≡ Category: Books | ≅ 1 Comment
Talk has recently focused on the passing of Norman Mailer, a novelist remembered for many things. As The New York Times put it, he was “a prodigious drinker and drug taker, a womanizer, a devoted family man, a would-be politician who ran for mayor of New York, a hipster existentialist, an antiwar protester, an opponent [...]
≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment
Interesting stats:
In December 2005, how often did Wikipedia come up as the first search engine result in a given search? Just about never in Google’s case, and 7% of the time in Yahoo’s case. Now, Wikipedia is the first search result 27% of the time on Google and 31% of the time on Yahoo. Rather [...]
≡ Category: History | ≅ 1 Comment
Earlier today, we linked you to The Economist’s predictions for 2008. Then we stumbled upon this: Ladies Home Journal issued in 1901 far more audacious predictions for what the world will look like in 2001. It turns out that many guesses were pretty close to the mark, if not spot on. Here are a few [...]
≡ Category: Books | ≅ 1 Comment
After recently publishing its list of 100 Notable Books of 2007, The New York Times has narrowed things down and selected The 10 Best Books of 2007 - five fiction, and five nonfiction. Have a look.
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≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ 1 Comment
The Economist has issued its predictions for the world in 2008, and here’s what they’re banking on: The Democrats, and particularly Hillary Clinton, narrowly win the upcoming presidential election. Meanwhile the United States, which has never met a bubble it doesn’t like, will get mired down with housing and credit problems. And looking for a [...]
≡ Category: MIT, Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
MIT has released a new search engine that draws on speech recognition technology and lets users search MIT audio & video lectures by keyword. For example, if you type “NASA” into the search box, the search results will include all of the instances where a speaker utters the word NASA in a recorded lecture. (You [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ 1 Comment
Below, you’ll find excerpts from TIME Magazine’s conversation with Stephen King. You can access the full interview here. King turns up the heat after the jump.
STEPHEN KING: So who’s going to be TIME Person of the Year?
TIME: I really don’t know, there’s a very small group of people who make that decision.
STEPHEN KING: I was [...]
≡ Category: Podcast Articles and Resources, Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment
The answer is simple: Handbrake. This free, open source software (which works on MacOS X, Linux and Windows) makes it simple to load and watch DVDs on your video iPod. Here are some helpful instructions to get you started.
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≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
The film that spoke to a generation of alienated youth during the 1960s is now 40 years old (and actually looking much tamer than it first did). To mark the occasion, a 40th anniversary collector’s edition DVD has been released, filled with a good amount of extra materials. Also, Fresh Air broadcasted a show last [...]
≡ Category: Literature, Media | ≅ 2 Comments
WNYC’s latest On The Media (iTunes - Feed - Site) covers the crisis of traditional book publishing in a new media age. While Amazon rolls out the Kindle and more and more content comes out in pure digital form, we’re still publishing more books than ever before. One interesting note from the program is that [...]
≡ Category: Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Funny and yet it counts as science.
Chris Hardwick and Rainn Wilson, star of The Office, “dive deep into the chemical guts of a common household product” to discover “What’s Inside.” For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wiredscience (Source: BoingBoing)
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ 1 Comment
Here’s a quick fyi: I’m making a small guest appearance on FORA.tv this week.
In case you’re not familiar with it, FORA.tv hosts a large and constantly growing collection of videos that feature important thinkers grappling with contemporary cultural, social and political questions. Or, put simply, it’s YouTube made intelligent. As you’ll see, their mission is [...]
≡ Category: Music, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ 2 Comments
First there was the folk Bob Dylan. Then came the electric Bob Dylan. And it all happened one night at the Newport Folk Festival. The date was July 25, 1965.
In the clip below, you can see how the transition was received. In a word, not well. Appearing in front of a folk audience that lamented [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Let’s quickly recap some of our posts from the past couple of weeks. Here it goes:
When Bob Dylan Went Electric: Newport, 1965
Museums Crossing the Line?: An Interview with Jori Finkel
Not The Daily Show
No Country for Old Men: The Coen Brothers’ Latest
100 Notable Books of 2007
A Little Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving
Nixon [...]
≡ Category: Podcast Articles and Resources | ≅ 1 Comment
Times Online (the large UK-based news website) has posted today a feature that offers an introduction to podcasting. It explains the whos, hows, whats, etc. and provides some helpful links, including one to our collection of Foreign Language Lesson Podcasts.
Podcasting offers an amazing way to access free, high-quality media, across many topics, wherever and whenever [...]
