Here are a few facts to know about the adventurous Patrick Hunt. He’s a Stanford archaeologist who has spent more than a decade trying to unravel the mystery of how Hannibal, the great ancient military leader, crossed the Alps in 218 BCE with 25,000 men and 37 elephants.

Back in October, Ridley Scott released a final and definitive director’s cut of Blade Runner, presenting to audiences the film that he would have made if studio execs hadn’t meddled with things. A short two months later, the final cut is now out on DVD. It was released yesterday, barely in time for the holidays.

The New York Times has a nice piece today on university podcasts and how they’re turning some professors into international stars. The article gives special attention to Walter Lewin, an MIT physics professor, and highlights courses that you’ll find in our listing of free university courses.

Better late than never.

We dug back through the historical data and isolated the 15 most viewed posts of the year. If you’re looking for a trend, one will leap out. People like numbered lists.

Click here for 250 Free Online Courses From Great Universities
Yesterday, Yale announced that it is providing “free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.” I’ve listed the course lineup below, with links to each course.

As many now know, Google announced Friday that it’s testing a new content initiative — dubbed “knol” — that it hopes will rival Wikipedia. Realizing that Wikipedia entries rank first on 27% of all Google search result pages, the folks at Googleplex couldn’t resist launching a competitive product.

Here it is in English. His Christmas wish is charming.
Rumor is that Mahmoud is busy setting up a Facebook page. Stay tuned for it, and be sure to give him a nice little poke.
Full Story here.

Last night in London, Led Zeppelin played its first full show together since 1980 (though they did play a short set at Live Aid in 1985, which I was fortunate enough to see). Here’s the first video clip to make its way onto YouTube.

YouTube gets smarter one painfully small step at a time. First courses from Berkeley; next videos of Nobel Prize winners.