The best free cultural & educational media on the web
The best free cultural & educational media on the web
≡ Category: Life | ≅ Leave a Comment
You stare. You get stared at. It happens countless times every day. But have you ever pondered what’s really happening here? Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, a professor at Emory University, has been giving it some thought. You can get a quick introduction above, and more extensive thinking in her new book, Staring: How We Look. Thanks Nicole [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
The University of South Carolina hosts a few gems, including F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) reading lines from Shakespeare’s Othello. Or, more specifically, Othello’s oration to Venetian senators.
You can access the sound file in two formats here (aiff) and here (real audio).
This comes to us via Mike. Thanks to all who started sending good [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Books, Language Lessons | ≅ 2 Comments
From the TIMES ONLINE:
More than 65,000 19th-century works of fiction from the British Library’s collection are to be made available for free downloads by the public from this spring.
Owners of the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader device, will be able to view well known works by writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas [...]
≡ Category: Physics | ≅ 2 Comments
A lighter piece for Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, this clip isn’t exactly heady. And, yes, it botches some facts (archers apparently shoot from 70 meters, not 20 yards). But, nonetheless, it gives you the basic physics of Drew Brees’ passing game. Brees will be playing QB for the New Orleans Saints tonight, and, as you’ll [...]
≡ Category: Language Lessons | ≅ Leave a Comment
How can you learn foreign languages online? Last week, The New York Times outlined a good number of options for its readers. And, for days, the article remained one of the most widely read pieces on the NYT site. Today, the paper issued a followup post, highlighting yet more ways to learn languages digitally. And happily [...]
≡ Category: Math, Science, TED Talks | ≅ 1 Comment
Our reader Garnet sets the stage for this video: “Mathematicians have long declared that geometrical hyperbolic space could not be modeled in the real world. Now it’s been done, through crochet! Watch TED video science writer Margaret Wertheim explain how the art of crochet emulates sea slugs creating coral structures in hyperbolic space, using art [...]
≡ Category: Film | ≅ Leave a Comment
Alfred Hitchcock loved making cameo appearances in his own films. Apparently, he made 37 such cameos over a 50 year period. The appearances can be tough to spot. So the video above helps point out many of them.
If you’re looking for complete Hitchcock films, then head over to our collection of Free Movies Online. There, [...]
≡ Category: Education | ≅ 2 Comments
Great message. Give it a minute to get going. Performed by Taylor Mali at the Bowery Poetry Club on November 12, 2005. Thanks Thomas for sharing.
This clip is now added to our YouTube favorites.
≡ Category: Random | ≅ 2 Comments
Somewhere during your day, you spot a great video, an enriching audio lecture, or an excellent free ebook. And you think, that’s perfect for Open Culture. So you shoot us a quick note, and the next thing you know, your personal discovery is live on the site, being shared with thousands of like-minded readers from [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Listen up. The clip above features the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice. It comes from a 1937 BBC radio broadcast. The talk, entitled “Craftsmanship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” You can find a transcript of the recorded portion here. Thanks Kirstin for helping get this nugget out there.
via mhpbooks
≡ Category: Philosophy, Religion | ≅ Leave a Comment
Bertrand Russell, the Nobel Prize-winning philosopher, mathematician and peace activist, died 40 years ago today. And so, above, we rewind the video tape to 1959, to Russell explaining why he doesn’t believe in God. This was a viewpoint that he otherwise elaborated upon in his well-known lecture/essay, Why I Am Not a Christian. For more vintage [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Following J.D. Salinger’s death last week, The New York Times has created an interactive map that retraces the footsteps of Salinger’s most famous character, Holden Caulfield. The Times introduces the map as follows:
Trace Holden Caulfield’s perambulations around Manhattan in “The Catcher in the Rye” to places like the Edmont Hotel, where Holden had an awkward [...]
≡ Category: Law, e-books | ≅ 5 Comments
A quick fyi on a free eBook from the University of Chicago. (It’s an offer that seems well timed, given this weekend’s copyright debate on OC.) Here are the details from UC:
Offered as a free e-book for one day only, February 1: Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. “[Adrian Johns] traces the [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ 5 Comments
Great find by Robert B., who captions this clip: “the teenage Glenn Gould at his Canadian home.” Gould is playing here J.S.Bach’s Partita #2. Give this a minute to get going. It’s a pretty awesome display of Gould’s talents. Thanks for sharing Robert…
≡ Category: Physics, Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, Bohr and many other great scientists appear on paper currencies from around the world. Note that you can click on each image to see it in a higher resolution.
via @olfus
≡ Category: Media, Web/Tech | ≅ 19 Comments
Nina Paley and Jaron Lanier are facing off in a friendly, public radio smackdown, debating the pros and cons of open/free culture. (Listen to the audio below). As a quick refresher, Nina Paley got a good amount of press last year when she created Sita Sings the Blues, a prize-winning animated film, and then released it to [...]
≡ Category: Amazon Kindle, Apple, Books, e-books | ≅ 7 Comments
Today we have a guest post by William Rankin, director of educational innovation, associate professor of medieval literature, and Apple Distinguished Educator, Abilene Christian University. ACU was the first university in the world to announce a comprehensive one-to-one initiative based on iPhones and iPod touches designed to explore the impact of mobility in education. For [...]
≡ Category: Books, Life, Literature | ≅ 1 Comment
More sad news. J.D. Salinger, who brought us The Catcher in the Rye, has died at 91. Here’s the initial news release.
Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in [...]
≡ Category: Economics | ≅ 2 Comments
Russ Roberts, the George Mason University economist and host of EconTalk (iTunes – RSS Feed – Web Site) recently teamed up with John Papola, a television exec, to produce “Fear the Boom and Bust.” It’s a rap song/video with intellectual substance that follows this premise:
John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek, two of the great economists of [...]
≡ Category: Life, Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
Apparently, the Swedes call when they know you’ll be home. Worth a listen.
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