grey zone
In many creative industries, there’s a similar pattern. When the stakes are very low, most creators...
a year ago
In many creative industries, there’s a similar pattern. When the stakes are very low, most creators produce things that are fairly banal and ordinary. Part of that is the law of large numbers, but it’s mostly our personal cultural resistance to leaning too far into weird stuff....
Open Culture
How the Influential Time-Travel Movie La Jetée Was Made (Almost) Entirely out of Still Photographs
In a future where humanity has been driven underground by an apocalyptic event, a prisoner is...
a month ago
In a future where humanity has been driven underground by an apocalyptic event, a prisoner is haunted by the childhood memory of seeing a man gunned down at an airport. A group of scientists make him their time-traveling guinea pig, hoping that he’ll be able to find a way to...
Open Culture
The Page That Changed Comics Forever: Discover the Innovative 1950s Comic Book That Almost Went...
If you grew up reading American comic books during the second half of the twentieth century, you’ll...
5 months ago
If you grew up reading American comic books during the second half of the twentieth century, you’ll be familiar with the seal of the Comics Code Authority. I remember seeing it stamped onto the upper-right corner of issues of titles from The Amazing Spider-Man to reprints of Carl...
Seth's Blog
The absence of proof
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and...
a year ago
Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and build community. Our personal taste and our preferences belong to us as well, helping us believe in ourselves. For millennia, belief thrived in most parts of our lives. We didn’t...
The Last...
True Detective's Detective
taking part in a particular pleasure
[Pastabagel and I have emailed about the show. Some excerpts...
over a year ago
taking part in a particular pleasure
[Pastabagel and I have emailed about the show. Some excerpts of his]:
In Episode 3, the preacher says to Cohle, "Compassion is ethics, detective" when he departs the trailer leaving the reformed pedophile Burt in distress. Cohle replies...
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...
7 months 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...
escape the algorithm
The perfect pecan pie will never exi—
Cutting a slice of longing
3 weeks ago
Cutting a slice of longing
Open Culture
Watch the Earliest-Known Charles Dickens Film: The Death of Poor Joe
A little over a decade ago, a curator at the British Film Institute (BFI) discovered the oldest...
6 months ago
A little over a decade ago, a curator at the British Film Institute (BFI) discovered the oldest surviving film featuring a Charles Dickens character, “The Death of Poor Joe.” The silent film, directed by George Albert Smith in 1900, brings to life Dickens’ character Jo, the...
Seth's Blog
The ghost in the machine
“The computer wants you to click this button.” “It thinks you asked for something else.” “He’s mad...
a year ago
“The computer wants you to click this button.” “It thinks you asked for something else.” “He’s mad at you.” Thousands of generations ago, we evolved our way into a magnificent hack. It turns out that we can more safely navigate the world by imagining that other people have a...
Seth's Blog
The swag is here
To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and...
a year ago
To celebrate the new book, here are some limited edition swag options to benefit good causes and independent craftspeople. You can find them all at seths.store. I went to Brooklyn and worked with Dan at the Arm to create a set of five handmade letterpress posters. They’re 12...
Seth's Blog
Change your shoes
Like all good metaphors, it might be practical too. Your ‘shoes’ are the point of greatest leverage....
a week ago
Like all good metaphors, it might be practical too. Your ‘shoes’ are the point of greatest leverage. The spot where you have traction and engage with the world most directly. For a freelancer, it might be the way you engage with customers, or your software tools. It might be the...
Seth's Blog
Pique-a-boo
Marketers seek to make an impact, and that takes interest. Three ways to spell the key word: Peak...
a year ago
Marketers seek to make an impact, and that takes interest. Three ways to spell the key word: Peak interest can’t get any higher. It never happens at launch. It’s the result of cultural change and an idea moving through the population. Peek interest happens when there’s scarcity...
Open Culture
Meet Madame Inès Decourcelle, One of the Very First Female Taxi Drivers in Paris (Circa 1908)
If you can read this, you almost certainly know the French word for a professional automobile...
5 months ago
If you can read this, you almost certainly know the French word for a professional automobile driver. That’s because we use the same word in English: chauffeur. French nouns, unlike English ones, come in masculine and feminine varieties, and that -eur ending unmistakably...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Jenny McCabe
I am printmaker based up north in Lancaster. I currently work mainly with intaglio printmaking...
a year ago
I am printmaker based up north in Lancaster. I currently work mainly with intaglio printmaking methods, preferring metal plate etchings and card Collagraph constructed plates. I have been making printed items for many years including printed textiles and writing books about...
escape the algorithm
A complete guide to pretending you saw the total solar eclipse
I cannot relate to you
8 months ago
Seth's Blog
It just barely works
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers...
2 months ago
This is the story of every new software innovation, and in fact, just about everything engineers have ever created. The first Wright Bros. plane just barely flew. The first version of VisiCalc was just barely useful. The earliest bridges were shaky, unreliable and made of vines....
Prolost
Introducing Prolost Beta
Prolost Beta is a new subscription offering on the Prolost Store. It's an occasional email from me...
over a year ago
Prolost Beta is a new subscription offering on the Prolost Store. It's an occasional email from me containing a download or a link to something cool I'm working on, that's not quite ready to become a product yet. Or maybe ever. This will most often be Lightroom presets or...
Seth's Blog
Make or buy?
If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to...
10 months ago
If you’re a writer, it probably doesn’t pay to chop down trees and make your own paper, or even to set up a little machine shop to make your own pens. That’s pretty obvious. Should the smoothie shop make its own almond milk? It’s pretty clear that Starbucks should have a team of...
Seth's Blog
“I can’t go for that”
Culture has stability. “The way things are around here.” When we are pushed too far from our norms,...
a month ago
Culture has stability. “The way things are around here.” When we are pushed too far from our norms, life gets stressful. Some of the people in the systems that used to keep things stable have discovered that they can make a profit or gain an edge by embracing extremism instead....
