≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
In anticipation of Gustav…. Here’s what Hurricane Dean looked like for the crew flying in a NASA space shuttle last August. You can check out more NASA videos on YouTube here. It’s also added to our YouTube playlist. Thanks to Bill for pointing this out. (Readers: If you see good pieces of cultural media, feel [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
Ending the week on a lighter note …
A backer of indie film festivals, Volkswagen presents “See Film Differently” - a series of videos that feature amusing re-interpretations of classic movies. Here, you’ll find new takes on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Die Hard, and Mary Poppins. Below, we’ve featured another (somewhat racy) bit and [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Nice find by Kottke.org. If you’re willing to sign up for an Amazon credit card (with no annual fee), you can get a $100 rebate on the Kindle, Amazon’s fast-selling e-book reader. This brings the price down to $259. And, as Kottke warns, you should always read the fine print. You can get more info [...]
≡ Category: Foreign Language | ≅ 5 Comments
Thomas Friedman’s latest opinion piece in the New York Times starts like this:
After attending the spectacular closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics and feeling the vibrations from hundreds of Chinese drummers pulsating in my own chest, I was tempted to conclude two things: “Holy mackerel, the energy coming out of this country is unrivaled.” And, [...]
≡ Category: Foreign Language | ≅ 3 Comments
Today we have the pleasure of welcoming a guest contribution by Eleena de Lisser, who runs Voices en Español, a bilingual blog and conversational Spanish podcast (iTunes - RSS Feed). In this post, Eleena draws on her experience and offers an overview of the best free podcasts that will teach you Spanish (which happens to [...]
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This animated mockumentary traces the history of evil from Ancient Greece until today. While I wouldn’t make the video part of a standard high school curriculum, I give it points for creativity. We’ve added it to our YouTube Playlist.
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≡ Category: Current Affairs, Film, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ 1 Comment
Here’s another good submission (many thanks) that came out of last week’s book giveaway…
It’s an animated film called The Story of Stuff, which offers “a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and [...]
Finnish photographer Kari Kuukka has posted a panoramic view of Beijing’s Olympics Stadium, capturing the mood about 30 minutes before the men’s 100m final, when Usain Bolt blew away the field. Give the page a few seconds to load and the picture will go in motion. Hat tip to Metafilter, and adieu to Beijing.
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≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
It’s August. It’s Friday. I’m taking a day off. If you’re looking for something to keep you stimulated this weekend, feel free to peruse our extensive podcast library. See you next week …
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≡ Category: Books | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s a good item that came out of yesterday’s book giveaway — Benjamin L called our attention to the fact that you can download a free copy of Little Brother, the new novel by Cory Doctorow, who writes for the popular BoingBoing blog and has consistently backed the whole idea of “open culture.” Released in [...]
≡ Category: Books, Current Affairs, Science | ≅ 24 Comments
What if we disappeared from the face of the earth tomorrow? All of us, just like that? What would happen? How would the remaining world survive or thrive without us? That’s the scenario that gets examined by science writer Alan Weisman (who we interviewed last year) in his non-fiction eco-thriller, The World Without Us.
Now out [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ 4 Comments
Fimoculous has nicely highlighted a series of good films that Hulu has made freely available. The one obvious downside is that, unless something has changed at Hulu, the flicks will only be available to viewers in the US. (Hulu needs to do better than this!) Nonetheless, here they are, and thanks to Kotkke.org for helping [...]
≡ Category: Physics, Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Speaking at the 2008 TED conference, physicist Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe: How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? And, during his ten minute talk, he offers some thoughts on how we might go about answering these big enchilada questions. (We’ve added the clip to our [...]
≡ Category: Foreign Language | ≅ Leave a Comment
Is it Bay-jing? Or Bay-zhing, as some American broadcasters are inclined to say it? Below, you’ll find the answer according to Two Chinese Characters, a video team composed of Carsey Yee from China, and John B. Weinstein who teaches Chinese at an American university. Give a watch. It’s intentionally campy and amusing. And for more [...]
