Google Sky, Moon and Mars

in Astronomy, Google, Science | March 17th, 2008

Here’s what you get when Google engi­neers put their heads togeth­er with astronomers from large obser­va­to­ries: With Google Sky, “you can search for plan­ets, lis­ten to Earth & Sky pod­casts, watch some beau­ti­ful Hub­ble tele­scope images, or explore his­tor­i­cal maps of the sky from the com­fort of your brows­er.” The prod­uct was rolled out just last week, and you can get more info on the new release from Google’s offi­cial blog.

The new Sky prod­uct sits com­fort­ably along­side Google Moon and Google Mars, which have been around since 2005–2006. Cre­at­ed in con­junc­tion with sci­en­tists at the NASA Ames Research Cen­ter, Google Moon offers a col­lec­tion of lunar maps and charts and delves into the Apol­lo mis­sions. The Mars prod­uct, mean­while, offers some of the most detailed exist­ing maps of the red plan­et.

For more good sci­ence, see our Sci­ence Pod­cast Col­lec­tion here.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

in Comedy, YouTube | March 17th, 2008

A mer­ry, musi­cal St. Pat’s greet­ing to you from your Irish-Amer­i­can cor­re­spon­dent, pre­sent­ed by his three favorite mup­pets:


via Boing­Bo­ing

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100 Best Last Lines from Modern Novels

in Literature | March 16th, 2008

Put togeth­er by the Amer­i­can Book Review, this list (which comes in PDF for­mat) serves up some of the great last lines from mod­ern lit­er­a­ture. Rank­ing num­ber six on the list is a pas­sage that I hap­pened to read just yes­ter­day: “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pret­ty to think so?” –Ernest Hem­ing­way, The Sun Also Ris­es (1926).

via Gawk­er via Kot­tke

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Intelligent YouTube Channels

in Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society, Video - Science, YouTube | March 13th, 2008

Below, we have gath­ered togeth­er some of the most intel­li­gent video col­lec­tions on YouTube. A great place to find cul­tur­al­ly enrich­ing video…