≡ Category: Film, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
The filmmakers who brought you Fargo, Barton Fink, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? have released their latest film based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy. No Country for Old Men is, as The New Yorker puts it, “a return to the dark, simmering days of their best work, in Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing,” [...]
≡ Category: Books | ≅ Leave a Comment
Gift buying season is now officially upon us. If books are part of your gift buying plan, then have a look at this list just published by The New York Times. The 100 books listed here include fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Among others, you’ll find Philip Roth’s latest book, Exit Ghost, and I mention it [...]
≡ Category: Music, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
What’s Thanksgiving without Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant?”
The video is below. The lyrics to the song, originally released in 1967, are here. An interview with Guthrie is here (use Real Player to listen).
Have a good holiday. We’ll be back on Monday (maybe sooner).
Arlo Guthrie Alice's Restaurant
≡ Category: History, Politics | ≅ Leave a Comment
Robert Dallek’s latest book recounts in plentiful detail (752 pages) the odd working relationship that existed between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger (Nixon’s national security adviser and, later, secretary of state). They were partly allies, in many ways strongly dependent upon one another, particularly when it came to making American foreign policy. But they also [...]
≡ Category: Film, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
Of all the scenes that Hitchcock shot, this is the most well known. The iconic shower scene (1960), which runs about 2 minutes, took six days to film, used around 75 camera angles, and 50 cuts. After shooting this sequence, Janet Leigh apparently forever kept her showers to a minimum and, while showering, locked all [...]
≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment
Valleywag, the blog that tracks Silicon Valley and things tech, posted an amusing comparison between the traditional book and Amazon’s new electronic reader (see yesterday’s post). It’s clearly meant to be more witty than serious, but it makes some obvious and valid points along the way. (See Valleywag article here)
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≡ Category: Music | ≅ 1 Comment
Today, U2 is releasing a remastered version of the album that turned a popular band into a super band. Commemorating its 20th anniversary (how can it be that old already?), the Joshua Tree is being re-issued in four versions — 1) a remastered single CD, 2) a 2-CD set that features the remastered album [...]
≡ Category: Books, Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment
The Kindle, Amazon’s new eBook reader, is just now hitting the streets. The promo video below overviews its basic features, including the Kindle’s “paper-like” screen, ergonomic design, and free wireless access to content. As you’ll see, the $399 reader, which holds 200 books, promises to succeed where other digital readers have failed — to offer [...]
The New York Times featured yesterday a piece that raises serious questions about the art world. According to the article, some major museums are now allowing art galleries to financially underwrite their exhibitions. And, of course, the galleries often have a direct financial stake in the work on display. This trend, which seems to be [...]
≡ Category: Audio Books | ≅ Leave a Comment
iTunes is serving up a freebie for audiobook fans. Written by Brad Meltzer, The Millionaires runs close to 15 hours. Publishers Weekly calls it “a fast-paced, fresh-scrubbed tale of financial adventure.” Download it here, and check out our larger collection of free audiobook podcasts. (Source: Boing Boing)
Related Content:
Newsweek’s piece on Jeff Bezos’ plans to reinvent [...]
≡ Category: Television, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ Leave a Comment
As the weeks go on, more and more of us are starting to notice that Hollywood’s writers are on strike. One by one new television shows are running out of fresh material. But if you’re a fan of The Daily Show, (and, well, we are) you were hit practically on day one, since the topical [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ Leave a Comment
Someone did a lot of legwork and pulled together a heap of Monty Python videos on YouTube. The list includes one famous segment called “Dead Parrot,” which is notable partly because it’s funny, and partly because it forms the basis of a secondary joke.
To make a long story short, there are some folks out there [...]
≡ Category: Religion, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Earlier this week, PBS’s NOVA aired a two-hour program revisiting the controversial federal case, Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, which asked whether “intelligent design” could be taught in American schools alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution. Intelligent design essentially holds that “life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore must have been designed by [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
I like re-posting this from time to time.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, delivered this speech at Stanford’s commencement ceremony in June 2005. I somehow doubt that the graduating class could have truly appreciated what Jobs is saying here. (At that age, I couldn’t have.) But if you’re a little further down the road, you’ll [...]
≡ Category: Music, Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
With last year being the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, there was no shortage of podcasts dedicated to Mozart’s masterpieces. First, Radio Sweden (iTunes - Feed - Web Site) reissued a digital archive of Mozart recordings by the Royal Swedish Opera from the 1940s and 1950s. And, along very similar lines, Danmarks Radio (Feed - [...]
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