≡ Category: Film, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
Filmed in 1986, Meetin’ WA is a short (26 minute) film that not many have seen. What you get is Godard, one of the driving forces behind La Nouvelle Vague, in conversation with Woody Allen. The trademark Godard approach to film, the expected dose of Woody Allen neuroses - they’re all there. Hat tip to [...]
≡ Category: Science, Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s another free, downloadable course coming out Stanford, which will tell you how regenerative medicine can keep your body parts almost new. You can access it here on iTunesU, and below we have posted the course description. If stem cells happen to pique your interest, then you may want to explore these two other related [...]
≡ Category: Film, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
Produced at the request of the International Olympics Committee (and not at the behest of the Nazi propaganda machine), Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 documentary, Olympia, is considered one of the more important sports documentaries of the 20th century. Below, we have posted a well known sequence that recalls the diving competition at the ‘36 Berlin Games.
[...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Over the past week, we’ve discovered a number of good items being put together by some of our readers.
The first is a new popular podcast called “Robots” (iTunes - RSS Feed - Web Site). Assembled by a group of grad students associated with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), each episode focuses [...]
≡ Category: Psychology, Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
PsychCentral has posted its list of the ten best psychology videos available on the web. Below, we have posted links to the videos themselves. But if you want a quick description of each clip, then definitely read through the original post. Thanks to Kottke.org for bringing this to light.
1. An Unquiet Mind: Personal Reflections on [...]
≡ Category: Audio Books | ≅ 2 Comments
Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – It’s a major work of the Enlightenment, a book that shaped how we moderns write history (and, for that matter, how we aspire to write in the English language), and it’s now available as a free podcast thanks to Librivox. Or at least [...]
≡ Category: Music, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ 2 Comments
We lost another good one:
≡ Category: Random | ≅ 1 Comment
A quick fyi, you can catch live streams of the Olympic Games via the web.
If you live in the US, you can watch at NBCOlympics.com,
If you live in the UK and Europe, you can get the stream at BBC TV Olympics
If you live on China’s Mainland, you can see the games at CCTVOlympics.com
And for Australian [...]
≡ Category: History | ≅ 2 Comments
In the Olympic spirit, we remember Jesse Owens upsetting the Nazi sense of natural order en route to winning four gold medals. Now let the games begin…
≡ Category: Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Darwinmania is kicking into full gear as we celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of Origin of Species (download zip audio here). It perhaps seems appropriate, then, that the festivities would get started with Richard Dawkins launching a three part series on British TV called The Genius of Charles Darwin. (Read the official [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
The BBC reports: “An archaeological dig has recovered what is thought to be the remains of the theatre where Shakespeare’s plays were first performed.” Get the rest of the big story here.
Related Content:
Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History
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≡ Category: YouTube | ≅ 3 Comments
Michael Wesch, a professor of cultural anthropology, has become something of an internet phenomenon, having produced two wonderful videos that help demystify the world of Web 2.0. (Definitely check them out here and here). Now he has a new video getting some play. Below you can watch a talk he recently gave at The Library [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
Today we present Frank Capra’s Academy Award-winning comedy from 1934, starring Clark Gable — It Happened One Night. Grab some popcorn. Dim the lights (even if you’re at work). And enjoy:
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≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here we have John Gielgud’s first recording of a scene from Hamlet, “recorded shortly after he became the youngest actor to take the lead in the play, in the 1929/30 Old Vic season.” It’s the audio that you will want to focus on here, not the video, even though there’s something a little amusing about [...]
≡ Category: Harvard, History, Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who chronicled the abuses of the Soviet regime and gained worldwide fame with A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, has died at 89. (Get the New York Times obit here.) Once asked what Solzhenitsyn means to literature and the history of Russia, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, had [...]
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