David Byrne will always be most widely known as the co-founder and frontman of Talking Heads. That may count among the greatest possible achievements for any artist — to the minds of many an Open Culture reader, at least — but it must occasionally frustrate the man himself.
Why do some ideas spread like wildfire, while others resist being seen — despite their importance? A new book by Nadia Asparouhova explores the emerging phenomenon of antimemetics. Published by the Dark Forest Collective.
What happens when you apply CIA-style analysis normally used to understand China or Russia to your favorite sports team?
In the Lower Ninth Ward, an old Family Dollar stands covered in graffiti. It looks abandoned. But inside, it's a treasure trove — clothing, home goods, toys and books. And everything is free.
An open directory of the documents that crystallized a narrative and moved billions of dollars of capital.
From Altadena to the Pacific Palisades, Shaver Lake to Paradise, a series of devastating wildfires in recent years have forced communities and experts to rethin
Every excavator, crane, and forklift runs on hydraulics. RISE Robotics is building the electrified alternative.
What do Swiss timepieces and sailing rigging systems have in common with orthopedic braces? More than you might think. The engineers at Osteoid drew inspiration from these precision mechanical systems to create Bracesys, a revolutionary approach to fracture immobilization that…
Blade Runner (1982) is a magnificent film, but there’s something odd about it. The heroine, Rachael, seems to be a beautiful young woman. In reality, she’s a piece of technology — an organic robot …
The toilet-paper principle suggests that we should be paying as much attention to the cheapest technologies as to the most sophisticated.
barcode
An analysis
Here are some of the most interesting things I learned this year.
The Power of Decentralized, Long-Range Networks for Adventure, Emergency, and Preparedness
AI’s trillion-dollar opportunity: Context graphs The last generation of enterprise software created a trillion-dollar ecosystem by becoming systems of record. Salesforce for…
Find Inc. is a Tokyo-based startup that provides a cloud service dedicated to lost items.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxN-MqM_RKI Smart speakers for kids feel like a gamble most parents would rather skip. The promise is educational content and hands-free help, but the reality often involves screens lighting up at bedtime, algorithms deciding what comes next, and…
A new “rubbery CMOS” platform combines fully stretchable p- and n-type transistors, enabling skin-like logic circuits and a tactile “sensory skin” for wearables, implants, and soft robotics.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/1117858411 Traditional inkjet printers have become increasingly frustrating for anyone who values flexibility, repairability, or creative experimentation. Locked-down firmware prevents modifications, expensive proprietary cartridges drain budgets…
MIT researchers developed a method to design and fabricate reconfigurable antennas with adjustable frequency ranges. Users can adjust the frequency by squeezing, bending, or stretching the material, making the antenna more versatile for sensing and communication than traditional…
auxetic metamaterials, which can deform into three different geometric states
resonance frequency,
Can microfactories solve prefab's economic problem by inverting the factory model?
The 2020 commencement speech you’ll never hear
If you don’t mind massive ground antennas and fried birds, that is
Thermodynamic computing isn't just a rebrand of probabilistic computing
Normal Computing’s prototype chip, which they termed the stochastic processing unit (SPU), consists of eight capacitor-inductor resonators and random noise generators. Each resonator is connected to each other resonator via a tunable coupler. The resonators are initialized with randomly generated…
The material has 50% more tensile strength than steel with a strength-to-weight ratio that’s ten-times better.
Reading obituaries can boost creativity by exposing you to distant ideas, fueling the associations that lead to unexpected breakthroughs.
But here’s the catch: This only works if that new information is very different from what’s already in your head.
highly creative people have a different kind of memory structure — one that holds a wider range of ideas and forges more unexpected connections between them.
“Icebreaker of the Week” is a recurring feature of the newsletter The Art of Noticing (robwalker.substack.com). Some are icebreakers I made up or experienced or found somewhere; many are submitted by TAoN readers. After many requests, I am collecting & sharing all the…
You go to a tech expo like CES expecting to be absolutely wowed by phones, laptops, GPUs, cars, and all sorts of prominent product categories. I went to CES 2025 and was wowed by a mouse... yes, a wireless mouse that connects to your computer. Designed by the folks at Lenovo…
Today marks two years since I first set up an e-ink display in my mom’s apartment to help her live on her own with amnesia.
“They just kicked everybody out.”
How I built a transit dashboard with Rust, Skia, and an old Kindle
Psychologies, especially as represented in lists of biases, point out problems. Developing a pattern language would point us to solutions.
:extract_focal()/https%3A%2F%2Fpocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com%2Farticles%2F9907%2F1714422584_663000df8e722.png)
Samir Mezrahi blasted the first outrageous house of Zillow Gone Wild out to the internet four years ago. Now he has 4 million followers and an HGTV show.
These six restored historic buildings are sending us.
Recycled materials contribute to a pollutant-neutralizing paint
A recent viral tweet by Micah Springut, founder of stone-carving startup Monumental Labs, argued that it will be cheaper to build buildings with stone than with steel or concrete within the next 10 years.
Diets, demographics, desertification: what trends aren’t growing the global cold chain?...
Companies like Lego and Mattel have divisions that seek out design concepts directly from collectors and other highly dedicated fan bases.
On why the free exchange of ideas is a complex breeding ground for truth, appealing falsehoods, and self-serving rationalisations.
Most people will die after three days without water.
The Coat Hinger is available for 30 days on Kickstarter! Go go go!! https://kickstarter.com/projects/simonegiertz/coat-hingers-foldable-coat-hangers Thank you so much for supporting my creative whims throughout the years. Can you believe it's been almost a decade?!
The commerce technology stack is changing. And the ability to move information from one system or platform to another is, perhaps, the essential feature mid-sized or enterprise businesses should look for in software providers.
Business models based on the compiled list at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4924647. I find the link very hard to browse, so I made a simple version in Markdown instead. · GitHub
Collection of thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions and understand systems.
A novel technique called Underground Gravity Energy Storage turns decommissioned mines into long-term energy storage solutions, thereby supporting the sustainable energy transition.
No need to create a fancy and modern website with hundreds of pages to make money online.
The unbundling of Excel is just as important as the unbundling of Craigslist. Here's what you need to know about the Excel Economy and how SaaS companies can take advantage of different verticals and use cases that Excel has dominated.
Eliciting product feedback elegantly is a competitive advantage for LLM-software. Over the weekend, I queried Google’s Bard, & noticed the elegant feedback loop the product team has incorporated into their product. I asked Bard to compare the 3rd-row leg room of the leading…
At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It's not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.
Success in nature and culture depends just as much on timing as it does on brilliance.