Seth's Blog
Which sort of sinecure?
Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That...
a year ago
Sooner or later, we find a place to hide. A place of security or sustenance. A place of safety. That sort of foundation can give us peace of mind and open the door to possibility. But, it’s possible that we can turn it into a trap as well. A situation so perfectly created that...
The Last...
Funeral
do you have a better system?
The funeral is attended by 30 people. It's a military...
over a year ago
do you have a better system?
The funeral is attended by 30 people. It's a military funeral because he was in Korea, and in the front chairs are his wife and two grown children, and they are quietly crying.
When it ends, people disperse hesitatingly, after all, they...
Open Culture
Watch Philosophy Lectures That Became a Hit During COVID by Professor Michael Sugrue (RIP): From...
If we ask which philosophy professor has made the greatest impact in this decade, there’s a solid...
6 months ago
If we ask which philosophy professor has made the greatest impact in this decade, there’s a solid case to be made for the late Michael Sugrue. Yet in the nearly four-decade-long career that followed his studies at the University of Chicago under Allan Bloom (author of The Closing...
Open Culture
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...
6 months 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...
Handprinted - Blog
Prepping your Plate for Etching
For a successful etch, there is a little bit of care and attention you need to give to your metal...
a year ago
For a successful etch, there is a little bit of care and attention you need to give to your metal plate first. There are surface impurities and grease pockets within the metal that will need to be removed before coating your plate with grounds.
This blog is part of a series...
On the Arts
Modern Culture is Too Escapist, Part 1: Isolated vs. Integrated Arts
Too much creative energy is focused on escaping the world, not on enhancing it.
a year ago
Too much creative energy is focused on escaping the world, not on enhancing it.
Seth's Blog
Closed/open
I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a...
a year ago
I’m told that the hardest part of being a teaching golf pro isn’t helping adult golfers develop a good swing. It’s getting them to stop using a bad one. Our position feels so fragile, we hold on very tightly. Competence, status and connection are fleeting yet hard-won. We can...
Seth's Blog
Working with problems
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a...
a year ago
They’re everywhere we look. Here are a few thoughts on the ones that won’t go away: First, is it a problem or a situation? Problems, by definition, have solutions. You might not like the cost of the solution, the trade-offs it leads to, or the time and effort it takes, but...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Jenny Stringer
I am Jenny Stringer, and I have been block printing fabrics (and sometimes papers) for the last...
4 months ago
I am Jenny Stringer, and I have been block printing fabrics (and sometimes papers) for the last thirty years; as and when possible.
How did you start your creative career?
I was an archaeological illustrator after a brief museum career, and worked with a team of...
Stat Significant
The Business of the Olympics: Rising Revenues, Diminishing Cultural Reach. A Statistical Analysis
How does the Olympics remain relevant (and make money) in a world full of digital distractions?
5 months ago
How does the Olympics remain relevant (and make money) in a world full of digital distractions?
Seth's Blog
Customer math for a new business
How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much do you make from every interaction with that...
7 months ago
How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much do you make from every interaction with that customer? How long does the customer stick around? How many new customers will existing customers bring you over time?
Seth's Blog
If “no” is not an option…
Then neither is “yes.” Enrollment requires choice. PS one of my all-time favorite encore episodes of...
a year ago
Then neither is “yes.” Enrollment requires choice. PS one of my all-time favorite encore episodes of Akimbo is out this week: How to get into a famous college.
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
… is to make things and then have other people look at those things and be
like “woah, cool”
escape the algorithm
Is Substack exaggerating its network effects?
The data tells the story writers want to hear... but is it true?
10 months ago
The data tells the story writers want to hear... but is it true?
Seth's Blog
Getting AI to do your work
That’s the first step, certainly. If you don’t, your boss will. The second step is to take the time...
3 months ago
That’s the first step, certainly. If you don’t, your boss will. The second step is to take the time you’ve freed up and do work that the AI can’t do.
Open Culture
An Oscar-Winning Animation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” Painted on 29,000 Frames...
Ernest Hemingway’s romantic adventure of man and marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, has perhaps spent...
4 months ago
Ernest Hemingway’s romantic adventure of man and marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, has perhaps spent more time on high school freshman English reading lists than any other work of fiction, which might lead one to think of the novel as young adult fiction. But beyond the book’s...
Open Culture
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...
7 months 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...
The Great Discontent...
Sofía Gallisá Muriente
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed...
over a year ago
Emergence Issue: TGD’s fifth issue features a dynamic group of 15 creators who are deeply committed to addressing systematic challenges in their communities through creativity and emerging ideologies. Buy Now Can you share a little bit about where and how you grew up and what...
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
Die Wetterdaten für die Wetterstation werden von einem Board gesammelt, das ich für einen Schülerwettbewerb (ILC) bekommen und zusammengesetzt habe. Auf dem Board rechnet ein ATxmega128A3U. Temperatur, Luftfeuchte, Luftdruck, Helligkeit, Regenmenge und Windgeschwindigkeit werden...
Seth's Blog
Lost on purpose
…of course, if you’re lost on purpose, you’re not lost. Lost is only possible if you are fixed on...
a year ago
…of course, if you’re lost on purpose, you’re not lost. Lost is only possible if you are fixed on getting somewhere specific.
Seth's Blog
Early next week…
It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so...
2 months ago
It’s going to get busy around here. I wanted to share some upcoming events (online and in person) so you can plan ahead… there are five more for the end of the week, but here we go: Linda Rottenberg is joining me on LinkedIn on Monday. She’s built an extraordinary organization...
Seth's Blog
The tooth fairy
Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were...