Gen­er­al

  • @GoogleTalks
    • Google has lots of famous vis­i­tors speak­ing at its head­quar­ters, and they’re all record­ed and neat­ly pre­sent­ed here.
  • Al Jazeera Eng­lish
    • The Mid­dle East­ern news ser­vice, which has gen­er­at­ed its share of con­tro­ver­sy, now airs broad­casts in Eng­lish and presents them here.
  • Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry
  • Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al
    • The lead­ing human rights orga­ni­za­tion brings you var­i­ous videos out­lin­ing human rights con­cerns across the globe, and the work they’re doing to improve con­di­tions.
  • Artists Space
    • Artists Space sup­ports con­tem­po­rary artists work­ing in the visu­al arts, video and elec­tron­ic media, per­for­mance, archi­tec­ture and design, and it pro­motes artis­tic exper­i­men­ta­tion and dia­log in con­tem­po­rary cul­ture.
  • Aspen Insti­tute
    • An inter­na­tion­al non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to fos­ter­ing enlight­ened lead­er­ship and open-mind­ed dia­logue.
  • Bad Astron­o­my
    • Bad Astron­o­my is devot­ed to debunk­ing myths and mis­con­cep­tions about astron­o­my, and also to slap down with­out apol­o­gy bad think­ing in all its forms.
  • BBC
    • A series of videos pro­mot­ing pro­grams com­ing out of Britain’s main media out­let. Unfor­tu­nate­ly many of these videos are short and not entire­ly sub­stan­tive. A missed oppor­tu­ni­ty.
  • BBC World­wide
    • Dit­to.
  • Big Think
    • This col­lec­tion brings you videos fea­tur­ing some of today’s lead­ing thinkers, movers and shak­ers.
  • Boing­Bo­ingTV
    • These videos are brought to you by the mak­ers of the very pop­u­lar Boing­Bo­ing blog.
  • British Film Insti­tute Nation­al Archive
    • The BFI (British Film Insti­tute) pro­motes under­stand­ing and appre­ci­a­tion of Britain’s rich film and tele­vi­sion her­itage and cul­ture. And it claims to have the “world’s largest and most diverse film and TV archive.”
  • Brook­lyn Muse­um
    • A fair­ly rich line­up of videos explor­ing the col­lec­tions at Brook­lyn’s main art muse­um.
  • Canal Edu­catif
    • CED is a phil­an­thropic pro­duc­er of free high-qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion­al videos in the domains of arts, eco­nom­ics and sci­ence.
  • Char­lie Rose
    • PBS inter­view­er Char­lie Rose presents seg­ments of his night­ly inter­views.
  • Cinet­ic
    • Cinet­ic brings audi­ences the lat­est, great­est and clas­sic fes­ti­val favorites from around the globe. From award-win­ners by vet­er­an film­mak­ers to up-and-com­ing tal­ent telling new sto­ries, Cinet­ic prides itself on being at the fore­front of qual­i­ty indie film in the dig­i­tal space.
  • Cit­i­zen Tube
    • YouTube’s own chan­nel presents videos deal­ing with the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal process and the 2008 elec­tion.
  • Com­put­er His­to­ry Muse­um
    • A good num­ber of videos that delve into com­put­ers, net­work­ing, and semi­con­duc­tors.
  • Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions
    • A resource designed to pro­vide insight into the com­plex inter­na­tion­al issues chal­leng­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers and cit­i­zens alike.
  • CSPAN
    • Videos that keep a close eye on the inner-work­ings of the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal process.
  • Dai­ly­Hitchens
    • Christo­pher Hitchens and more Christo­pher Hitchens.
  • FORA.tv
    • Deliv­ers video pre­sen­ta­tions from the world’s great writ­ers, lead­ers, activists and thinkers.
  • Guardian Unlim­it­ed TV
    • The Guardian brings you videos that make the tele­vi­sion world its focus.
  • Giz­mo­do
  • Google Tech Talks
    • The name kind of says it all.
  • Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press
    • HUP, a major pub­lish­er of non-fic­tion, schol­ar­ly, and gen­er­al inter­est books, brings you videos with new authors.
  • HBO
    • Pro­vides out­takes from new HBO pro­duc­tions. The videos are all short and large­ly pro­mo­tion­al. Give us some beef, sirs.
  • KQED on Demand- San Fran­cis­co
    • Media pro­vid­ed by the pub­lic broad­cast­ing com­pa­ny in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area. I drink at this well dai­ly.
  • MoMA
    • Videos high­light­ing the art col­lec­tion, pub­lic pro­grams, and tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tions at The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in New York City.
  • Mon­ty Python Chan­nel
    • Their videos have been cir­cu­lat­ing around YouTube for a while. Now, the come­di­ans have their own chan­nel. A good place to have a laugh.
  • Nation­al Geo­graph­ic
    • The col­lec­tion is rich, but the videos are short. Anoth­er instance where the provider could use the medi­um to offer more substance/depth.
  • New Sci­en­tist.
    • Videos and vod­casts cov­er­ing sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, space, the envi­ron­ment and a whole lot more. An inter­na­tion­al team of expert jour­nal­ists brings you the lat­est inno­va­tions and ideas in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, from the won­der­ful to the wor­ry­ing to the weird.
  • NOVA
    • Short video out­takes from PBS’s pop­u­lar sci­ence pro­gram.
  • Oscar’s Chan­nel
    • The offi­cial chan­nel of the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences is the only place to relive favorite Oscar® moments and see exclu­sive inter­views with the tal­ent­ed film pro­fes­sion­als who com­prise the Acad­e­my mem­ber­ship. Includes some good vin­tage clips.
  • Philip Scott John­son
    • Some great videos that put art in motion.
  • PBS
    • Pro­motes new PBS pro­gram­ming with painful­ly short videos.
  • Pol­i­tic­sTV
    • Polit­i­cal videos with a pro­gres­sive bent.
  • Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing
    • The Pulitzer Cen­ter on Cri­sis Report­ing’s mis­sion is to pro­mote in-depth cov­er­age of inter­na­tion­al affairs, focus­ing on top­ics that have been under-report­ed, mis-report­ed — or not report­ed at all.
  • Reel­NASA
    • Videos show the lat­est hap­pen­ings at NASA and new devel­op­ments in space explo­ration.
  • Reuters Video
    • The lat­est video from Reuters.
  • Richard Dawkins
    • The chan­nel fea­tures talks by Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist, as well as oth­ers influ­enced by his thought.
  • Sci­en­Cen­tral
    • Sci­en­Cen­tral, Inc. pro­duces sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy con­tent for tele­vi­sion, video, and the web. From broad­cast news fea­tures to edu­ca­tion­al prod­ucts, they cov­er the med­ical, envi­ron­men­tal, and tech­no­log­i­cal issues that affect dai­ly life.
  • Slate
    • Video from Slate Mag­a­zine
  • Spo­ken Verse
    • Roger Ebert calls it one of the rich­est resources on YouTube. Spo­ken Verse offers over 400 read­ings of great poems in Eng­lish, from Shake­speare to today.
  • Steve Span­gler Sci­ence Show
    • Catch the videos pro­duced by a teacher nation­al­ly known for mak­ing sci­ence fun.
  • Sun­dance
    • Pro­vides video clips from orig­i­nal series and films air­ing on the Sun­dance Chan­nel.
  • The Alcove
    • A pro­gram that fea­tures inter­views with var­i­ous influ­en­tial thinkers.
  • The Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry
    • This chan­nel pro­vides a rare glimpse into the Muse­um’s exhi­bi­tions, sci­en­tif­ic research, pub­lic pro­grams and edu­ca­tion­al endeav­ors. Videos pre­sent­ed by the Muse­um high­light its glob­al mis­sion to advance sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery and increase under­stand­ing of nature and human cul­tures.
  • The Com­mon­wealth Club (San Fran­cis­co)
    • Videos com­ing out of the nation’s old­est and largest pub­lic affairs forum, pre­sent­ing top­ics rang­ing across pol­i­tics, cul­ture, and soci­ety.
  • The Com­mon­craft Show
    • The Com­mon Craft Show is a series of short explana­to­ry videos by Lee and Sachi LeFever. The goal is to fight com­plex­i­ty with sim­ple tools and plain lan­guage.
  • The Davos Ques­tion
    • Every year, glob­al lead­ers attend the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in Davos, Switzer­land to dis­cuss how to bet­ter the world. Here you get to see what they have to say.
  • The Kahn Acad­e­my
    • This chan­nel fea­tures over 800 videos that will teach stu­dents the ins and outs of alge­bra, geom­e­try, trigonom­e­try, cal­cu­lus, sta­tis­tics, finance, physics, eco­nom­ics and more. The clips have been record­ed by Salman Khan.
  • The Library of Con­gress
    • Time­less trea­sures and con­tem­po­rary pre­sen­ta­tions from the Library of Con­gress in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Fea­tures record­ings dat­ing from the ear­li­est Edi­son films to the present.
  • The New York Times
    • All the news that’s fit to stream.
  • The New York­er
    • The offi­cial video chan­nel of The New York­er mag­a­zine.
  • The Nobel Prize
    • Brings you fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the minds of cur­rent and past Nobel Lau­re­ates.
  • The Onion News Net­work
    • A good dose of fun­ny videos from The Onion. Good for when you need some com­ic relief.
  • The Real News
    • The Real News Net­work is a glob­al online video news net­work that lis­tens to and is depen­dent sole­ly on its audi­ence. No ads. No gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies. No cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship.
  • The Research Chan­nel
    • Based out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, the ResearchChan­nel brings togeth­er con­tent from lead­ing research and aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions.
  • The World Bank
    • Videos com­ing out of the insti­tu­tion whose goal is to rid the world of pover­ty..
  • The YouTube Screen­ing Room
    • Pro­vid­ed by YouTube itself, this col­lec­tion presents high qual­i­ty, inde­pen­dent films to web users and promis­es to roll out four new films every two weeks.
  • Thir­teen WNET (PBS New Your)
    • Fea­tures con­tent from New York City’s flag­ship pub­lic tele­vi­sion sta­tion.
  • YouTube Movies
    • YouTube now hosts a series of com­plete stu­dio movies on its site. Above, I’ve linked you direct­ly to the documentary/biography sec­tion. But feel free to peruse the larg­er col­lec­tion. You’ll find some good films there.
  • TED Talks
    • Gen­er­al­ly engag­ing videos com­ing out of the annu­al TED con­fer­ence. Fea­tures impor­tant thinkers from dif­fer­ent walks of life.
  • TED x Talks
    • In the spir­it of ideas worth spread­ing, TEDx is a pro­gram of local, self-orga­nized events that bring peo­ple togeth­er to share a TED-like expe­ri­ence.
  • Trav­el Chan­nel TV
    • The Trav­el Chan­nel brings you around the world on YouTube.
  • Van­i­ty Fair Mag­a­zine
    • Videos from the mag­a­zine launched in 1913.
  • WNYC Radio
    • Videos pro­vid­ed by WNYC, New York Pub­lic Radio, the largest pub­lic radio sta­tion in the US.
  • World Eco­nom­ic Forum
    • The World Eco­nom­ic Forum is an inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion com­mit­ted to improv­ing the state of the world by engag­ing lead­ers in part­ner­ships to shape glob­al, region­al and indus­try agen­das.
  • Yad Vashem
    • Con­tain­ing the world’s largest repos­i­to­ry of infor­ma­tion on the Holo­caust, Yad Vashem is a leader in Holo­caust edu­ca­tion, com­mem­o­ra­tion, research and doc­u­men­ta­tion.
  • 92nd Street Y
    • Pret­ty much any­one and every­one on the cul­tur­al radar pass­es through the 92nd Y in NYC.

