The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Comedy, Philosophy | ≅ 4 Comments
File under comedy. It’s slightly cheeky, at times little crass, but how often do the comedy and philosophy worlds collide? I mean, really? S. Peter Davis also has three minute takes on Descartes, Hume, Aristotle, Locke, Galileo, Pythagoras, and Aquinas. via Metafilter
≡ Category: History, Science | ≅ 4 Comments
This weekend marked the 154th birthday of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian/Croatian emigre whose work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering contributed to the birth of commercial electricity. Especially during the past year, his name has regained a fair amount of currency, not least because there’s a very sporty electric roadster now named after him. In honor [...]
≡ Category: Comedy, Philosophy | ≅ 5 Comments
In honor of the World Cup final, we revisit a classic Monty Python skit. The scene is the 1972 Munich Olympics. The event is a football/soccer match, pitting German philosophers against Greek philosophers. On the one side, the Germans — Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant, Marx and, um, Franz Beckenbauer. On the other side, Archimedes, Socrates, Plato and [...]
≡ Category: Random | ≅ 2 Comments
This week, the US celebrated its independence. And so it’s perhaps fitting to head into the weekend with John Wayne, an American icon, reciting and interpreting the Pledge of Allegiance. Long live the Duke… Find more vintage audio and video in our collection of Cultural Icons.
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Mark Twain died a good century ago. But new Twain writings keep coming out. Later this fall, his autobiography will hit bookstores for the first time. And just this week, PBS published online a new Twain essay called “Concerning the Interview.” It begins: No one likes to be interviewed, and yet no one likes to [...]
≡ Category: Art, Random | ≅ 3 Comments
It’s an unscientific point of view by BLU. Thanks @wesalwan for sending our way…
≡ Category: Science, Stanford | ≅ 4 Comments
Throughout the past year, Stanford’s School of Medicine and Stanford Continuing Studies (my day job) teamed up to offer The Stanford Mini Med School. Featuring more than thirty distinguished faculty, scientists, and physicians, this yearlong series of courses (three in total) offered students a dynamic introduction to the world of human biology, health and disease, and the groundbreaking [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ 1 Comment
Let’s rewind the video tape to 1957. A very young Jimmy Page appears on a BBC children’s talent show to play some skiffle. Mixing together strands of American blues, jazz, country and folk music, this style of music became all the rage in the UK during the 1950s. Lonnie Donegan got the craze going. And it [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Film | ≅ 1 Comment
With Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Barack Obama this week, we’ll hear some chatter about getting the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track. But, let’s be honest, no one is expecting any real breakthroughs here. Peace, love and understanding – the radicals and reactionaries won’t give you that these days. Only movie makers will, which brings us [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ 1 Comment
For Gustav Mahler’s birthday this week, we have Michael Tilson Thomas, director of the San Francisco Symphony … and the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, revisiting the profound impression Mahler’s music made on his own personal development. He recalls being introduced to Das Lied Von Der Erde when he was 13, and it marked an epiphanal dividing [...]
Get updates as soon as they go live, via RSS feed, email and now Twitter!
Get the latest from our Twitter Stream.
Why can't we be friends?
Got a link we should post? Send it our way!
©2006-2012 Open Culture. All rights reserved.
