The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Comedy, Google | ≅ Leave a Comment
He appears in the well-known Mac v. PC commercials, on The Daily Show and occasionally on This American Life. John Hodgman is kind of everywhere these days, and now, promoting his new book, More Information Than You Require, he hits the stage at Google and gives the crowd an offbeat hour talk.
Related Content:
The British Slant [...]
≡ Category: Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ 31 Comments
Folks, it’s time for a new group project. Last year, I asked you to tell us about your Life-Changing Books, and we pulled together an excellent list that many readers have enjoyed. Now we want to know: where do you go for intelligent video? If you list the sites that you like best — TED, [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ Leave a Comment
If you’re wondering what the much-discussed waterboarding experience is all about, you can watch it in real time. Above, the public intellectual, Christopher Hitchens, goes through the real deal. Although often known for taking left-wing positions, Hitchens supported aggressive action in the Middle East and particularly the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for [...]
≡ Category: Books, Literature | ≅ 1 Comment
When I develop the curriculum for Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, I often like to create courses around big, hard books that students have long intended to read, but have never quite pulled off: James Joyce’s Ulysess, Plato’s Republic, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, you get the picture. For many students, it takes a course, or something equivalent, [...]
≡ Category: Books, Film | ≅ 2 Comments
From the Freakonomics blog:
We’ve written before about the occasional hyper-critical comments on certain blogs, but such comments are like valentines compared to what some Amazon.com customers heap upon The Rolling Stones, The Godfather, The Diary of Anne Frank, and other standards. The Cynical-C blog lists the most caustic of these every day.
≡ Category: Apple, Audio Books, iPhone | ≅ 1 Comment
The iPhone just got a bit smarter. Thanks to this new, free app, you can listen to 1800 free audio books on your Apple device. The app lets you listen to public domain audio books from the great Librivox (whose works, read by volunteers, also appear in our Free Audio Books collection). The ad-supported software is straightforward [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
From Stanford’s Facebook Page:
Thanks so much for becoming a Fan of Stanford University on Facebook! As a small token of our appreciation, we’ve teamed up with the iTunes team to bring you a special summer mix with 30 free songs. Download at http://bit.ly/stanford-summer-mix (US residents only).
While we’re talking Facebook, you can become an Open Culture [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Technology, Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment
A good clip that comes from Alec Couros’s 80+ Videos for Tech & Media Literacy. It features comedian Louis C.K. offering his funny thoughts on how our generation handles new technology. We’ve added it to our YouTube Favorites.
≡ Category: Art | ≅ Leave a Comment
“Masterpieces of Western Art” has been a degree requirement at Columbia University since 1947. The long-established course is not your traditional historical survey. Rather, it focuses on a select number of artists and monuments, with the larger goal of helping students think critically about art. Over on iTunes, you can find some videos from the course. [...]
≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ Leave a Comment
Alec Couros, a professor of educational technology and media at the University of Regina, spends his days (among other things) helping new teachers become technologically and media literate. And he runs a well-established blog – Open Thinking — that helps teachers stay ahead of the technology curve. Last week, he pulled together a very handy collection of videos that touch on [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Comedy | ≅ Leave a Comment
File under comedy…
See direct link to video here.
≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Most Popular | ≅ 21 Comments
Today we’re featuring a piece by Seth Harwood, an innovative crime fiction writer who has used the tools of Web 2.0 to launch his writing career. Below, he gives you an inside look at how he went from podcasting his books to landing a book deal with Random House. If you want to learn more [...]
≡ Category: Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Interviewed over at Edge.org, Jonah Lehrer (Contributing Editor at Wired and the author of the new book How We Decide) begins:
How do you take [the brain], this piece of meat that runs on 10 watts of electricity, and how do you study it in its actual context, which is that it’s not a brain in a [...]
≡ Category: Web/Tech | ≅ 1 Comment
There has been a lot of buzz around Wolfram|Alpha, the “computational knowledge engine” that was unveiled earlier this week. To understand what this new engine is all about, you can watch this shorter introductory video, or watch the lengthy talk above by Stephen Wolfram at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. As you’ll see, [...]
≡ Category: Random | ≅ 1 Comment
A nice creative use of Legos. For $55, you can build The Guggenheim Museum and Fallingwater, two Frank Lloyd Wright creations, with Legos. That’s right up there with Classic Photographs Remade Lego Style.
via BoingBoing
≡ Category: Music | ≅ 1 Comment
Back in March 1970, Miles Davis was the opening act for Neil Young at the Fillmore East in NYC. Not exactly the most likely combo. But that’s what concert promoter Bill Graham put together.
You can listen to mp3s of Miles’ live performance. (Make sure you scroll down.) What you get here is not bebop Miles Davis, or [...]
≡ Category: Online Courses | ≅ Leave a Comment
Recently, Time Magazine ran a piece called “Logging On to the Ivy League” that tells a story we’re all familiar with here — many major universities are now recording courses and making them freely available online. (See our full list of courses here.) Somewhat ironically, the article mostly features courses from non ivy league universities [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Books, e-books | ≅ 1 Comment
The ground underneath traditional publishing has shifted once again. Scribd, the “YouTube of documents,” has opened up a new store where authors can upload and sell their books. And here’s the clincher. You don’t need a costly gadget (like the Kindle) to read these digital books. Any computer with an internet connection will do. And [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs | ≅ Leave a Comment
The media wanted to turn this into a bitter controversy. But it turned out to be far less than that. Aside from a few hecklers, the crowd at Notre Dame’s graduation gave Barack Obama, the commencement speaker, a genuinely warm reception. And what the president gave back is a speech whose moral content is hard [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
A quick fyi: On Monday morning, Stanford Continuing Studies opens up registration for its summer lineup of online writing courses. Offered in partnership with the Stanford Creative Writing Program (one of the most distinguished writing programs in the country), these online courses give beginning and advanced writers, no matter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with [...]
©2006-2010 Open Culture. All rights reserved.