4 months ago
Make a list of things you used to believe. Fervently, certainly, completely. Things that you were sure of, but now, with the passage of time and the benefit of experience, you know to be incorrect or incomplete. Of course, it’s not just mythical creatures beloved by children....
Open Culture
How 2001: A Space Odyssey Became “the Hardest Film Kubrick Ever Made”
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been praised in all manner of terms since it came out...
3 months ago
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey has been praised in all manner of terms since it came out more than half a century ago. An early advertising campaign, tapping into the enthusiasm of the contemporary counterculture, called it “the ultimate trip”; in the equivalently trendy...
Seth's Blog
Patience
It’s worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.
a year ago
It’s worth the most when it’s the most difficult to find.
Seth's Blog
But what if it’s voluntary?
For more than 130 years, we’ve celebrated Labor Day in the US and Canada. And May Day has been...
a year ago
For more than 130 years, we’ve celebrated Labor Day in the US and Canada. And May Day has been around about as long. Around here, it’s become mostly a seasonal marker, but it was founded to devote just a day to something that deserves much more… to commemorate and celebrate the...
Seth's Blog
The spark
No matter how big your backpack is, you can’t carry a bonfire with you when you go on a camping...
a year ago
No matter how big your backpack is, you can’t carry a bonfire with you when you go on a camping trip. A match is sufficient. Conversations are like that. Conversations are the tools that change our culture. Someone who cares talking with and teaching and learning from someone who...
The Great Discontent...
Taekyeom Lee
Taekyeom Lee is a graphic designer with an artist’s sensibility. As a researcher, educator, and...
a year ago
Taekyeom Lee is a graphic designer with an artist’s sensibility. As a researcher, educator, and maker — born and raised in South Korea, now living and teaching in Madison, Wisconsin he works in the space where tactility and technology meet, combining ancient materials and...
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
A few thoughts on a few art events that happened around Boston Feb. 22nd.
Seth's Blog
Beyond CRM
Many marketers spend time with their CRM systems. Expensive cloud-based tools that automate Customer...
7 months ago
Many marketers spend time with their CRM systems. Expensive cloud-based tools that automate Customer Relationship Management. Maybe customers don’t want to be managed. They probably don’t. It might be more useful to think of our most important work as customer relationship...
Open Culture
Buckminster Fuller Tells the World “Everything He Knows” in a 42-Hour Lecture Series (1975)
History seems to have settled Buckminster Fuller’s reputation as a man ahead of his time. He...
5 months ago
History seems to have settled Buckminster Fuller’s reputation as a man ahead of his time. He inspires short, witty popular videos like YouTuber Joe Scott’s “The Man Who Saw The Future,” and the ongoing legacy of the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI), who note that “Fuller’s...
Open Culture
J. G. Ballard Demystifies Surrealist Paintings by Dalí, Magritte, de Chirico & More
Before his signature works like The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash, and High-Rise, J. G. Ballard...
4 months ago
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...
Seth's Blog
Raising the bar
That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the...
a year ago
That’s not the same as raising the average. With the advent of the high jump, the idiom raising the bar became well understood: If you can’t jump over the bar that the current leader cleared, you don’t win. But most of the innovations that change our culture don’t actually...
Seth's Blog
The clamp and the mallet
While building a project, I found that a key part was stuck. I tapped it with a mallet, then harder,...
a year ago
While building a project, I found that a key part was stuck. I tapped it with a mallet, then harder, and eventually whacked at it. No luck. Then I got smart and put three clamps around the part, gently turning each one, increasing the pressure, until it simply popped out....
Open Culture
How Man Ray Reinvented Himself & Created One of the Most Iconic Works of Surrealist Photography
It would surprise none of us to encounter a young artist looking to cast off his past and make his...
2 months ago
It would surprise none of us to encounter a young artist looking to cast off his past and make his mark on the culture in a place like Williamsburg. But in the case of Man Ray, Williamsburg was his past. One must remember that the Brooklyn of today bears little resemblance to the...
Seth's Blog
The near future (and summer reads)
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can...
6 months ago
Near-future science fiction is a fine way to consider our now. Without the reality of today, we can think hard about the tomorrow we’re about to live in. Summer reads are supposed to be a bit lighter. Technological change is making our near future a bit harder to dance with, and...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Lisa Stubbs
Hi, I'm a printmaker and illustrator living in the Holme Valley in Yorkshire, with a little print...
8 months ago
Hi, I'm a printmaker and illustrator living in the Holme Valley in Yorkshire, with a little print studio in the neighbouring Colne valley.
Describe your printmaking process.
Playful and experimental! I love being curious during my process, combining different processes together...
Seth's Blog
Invite: Behind-the-scenes webinar for the new book
In two weeks, I’ll be hosting a live webinar about my new book, answering questions and connecting...
a year ago
In two weeks, I’ll be hosting a live webinar about my new book, answering questions and connecting people to get serious in discussing the new way of work. The details are here. I hope you can make it. It’s possible that I’ve now written more bestselling business titles than any...
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
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
Is it a skill?
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care...
a year ago
If so, it might be worth learning. If so, it might pay to let someone who has learned it take care of it. Coding is a skill. But it’s not clear that the person who knows how to code should be doing your design. Teaching is a skill. But simply because someone is good at […]
Open Culture
The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors...
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from...
a month ago
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.” Featuring 825 colors, each associated with different types of mushrooms, the interactive atlas lets you appreciate the broad spectrum of colors latent in the...
Seth's Blog
Goals and expectations
[a note to a frustrated friend, just starting out on a long career] There are three reasons that our...
a year ago
[a note to a frustrated friend, just starting out on a long career] There are three reasons that our goals might not be achieved. In order of palatability, they are: Perhaps the goals are too lofty, too based on chance, unlikely for anyone to achieve, surrounded by barriers that...