Uni­ver­si­ties

Spot­light­ed Col­lec­tions

Oth­er Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lec­tions

  • On this page, you’ll find some of the high­est qual­i­ty open cours­es out there.

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History, Power and our Global Society

in History, Politics, Stanford | March 12th, 2008

Here’s a new, free course from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Taught by James Shee­han, the His­to­ry of the Inter­na­tion­al Sys­tem (iTunes) offers a his­tor­i­cal view of inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics in the 20th cen­tu­ry, explor­ing how inter­na­tion­al play­ers have attempt­ed to project their will and pro­tect their inter­ests, all while nego­ti­at­ing flu­id and not always man­age­able exter­nal forces. The course looks back at com­mu­nism, fas­cism and lib­er­al­ism, then moves through the Cold War to the present day, and ends with cur­rent events in Iraq. An impor­tant his­to­ri­an and one of Stan­ford’s finest lec­tur­ers, Shee­han was recent­ly Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can His­tor­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion. So far four lec­tures have been post­ed (see here), and there will be more to come.

NOTE: This course has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es, where you can find about 120 top-notch cours­es.

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David Mamet on Politics

in Politics | March 12th, 2008

His essay appear­ing in The Vil­lage Voice: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Lib­er­al’

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500 Years of Women in Art (Give This Video Points for Creativity)

in Art | March 11th, 2008

This video takes you on a fair­ly amaz­ing tour of the great por­traits of women in West­ern art. It moves from da Vin­ci to Picas­so, and, along the way, the por­traits seam­less­ly morph one into anoth­er. This mor­ph­ing allows you to see how artis­tic styles changed over time, and also how the human face has been artis­ti­cal­ly treat­ed dur­ing dif­fer­ent peri­ods. Watch the video below, which is accom­pa­nied by Bach’s Suite No. 1 per­formed by Yo-Yo Ma. For infor­ma­tion on the paint­ings cov­ered in the clip, click here. And also see the relat­ed video, Women in Film.


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More Cat Shenanigans

in Comedy | March 11th, 2008

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