The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Random | ≅ 10 Comments
Yesterday, Jon Gordon (the host of Future Tense, a technology show aired by American Public Media) discussed the major tech innovations of the decade. At the end of the show (around the 49th minute), a caller asked: “What’s the neatest site, in terms of wow factor, that makes you say holy cow this is so [...]
≡ Category: Most Popular | ≅ 2 Comments
Couldn’t let you down. Couldn’t let the year end without giving you a “best of” list. So here it goes. A purely subjective list. 25 items. Some educational; some a little more entertaining; some popular, etc. I hope you enjoy, and you can always search through our complete archive here. Thanks all, and best wishes [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ 2 Comments
Yup, we mentioned Quentin Tarantino last week, and we’re doing it again this week because Rosario has unearthed this nice clip. In six snappy minutes, Tarantino (director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dog, Inglorious Basterds, etc) lists his favorites films made since 1992 — when he, himself, started making films. You’ll know some of these titles, [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Literature, Most Popular, e-books, iPhone | ≅ 1 Comment
Today, we’re rolling out a sizable collection of Free eBooks, most of them classics, that features major works written by James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Nietzsche and others. (We have even thrown in a little Paulo Coelho.) You’ll find 100+ free ebooks in total, and you can download the texts to your computer, smart phone (iPhone, [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Audio Books, Books, Literature | ≅ 4 Comments
Today’s free story: When They Were Calling You in for Dinner (listen here) or read it in the Charles River Review [To download the story and listen on your MP3 player, just right-click and "save file as..."]
Dear OC readers,
About a week ago, I posted here about my Publishing Experiment Take 1. I spoke of the need [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
It’s that time of the year. Or rather that time of the decade. It’s time for “best of” lists — good ones, often banal ones, and sometimes bad ones. Here’s one good list that might serve you well next year. Twenty-Five Essential Films of the 2000s features some films that you’ve undoubtedly seen (The Lord [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
One thing is for sure. David Lynch has never been conventional. Not now, and not during his early years. While putting together our collection of Free Movies Online, we unearthed several short films from the 1960s, when Lynch was getting his start. His very first film, Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times), appears above. Links [...]
≡ Category: Art, Life | ≅ Leave a Comment
Some very powerful images in this New York Times feature. But, taken together, they don’t say much good for 2009. Bring on the New Year…
≡ Category: Life | ≅ 1 Comment
To eat bacon sandwiches? Or not to eat bacon sandwiches? That’s the question that David Spiegelhalter, “Professor Risk” at Cambridge University, tackles in this short video examining stats, life, and whether we should err on the side of caution … or risk. This clip is part of Cambridge’s YouTube channel, which now appears in our Smart [...]
≡ Category: History | ≅ Leave a Comment
Let me quickly call your attention to an interview with Joseph Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian, who most recently published American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic. In this casual, wide-ranging conversation (listen below or here) with Russ Roberts, the host of EconTalk, Ellis talks through the founding years of [...]
Another “eggman913” moving art special. (Check out his full collection on YouTube.) This time, the images morph in sync with Bach’s Prelude And Fugue No. 6 In D Minor BWV 851 — Praeludium from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 performed by Daniel Ben Pienaar (available at Magnatune).
≡ Category: e-books | ≅ Leave a Comment
He’s a technology columnist for The New York Times, and the author of many popular technology manuals. And today, David Pogue writes about an experiment he conducted last year, testing the hypothesis that free e-books can drive sales of print copies (rather than eat into them). How did it work out? He writes:
My publisher, O’Reilly, [...]
≡ Category: Physics | ≅ Leave a Comment
BoingBoing is running a piece this morning on Chad Orzel’s new book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It’s good stuff, and it reminds me that Orzel also recently released a video that re-enacts the famous Bohr-Einstein debates, with, yes, dog puppets. You can watch above. Or, alternatively, you can get it on YouTube [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Books, Literature, e-books | ≅ 7 Comments
Those who read this blog regularly may remember my past posts (here, here and here) about the Amazon Kindle and recall that I have mixed feelings about it. You’ll also know that I’ve been interested in what authors such as J.A. Konrath have accomplished by releasing books on the Kindle itself. (Heck, some of you even [...]
≡ Category: Science | ≅ 4 Comments
The American Museum of Natural History gives you the whole enchilada in six minutes. The film, moving from Planet Earth to the Big Bang, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, appearing at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010. If you’re [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here we have Daniel Barenboim, the Argentinian conductor, leading the Berlin Philharmonic at Waldbuhne in Berlin, 1998. The clip is already pushing 1,000,000 views on YouTube. Part 1 is above. And Part 2 (already over 1 million views) is here. You can find a released recording on Amazon as well.
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
Note that one of Quentin Tarantino’s very early films (My Best Friend’s Birthday) can be found in our collection of Free Movies Online.
≡ Category: Books, Literature, e-books | ≅ Leave a Comment
This holiday season, I’m happy to have teamed up with eleven fabulous authors in offering a holiday sampler just for book lovers! Here you’ll find excerpts of a dozen new novels and nonfiction books by these New York Times bestselling authors, successful entrepreneurs, and talented storytellers. The excerpts can all be found in this nice PDF. [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Web/Tech | ≅ 2 Comments
A little case of disruptive technology in Computer Science 1301 at Georgia Tech…
via Andrew Baron
≡ Category: Psychology, Science, Stanford | ≅ 2 Comments
Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford biologist, is currently one of the most publicly accessible science writers in the country, perhaps best known for his book on stress, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In the lecture above, Sapolsky takes a hard look at depression. The topic is a little heavy. I’ll grant that. But, it’s also important. [...]
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