Seth's Blog
Our homunculus is showing
The little person at the control panel, the one who sees what the retina produces, the one who...
a year ago
The little person at the control panel, the one who sees what the retina produces, the one who decides, the one who speaks up… (This is the dualist solution to the free will problem–yes, I have a physical body, they say, but I also have a little human inside of me that gets to...
Open Culture
Mythology Expert Reviews Depictions of Greek & Roman Myths in Popular Movies and TV Shows
It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most...
a month ago
It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most of us no longer believe in their literal existence, but some of us have faith in their box-office potential. This two-part video series from Vanity Fair examines a variety of movies...
Open Culture
The Evolution of Cinema: Watch Nearly 140 Years of Film History Unfold in 80 Minutes
The video above from YouTuber Alex Day includes clips from about 500 movies, and you’ve almost...
a month ago
The video above from YouTuber Alex Day includes clips from about 500 movies, and you’ve almost certainly seen more than a few of them. Battleship Potemkin, Dumbo, Rear Window, Dr. No, The Godfather, E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Top Gun, Braveheart, Gladiator, Inception: we’re not...
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
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...
Seth's Blog
The answer to every question
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If,...
a year ago
If the thing of the moment is the answer to every single question, you might be in a bubble. If, regardless of the problem, the answer is crypto, homeopathy, or the internet, or perhaps GPT, essential oils or decarbonization, it’s possible we’re taking an easy way out. A new...
Seth's Blog
The MVP and fear
The minimum viable product is a powerful way to find out if your solution is going to find a market....
a year ago
The minimum viable product is a powerful way to find out if your solution is going to find a market. Bean-to-bar chocolate in the US didn’t happen because someone raised millions of dollars, built a factory and got shelf space at the A&P. It happened because John Scharffenberger...
Open Culture
How Las Vegas’ Sphere Actually Works: A Looks Inside the New $2.3 Billion Arena
If the United States of America is the Roman empire of our time, surely it must have an equivalent...
6 months ago
If the United States of America is the Roman empire of our time, surely it must have an equivalent of the Colosseum. A year ago, you could’ve heard a wide variety of speculations as to what structure that could possibly be. Today, many of us would simply respond with “the...
Seth's Blog
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
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
I was wrong about sun tea
The story is a good one: put some tea bags in a mason jar filled with fresh, cold water. Put it in...
7 months ago
The story is a good one: put some tea bags in a mason jar filled with fresh, cold water. Put it in the sun. Four hours later, smooth and delicious tea is waiting for you. The photons from the sun go through the clear glass and the water, strike the leaves and transfer radiant...
Open Culture
The Story of Lee Miller: From the Cover of Vogue to Hitler’s Bathtub
In late-twenties Manhattan, a nineteen-year-old woman named Elizabeth “Lee” Miller stepped off the...
5 months ago
In late-twenties Manhattan, a nineteen-year-old woman named Elizabeth “Lee” Miller stepped off the curb and into the path of a car. She was pulled back to safety by none other than the magnate Condé Nast, founder of the eponymous publishing company. Not long thereafter, Miller,...
Open Culture
Sex and Alcohol in Medieval Times: A Look into the Pleasures of the Middle Ages
Playing video games, road-tripping across America, binge-listening to podcasts, chatting with...
5 months ago
Playing video games, road-tripping across America, binge-listening to podcasts, chatting with artificial intelligence: these are a few of our modern pleasures not just unknown to, but unimaginable by, humanity in the Middle Ages. Yet medieval people were, after all, people, and...
Seth's Blog
The positive auction
In 2023, I developed a new idea that transforms an old way of doing commerce. In traditional...
9 months ago
In 2023, I developed a new idea that transforms an old way of doing commerce. In traditional auctions, there are rounds of bidding and the high bidder pays to get the prize. The last bid is the amount paid, and no one else is charged anything. This is an interesting ‘game’ in...
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...
7 months 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...
Seth's Blog
Fooled
Now it’s a business model. People are regularly fooled by crypto scams, NFT hype, opioid felons,...
a year ago
Now it’s a business model. People are regularly fooled by crypto scams, NFT hype, opioid felons, algorithmic spam at scale, health claims, illogical political arguments, fundraising pitches, overnight shortcuts on the road to riches or happiness and MLM hustle. Your account has...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet the Maker: Chris Long
My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music...
over a year ago
My name is Chris and I am an artist, printmaker, composer and teacher. I studied fine art and music at the University of Liverpool, a Masters in musical composition at Newcastle University and I completed my PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. I have recently returned to...
Marian's Blog
Raspberry Pi Wetterstation
Um die Daten, die meine Arduino-Wetterstation liefert, verfügbarer zu machen, habe ich mich...
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...
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...
3 months ago
Grab a cup of coffee, put on your thinking cap, and start working through this video from Minute Physics, which explains why guitars, violins and other instruments can be tuned to a tee. But when it comes to pianos, it’s an entirely different story, a mathematical impossibility....
Open Culture
Get Unlimited Access to Courses & Certificates: Coursera Is Offering 40% (or $159) Off of Coursera...
A heads up on a deal: Between today and June 23, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its...
6 months ago
A heads up on a deal: Between today and June 23, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $239.40) gives you access to 7,000+ courses for one all-inclusive...
Open Culture
Richard Feynman Creates a Simple Method for Telling Science From Pseudoscience (1966)
Photo by Tamiko Thiel via Wikimedia Commons How can we know whether a claim someone makes is...
3 months ago
Photo by Tamiko Thiel via Wikimedia Commons How can we know whether a claim someone makes is scientific or not? The question is of the utmost consequence, as we are surrounded on all sides by claims that sound credible, that use the language of science—and often do so in attempts...
Seth's Blog
The obligations of the Town Hall
A few hundred years ago, small towns in New England embraced the idea of the town hall. Citizens (at...
