The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Science, Video - Science | ≅ 2 Comments
Alex the Parrot spent his days working with animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg at Harvard and Brandeis. And, along the way, he upended the belief held by many scientists that birds lack basic intelligence and can only mimic words, and not really use them in any meaningful way. As you’ll see below, Alex (who died in 2007 [...]
≡ Category: Books | ≅ 10 Comments
Between 1968 and 1972, Stewart Brand published The Whole Earth Catalog. For Kevin Kelly, the Catalog was essentially “a paper-based database offering thousands of hacks, tips, tools, suggestions, and possibilities for optimizing your life.” For Steve Jobs, it was a “Bible” of his generation, a kind of Google 35 years before Google came along. (On a side [...]
≡ Category: Audio Books | ≅ 1 Comment
A quick fyi: We’ve spent some time beefing up our collection of Free Audio Books. The collection now features over 250 works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, all of which can be downloaded to your computer or mp3 player for free. Among the new additions you’ll find some media from The New Yorker Magazine, including a series of [...]
≡ Category: Comedy | ≅ Leave a Comment
What happens when Charlie Rose interviews himself and enters an “absurd world where illogic, inane dialogues, and open hostility rule?” You know, like a Beckett play? Watch the clip below and see. (Thanks to Scott for the heads up on this one, and we’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.)
≡ Category: Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
At the start of each new year, the Edge.org asks some of the world’s leading scientific thinkers a big enchilada question. This year, it’s “What Will Change Everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” Here you can find the answers given by 151 thinkers. (Collectively, the full set of [...]
≡ Category: Technology, Web/Tech | ≅ 10 Comments
We have here a short, catchy animated documentary that explains how we get from the 1950s to the internet that we know and love today. Along the way, it covers inventions ranging from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet. Have a look…
≡ Category: Film, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ 1 Comment
Over at his Think Again blog, Stanley Fish, the eminent literary critic, has listed his all-time favorite American films. The list is a good one, so we figured why not add some video clips to the mix, and give you a little taste of each classic. See the full list after the jump. And if [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ 2 Comments
A quick fyi: If you made a New Year’s resolution to become a serious writer, then you might be interested in these online writing courses offered by Stanford Continuing Studies (which, caveat emptor, I help oversee) and Stanford’s Creative Writing Program. These online courses give beginning and advanced writers, no matter where they live, the [...]
≡ Category: Psychology | ≅ 1 Comment
As we’re all wishing one another a “Happy New Year,” it seems like a good time to dwell on the whole concept of happiness. Is happiness hardwired? Does it depend on circumstance? Or on us? Can we will ourselves to happiness? And just what is happiness? Aired right after Christmas, this interview features Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [...]
≡ Category: Television | ≅ Leave a Comment
On the lighter side for a sleepy Sunday …. “The Big Snooze” (1946) was the last cartoon that animation director Bob Clampett ever worked on for Warner Brothers. The title? It’s an obvious play on the Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep, which was also turned into a film (starring Bogart and Bacall) in 1946. And the [...]
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