Farewell to Studs Terkel

≡ Category: Current Affairs, History | ≅ 2 Comments

Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the everyman, has passed away at the ripe old age of 96. (Get the NYTimes obit here.) Below, we have a lengthy conversation with Terkel, recorded when he was 91. As you’ll see, being a nonagenarian did little to slow him down.

Subscribe to Our Feed

From the Civil War to the Vietnam War – The Geography of US Presidential Elections

≡ Category: Current Affairs, History, Online Courses, Stanford | ≅ Leave a Comment

The Geography of US Presidential Elections keeps rolling along. With his well-crafted lectures, Martin Lewis shows you this week how America’s political map and its political parties changed dramatically following the Civil War. In the space of 90 minutes, he takes you through the Reconstruction period, The Gilded Age, the Depression, World War II and The [...]

“Angels We Have Heard On High” Played with Broccoli

≡ Category: Music, Random | ≅ Leave a Comment

Classic!

Subscribe to Our Feed

The 13th Amendment

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Film | ≅ 2 Comments

This week, CNN announced the winners of the iReport Film Festival, the network’s first user-generated short film competition. The festival “challenged filmmakers to document this year’s presidential campaign from their personal vantage point, whether they were volunteering for a campaign or had compelling stories about this election they wanted to document creatively.” And the Grand [...]

The Political Wire

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Television | ≅ Leave a Comment

I’ve spent the past several months working through The Wire on DVD. A simply brilliant show. (Here’s a recap of Season 1 in case you don’t know what you’re missing. And for even more recaps click here.) Now some members of the cast, the good guys and the bad, have rolled out a commercial encouraging [...]

Darwin’s Legacy

≡ Category: Science, Stanford | ≅ 3 Comments

For weeks, it’s been one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes: Created by the Cassiopeia Project, “Evolution” (iTunesU) offers a series of video podcasts that explains what scientists know about evolution in a visually appealing format. (If you don’t have an iPod, you can always watch the series on your computer by downloading iTunes here.)
This [...]

Elephant Jumping On Trampoline

≡ Category: Random | ≅ 1 Comment

This is half art/half random, or maybe it’s better to say half random/half art. Anyway, it calls to mind one of our popular posts (Elephant Painting) from months to go. So here it is, an animated short by Nicolas Deveaux.

Subscribe to Our Feed

What Makes a Poem a Poem in 60 Seconds

≡ Category: Literature | ≅ 5 Comments

A rather clever mini, mini-lecture from Charles Bernstein, poet and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, wouldn’t you say?

Subscribe to Our Feed

Creativity, Flow and the Source of Happiness

≡ Category: Psychology | ≅ 2 Comments

Speaking at the TED Conference, famed psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks what’s the source of happiness? And his answer comes down to this: Beyond a certain point (and it’s not very far), money doesn’t affect happiness too much. Rather, as his research shows, we tend to be most happy when we get immersed, almost lost in, being creative [...]

Ali G and Noam Chomsky Talk Linguistics

≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ 2 Comments

Here it goes, and it’s added to our YouTube playlist.

Subscribe to Our Feed

From Washington to Lincoln – The Geography of US Presidential Elections

≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ 1 Comment

We have now posted Lecture 2 of our ongoing course, The Geography of US Presidential Elections, presented by Stanford’s Continuing Studies program. You can download it via TunesU here (in high res) or you can watch it embedded below. This week, Professor Martin Lewis takes you through America’s early formative elections, starting with Washington and Jefferson’s electoral [...]

Ninth Circuit Judge on The Dating Game Way Back When

≡ Category: Law, Random | ≅ Leave a Comment

The name Alex Kozinski probably won’t mean much to many of you. But if you’re a lawyer, or a Supreme Court watcher, you’ll know that he’s the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (a really prestigious position). Rather recently, he’s been associated with a highly visible pornography scandal [...]

25% Off Any One Item at Borders

≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment

A quick heads up: Borders is offering 25% any one item this week (until 10/26). If you want to take advantage and buy a book, CD or film on the cheap, just click through here and get the coupon code:

Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” Animated

≡ Category: Theater, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment

and condensed…

Subscribe to Our Feed

Paul Krugman On The Financial Crisis And the Coming Recession

≡ Category: Business, Current Affairs | ≅ Leave a Comment

How does the new winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics think the US government should manage the big looming recession? And does the New Deal offer a model for confronting this new jam? Have a listen: iTunes – Rss Feed – MP3.

Free Tech How-To Books

≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment

Thanks to BoingBoing, you can get free access (for 30 days) to three popular tech manuals:
• JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
• Learning Perl
• Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML
Get details here

Electing a US President in Plain English

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ Leave a Comment

We’re less than two weeks away (finally, at long last) from the next US presidential election, and that means that it’s a good time to decipher America’s convoluted electoral system. So here’s a piece from The Common Craft Show, which does it in a fairly creative way:

 
Subscribe to Our Feed

Your Digital Magazine Rack

≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment

A quick fyi: Alltop is a new web service (created by Guy Kawasaki) that aggregates RSS feeds about popular topics. Name a topic and they bring you stories from “the best websites and blogs” on the issue. If you want to see a sample of what I’m talking about, you can take a look at [...]

More Free Classical

≡ Category: Music | ≅ 1 Comment

Until November 24, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, based in the Netherlands, is offering 10 symphonies as free downloads. You have to register, but once you do, you can download high quality performances of Beethoven, Mahler, Brahms, and more. Hat tip to Metafilter for pointing this one out.

The Sun and Its Magnetic Beauty

≡ Category: Science | ≅ Leave a Comment

In case you missed them, I wanted to flag some photos that made their way around the blogosphere yesterday, thanks in part to BoingBoing. The Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, operated by the Institute for Solar Physics, has captured images that let you see the sun in an entirely new way. Below, you’ll find a detailed view [...]