7 months ago
A few hundred years ago, small towns in New England embraced the idea of the town hall. Citizens (at the time, just the white men) came together and worked through the town’s agenda. Each person could speak, each person could vote, it was direct and sometimes effective. Part of...
Seth's Blog
“What’s the catch?”
It’s an important question. Lots of opportunities come with one, and going in with your eyes open...
8 months ago
It’s an important question. Lots of opportunities come with one, and going in with your eyes open helps avoid problems later. Two challenges: Sometimes, a really good opportunity doesn’t actually have a catch. And spending a lot of time looking for one keeps us from the work we...
Seth's Blog
Chores
They’re essential. The house begins to stink if we don’t take out the garbage. But at work, while...
a year ago
They’re essential. The house begins to stink if we don’t take out the garbage. But at work, while they might be essential, they may not be important. At least, not important enough for us to spend a lot of focus on. Chores are: The bills have to get paid. But they might not have...
Seth's Blog
“I didn’t get in”
There are two ways to process this: The selection committee saw me, understood me, and then decided...
11 months ago
There are two ways to process this: The selection committee saw me, understood me, and then decided to reject me. or The selection committee didn’t get what I had to offer. I wasn’t rejected, my application was. It’s not that I didn’t get in, it’s that they didn’t engage with the...
Seth's Blog
The sportscar quadrants
They apply to jobs, relationships, art projects and everything in between: The top right is the rare...
a year ago
They apply to jobs, relationships, art projects and everything in between: The top right is the rare one–a car that goes fast but doesn’t feel like it’s on the edge. The hot rod is a car that is actually pretty safe, precisely because it doesn’t feel that way. You don’t have to...
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...
4 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
Thoughts on audiobooks
I’m listening more than reading these days, and I find that a good audiobook can make a real impact...
2 months ago
I’m listening more than reading these days, and I find that a good audiobook can make a real impact on the way I absorb and learn from a book. It’s a once in a century sort of shift in this medium. My new book is now available in audio. It’s not on Audible, at least […]
Seth's Blog
Avoid unnecessary amplifiers
This is extremely unique vs This is unique I’m very upset vs I’m upset and I love you a ton vs I...
a year ago
This is extremely unique vs This is unique I’m very upset vs I’m upset and I love you a ton vs I love you Sometimes, more words aren’t better.
Open Culture
“The Virtues of Coffee” Explained in 1690 Ad: The Cure for Lethargy, Scurvy, Dropsy, Gout & More
According to many historians, the English Enlightenment may never have happened were it not for...
7 months ago
According to many historians, the English Enlightenment may never have happened were it not for coffeehouses, the public sphere where poets, critics, philosophers, legal minds, and other intellectual gadflies regularly met to chatter about the pressing concerns of the day. And...
Open Culture
Jimi Hendrix Arrives in London in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clapton Away:...
Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues...
4 months ago
Jimi Hendrix arrived on the London scene like a ton of bricks in 1966, smashing every British blues guitarist to pieces the instant they saw him play. As vocalist Terry Reid tells it, when Hendrix played his first showcase at the Bag O’Nails, arranged by Animals’ bassist Chas...
Open Culture
The Night Frank Zappa Jammed With Pink Floyd … and Captain Beefheart Too (Belgium, 1969)
Recently an older musician acquaintance told me he never “got into ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and all...
3 months ago
Recently an older musician acquaintance told me he never “got into ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ and all that,” referring to the “first major space jam” of Pink Floyd’s career and the subsequent explosion of space rock bands. I found myself a little taken aback. Though I was born too...
Seth's Blog
Convenience and scams
The scam era is upon us. Aided by AI, borderless currency and the internet of things, there are more...
a year ago
The scam era is upon us. Aided by AI, borderless currency and the internet of things, there are more people than ever before making a living hustling to steal, impersonate, defraud and otherwise violate our trust. When the world was inconvenient, this was difficult. The banker...
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...
5 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
George Orwell’s Political Views, Explained in His Own Words
Among modern-day liberals and conservatives alike, George Orwell enjoys practically sainted status....
7 months ago
Among modern-day liberals and conservatives alike, George Orwell enjoys practically sainted status. And indeed, throughout his body of work, including but certainly not limited to his oft-assigned novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, one can find numerous implicitly or...
Anarchy Unfolds
April '24 Myths & Recs
Sexual orientation, Cowboy Carter, mental health recovery, and more
7 months ago
Sexual orientation, Cowboy Carter, mental health recovery, and more
Seth's Blog
The unaware snoop
Here’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen somewhere: A GPT that reads every email that anyone in...
a year ago
Here’s a breakthrough that’s about to happen somewhere: A GPT that reads every email that anyone in your organization has ever sent and makes it easy to ask it questions about what the entire organization knows. A person could probably not find the time, bandwidth or privacy...
Seth's Blog
Regressing to the mean all by yourself
“The mean” is the average. Another word for “mediocre.” When an organization gets big enough, by...
9 months ago
“The mean” is the average. Another word for “mediocre.” When an organization gets big enough, by definition, it’s the average. When you have enough customers, they represent the population as a whole. If you find yourself seeking to serve the largest possible number of people,...
Seth's Blog
Promo creep
Hustle harder. Run more ads. Spam people. Interrupt. Make the logo bigger. Post again. Post again....
a year ago
Hustle harder. Run more ads. Spam people. Interrupt. Make the logo bigger. Post again. Post again. Add more blurbs. Push the press release to irrelevant people. Do one more ad. Use AI to create faux intimacy. Get the word out. Burn trust. Get more attention. In the last forty...
Seth's Blog
ChatGPT is dumber than it looks
That’s not true for a screwdriver. Or a table saw or even a spatula. These are useful tools, but...
8 months ago
That’s not true for a screwdriver. Or a table saw or even a spatula. These are useful tools, but they don’t pretend to be well-informed or wise. They’re dumb, and they look dumb too. That’s one reason that tools are effective. We use them to leverage our effort, but we don’t...
Stat Significant
The Rise of Nicole Kidman, Pop Culture Folk Hero: A Statistical Analysis
Charting Nicole Kidman's recent career renaissance and rejection of industry norms.
a month ago
Charting Nicole Kidman's recent career renaissance and rejection of industry norms.
Seth's Blog
The Coney Island problem
Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so...
6 months ago
Disney theme parks created more than 20 billion dollars in revenue last year. Coney Island, not so much. Coney Island is dozens of small honky tonk vendors and attractions, an ecosystem, not a corporation. Independent local stores got hammered by the more organized stores in the...
Open Culture
How Well Does Medieval Armor Actually Stand Up to Medieval Arrows?: A Historical Re-Creation Lets...
The popular image of the medieval suit of armor looks formidable enough that any of us could be...
6 months ago
The popular image of the medieval suit of armor looks formidable enough that any of us could be forgiven for assuming that, with its steel-plated protection, we’d emerge from even the most harrowing battle without a scratch. Yet if we really found ourselves transported to, say,...
Seth's Blog
Getting better at bucket management
If you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. Pour a...
a year ago
If you throw a bucket of water on a small campfire, you’ll succeed in putting it out. Pour a bucketful of sake into one of those little glasses and you’ll waste most of it and ruin the table setting. And try to use a bucket to refill a dried-out lake and not much will happen. […]
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Ariana Martin
Hi, I’m Ariana - a pattern designer and printmaker from leafy Sheffield. I create joyful patterns...
11 months 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...
Seth's Blog
Unstable equilibrium
We’re testing a brand new way to host a charity auction, and I’m hoping you can check it out and...
a year ago
We’re testing a brand new way to host a charity auction, and I’m hoping you can check it out and even bid to support BuildOn. In this post, I want to take a moment to explain the attraction and risk of unstable equilibrium, and there’s also a fun contest at the end… If you drop...
Seth's Blog
Consequences
Frederick Lewis Donaldson created a list of seven social sins that was soon popularized by Gandhi....
11 months 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...
Seth's Blog
Freedom of attitude
There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating...
a year ago
There are two franchised pack-and-ship shops about equidistant from my home. One has a 4.5 rating and is reliably busy. The other has an astonishingly low 1.5 out of 5 rating. The physical plant is virtually identical, and the marketing and promo are the same. The only difference...
Seth's Blog
Game design and strategy (Bongo part 3)
What’s it for? Making something fun is a good place to start if you’re building a casual word game...
a month ago
What’s it for? Making something fun is a good place to start if you’re building a casual word game like Bongo. But it’s not enough. Lots of things are fun, for a while, but that doesn’t meant that they’re worth the investment of time and money it takes to build them. From the...
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
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...
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...
a month 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...
Seth's Blog
Manipulation, indoctrination and addiction
They’re often related. It’s not unusual for someone to have more experience or knowledge than we do....
7 months ago
They’re often related. It’s not unusual for someone to have more experience or knowledge than we do. If they use that knowledge to their benefit, not ours, they might be manipulating us. If we knew what they knew, we wouldn’t have gone along. This is the difference between a...
Seth's Blog
The shifting status of more data
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell....
a year ago
How do we know if we’re doing a good job? In some fields, it’s always been pretty easy to tell. Either the building falls down or it doesn’t. Either the car starts after you charge the battery or it’s still dead. We can ask easy questions about how long it took or how much it […]
escape the algorithm
Should this be a map or 500 maps?
500 priests, cartographic n00bism, and the limits of scale
6 months ago
500 priests, cartographic n00bism, and the limits of scale
Infinite Scroll
JOB - A theatrical review
A Broadway play about Content Moderation
a month ago
A Broadway play about Content Moderation
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...
3 weeks 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...
Seth's Blog
Searching for stars
It’s easy to imagine that talent is a magical gift, and that we’ll know it when see it (and that you...
2 weeks ago
It’s easy to imagine that talent is a magical gift, and that we’ll know it when see it (and that you have it or you don’t). And yet, over the years, Star Search has rejected each of these musicians, picking someone else to win the competition: One could argue that they’re simply...
Ian Betteridge
Ten Blue Links, “I’m sorry about the politics” edition
1. The Reach saga rumbles on I’ve banged on about the parlous strategy of Reach plc before, but the...
a month ago
1. The Reach saga rumbles on I’ve banged on about the parlous strategy of Reach plc before, but the departures from its senior editorial ranks will continue to make a bad strategy worse. What makes this situation more difficult for the company is its board, which is free of any...
Handprinted - Blog
Making an Aluminium Plate Etching
We recently covered in our blog how to make marks on etching plates using tools and resists. Now...
3 months ago
We recently covered in our blog how to make marks on etching plates using tools and resists. Now we’re going to put together what we’ve learnt to create a print!
This blog is part of a series featuring tips and techniques to get you started with aluminium or zinc plate etching....
Seth's Blog
Professionals are consistent
Authenticity is for amateurs. We want the surgeon, the broadcaster or the musician to show up fully,...
3 months ago
Authenticity is for amateurs. We want the surgeon, the broadcaster or the musician to show up fully, as the best version of themselves. We know you might be tired from an overnight shift, and authentically feel like phoning it in, but hey, this is the only aorta I’ve got, and I’d...
Marian's Blog
Infinite procedurally generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm
This is a game where you walk through an infinite city that is procedurally generated as you...
over a year ago
This is a game where you walk through an infinite city that is procedurally generated as you walk.
It is generated from a set of blocks with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm.
You can download a playable build of the game on itch.io and you can get the source code on...
Seth's Blog
In defense of the hard parts
Yesterday’s post was a little glib. Without a doubt, we add more value when we focus on the...
4 months ago
Yesterday’s post was a little glib. Without a doubt, we add more value when we focus on the emotional labor of important work, leaving others the chance to create commodities. But the repetitive, difficult nature of leaning into commodity production can give us insight, humility...
Seth's Blog
Dumbing it down
There’s a lot of pressure to make things dumber. Better to make it dumb than to have someone simply...
a month ago
There’s a lot of pressure to make things dumber. Better to make it dumb than to have someone simply walk away, apparently. With so much to consume, and an unlimited amount to learn, there’s a race to make knowledge into a checklist item. Freon gas! Large language model!...
Seth's Blog
99 vs 0
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other...
a year ago
If you get a 99% quality haircut or a 99% close-to-perfect meal, it’s better than good. On the other hand, if the scrub nurse only does a 99% job of disinfecting the tools in the operating room, you’re still going to die of an infection. Some projects respond very well to...
Open Culture
The Amazing Recording History of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”
The most streamed Beatles song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It...
2 months ago
The most streamed Beatles song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It isn’t even “Yesterday.” If you were about to guess “Something,” you’re on the right track, at least as far as the source album and songwriter. In fact, it’s George Harrison’s other...
Handprinted - Blog
Meet The Maker: Strangford (Jo Pearson)
Hi! I’m Jo, working as a printmaker under the name 'Strangford' in Northern Ireland - though I’m...
6 months ago
Hi! I’m Jo, working as a printmaker under the name 'Strangford' in Northern Ireland - though I’m originally from South London.
Describe your printmaking process.
I make large, bright, unusual relief prints from my home studio; mostly of animals. I carve into flooring lino - it’s...
Seth's Blog
Rethinking the Sports-Industrial Complex
School sports can have some valuable outputs: And yet, many schools act as if all they have is a...
a year ago
School sports can have some valuable outputs: And yet, many schools act as if all they have is a trophy shortage. They bench kids who might not (yet) have the physical attributes necessary to win, or they build huge stadiums, go on long road trips, berate students that make an...
Open Culture
How Rasputin Inspired the “Fictitious Persons” Disclaimer Commonly Seen in Movies
“This is a work of fiction,” declares the disclaimer we’ve all noticed during the end credits of...
3 weeks ago
“This is a work of fiction,” declares the disclaimer we’ve all noticed during the end credits of movies. “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” In most cases, this may seem so trivial that it hardly merits a mention, but the...
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...
6 months 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
Boundaries and limits
They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it...
6 months ago
They serve different purposes. The fence near the train tracks is a boundary. You can go near it without risk. The electrified third rail, on the other hand, is a limit. If you touch it, you’re done. Boundaries can give us room to innovate and thrive. Budgets, schedules and...
Marian's Blog
Android-Benachrichtigungen auf dem Schreibtisch
Das Ziel dieses Projekts ist, Benachrichtigungen von meinem Android-Handy automatisch auf einem...
over a year ago
Das Ziel dieses Projekts ist, Benachrichtigungen von meinem Android-Handy automatisch auf einem LoL-Shield (Lots of LEDs) anzuzeigen. Dazu benutze ich einen Raspberry Pi, der sowieso schon auf meinem Schreibtisch steht, einen Arduino für das Schild und auf dem Handy Tasker, um...
Seth's Blog
New ways to codify purpose
And then what happens? Many small businesses start with generosity and good intent at their core....
a year ago
And then what happens? Many small businesses start with generosity and good intent at their core. But it’s a rough ride, and especially when outside funding is involved, it’s easy to get seduced by the bright lights of Milton Friedman and an obsession with short-term profits....
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...
5 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
Opening the pod bay door
A brand new episode of Akimbo this week, all about artificial intelligence. Part one of of two on...
a year ago
A brand new episode of Akimbo this week, all about artificial intelligence. Part one of of two on mediocrity and the choices we’re going to need to make. And, a while in the making, an experimental AI chat bot that has been trained on all 5,000,000 words of this blog. You can...
Seth's Blog
Unforced errors
In hospitality and customer service, perfect is elusive. Someone is going to miss a shift, have a...
a month ago
In hospitality and customer service, perfect is elusive. Someone is going to miss a shift, have a bad day, or fail to understand a situation. But there’s a second kind of error, the one that’s far more common. When management makes bad choices, or underinvests in systems,...
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...
a month 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...
Seth's Blog
Self restaint vs systemic restraint
It’s not hypocritical to help yourself at a buffet at the same time you counsel the owner of the...
a year ago
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...
Blog - Mac Pierce
Fort Emplacements and FDM: making Castle Doctrine
How I made Castle Doctrine, a 1:1 scale fully 3D-Printed American
Revolutionary War era cannon.
a year ago
How I made Castle Doctrine, a 1:1 scale fully 3D-Printed American
Revolutionary War era cannon.
Seth's Blog
The power of expectations
When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to...
a year ago
When we raise our expectations for a student, a friend or a co-worker, we open the door to possibility. We offer them dignity and a chance to grow. We are offering them trust. But if we become attached to those expectations, if the expectation unmet leads us to distress or...
Seth's Blog
How to change the world
All successful cultural change (books, movies, public health), has a super-simple two-step loop:...
a year ago
All successful cultural change (books, movies, public health), has a super-simple two-step loop: AWARENESSTENSION–>Loop<– It’s easy to focus on awareness. Get the word out. Hype. Promo. I think that’s a mistake. Because awareness without tension is useless. The tension is like...
Anarchy Unfolds
March '24 Myths & Recs
Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
9 months ago
Sleep deprivation, Kim Petras, the Anthropocene, and more
escape the algorithm
Befriending neighbors and beneighboring friends
The Casement Window Theory of community building
4 months ago
The Casement Window Theory of community building
On the Arts
What does Wabi-Sabi really mean?
Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
a year ago
Explaining an often misunderstood idea in Japanese aesthetics.
Seth's Blog
“What’s next?”
The way we think about our priorities makes a huge difference. Leaders of every stripe make one...
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...
Marian's Blog
16×16 LED Matrix
This is a 16×16 RGB LED matrix, made of 256 WS2812B LEDs. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi and can...
over a year ago
This is a 16×16 RGB LED matrix, made of 256 WS2812B LEDs. It’s powered by a Raspberry Pi and can display images and animations. With a game controller attached, it can play games.
The pictures below show how I built the frame.
Painting the base plate
Drawing...
Seth's Blog
The magic of placebos
One of two things is true: A placebo is a force beyond understanding, one that is capable of...
a year ago
One of two things is true: A placebo is a force beyond understanding, one that is capable of disappearing when we do the appropriate double-blind tests and has mechanisms that defy our knowledge of the laws of physics. Or… A placebo is a prompt for our subconscious to do the hard...
Seth's Blog
Gentle Scrabble hacks
Perhaps these might make a great game more fun: Maximize total score: Exactly the same rules as...
a year ago
Perhaps these might make a great game more fun: Maximize total score: Exactly the same rules as regular Scrabble, but focus on increasing the total score of all players instead of defeating the others. It’s subtle, it can be challenging for a good player, and it creates more...
Seth's Blog
The paradox of self skepticism
If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we...
5 months ago
If we’re to publish, teach, invent, imagine or promote, we need the confidence to believe that we have something to offer. That we are, in some way, right. But the enterprise of rational thought is based on theories, tests and improvements. We can never be certain, all we have is...
Seth's Blog
Refusing the salon of the refused
This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was...
8 months ago
This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was organized by and featured artists who weren’t even among those that had a slot at the runner’s up exhibit for artists who weren’t featured in the real Salon in Paris. Manet didn’t have...
Anarchy Unfolds
Pride, noise, and fear
Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
3 months ago
Sleep deprivation is a social justice and public health issue
Seth's Blog
Cat and mouse games
I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the...
5 months ago
I hope that most of us would agree that driving 50 mph in a school zone where little kids cross the street is a significant safety problem. The speed limit is there for good reason, and if you selfishly and recklessly blow through the crosswalk, you ought to get a summons....
Infinite Scroll
Weekly Scroll: Politics Yet Again
GOP 4channers, more Twitch drama, and a Very Mad Laptop Company
a month ago
GOP 4channers, more Twitch drama, and a Very Mad Laptop Company
Open Culture
Explore an Online Archive of 2,100+ Rare Illustrations from Charles Dickens’ Novels
As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes...
2 weeks ago
As Christmastime approaches, few novelists come to mind as readily as Charles Dickens. This owes mainly, of course, to A Christmas Carol, and even more so to its many adaptations, most of which draw inspiration from not just its text but also its illustrations. That 1843 novella...
Seth's Blog
Can’t wait
The urgent problem might actually benefit from a short cooling-off period. But important challenges...
a year ago
The urgent problem might actually benefit from a short cooling-off period. But important challenges can’t wait. Today is a good day to remember that better is possible, and that we shouldn’t wait for the problem to become easy or fade away. Better begins with each of us, but it...
Seth's Blog
Better pockets
Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a...
3 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...
Open Culture
Wes Anderson Directs & Stars in an Ad Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Montblanc’s Signature Pen
One hardly has to be an expert on the films of Wes Anderson to imagine that the man writes with a...
7 months ago
One hardly has to be an expert on the films of Wes Anderson to imagine that the man writes with a fountain pen. Maybe back in the early nineteen-nineties, when he was shooting the black-and-white short that would become Bottle Rocket on the streets of Austin, he had to settle for...
Open Culture
The Medieval Masterpiece, the Book of Kells, Is Now Digitized and Available Online
If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book...
2 months ago
If you know nothing else about medieval European illuminated manuscripts, you surely know the Book of Kells. “One of Ireland’s greatest cultural treasures” comments Medievalists.net, “it is set apart from other manuscripts of the same period by the quality of its artwork and the...
Open Culture
How Carl Jung Inspired the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous
There may be as many doors into Alcoholics Anonymous in the 21st century as there are people who...
6 months ago
There may be as many doors into Alcoholics Anonymous in the 21st century as there are people who walk through them—from every world religion to no religion. The “international mutual-aid fellowship” has had “a significant and long-term effect on the culture of the United States,”...
Seth's Blog
How, why and hyperbole
There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The...
5 months ago
There are three trends in copywriting that have been so overused they should now be avoided. The first two: Headlines with “why” for articles that don’t actually explain why. Headlines with “how” that don’t really teach you how. Explaining why is difficult, which is where the...
Seth's Blog
The Cliffs Notes paradox
For a decade, Cliffs Notes were the bestselling section of the bookstore. They were a simple way for...
a year ago
For a decade, Cliffs Notes were the bestselling section of the bookstore. They were a simple way for any high school student to get insight, examples and answers about the books they were assigned and read (or didn’t read). When Cliffs published a list of their thirty bestselling...
Infinite Scroll
The Internet is More Real than Real Life
A victory of online spaces over traditional institutions
a month ago
A victory of online spaces over traditional institutions
Anarchy Unfolds
Age of Empires but make it Solarpunk
My favorite strategy game re-imagined
2 hours ago
My favorite strategy game re-imagined
Open Culture
How Filmmakers Make Cameras Disappear: Mirrors in Movies
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges...
2 months ago
If you’ve never tried your hand at filmmaking, you might assume that its hardest visual challenges are the creation of effects-laden spectacles: starships duking it out in space, monsters stomping through major cities, animals speaking and dancing like Broadway stars, that sort...
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