The gender stereotypes might be backward-looking (we’ll make up for it later in the day), but the technological vision is on the mark, right down to email, e-commerce and online banking. Of course, these weren’t the only people imagining an electronic, connected world during the 1960s.

In 1964, the futurist Arthur C. Clarke peered into the future and saw our connectedness coming. By 2000, he predicted, “We could be in instant contact with each other, wherever we may be,” and “it will be possible in that age … for a man to conduct his business from Tahiti or Bali just as well as he could from London.”

And then Marshall McLuhan understood the trend too. He saw electronic media turning our world into a social one, a world where services like Facebook and Twitter would make complete sense. You can watch the prescient Marshall McLuhan right here.  H/T Sasa

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The Internet Imagined in 1969 is a post from: Open Culture

The nomadic people of Mongolia don’t stay put very long. They’re always on the move. They travel light. And they build a yurt, their home away from home, wherever they go. The yurt (or “ger” as they call it) takes but an hour to build — something that Daniel Grossman (National Geographic) and Julia Kumari Drapkin (The Nature Conservancy) capture wonderfully in a two-minute time lapse video. The soundtrack was recorded at the Choijin Lama Temple Museum in Ulaanbator, the Mongolian capital.

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The Instant Mongolian Home is a post from: Open Culture

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

You can read the rest here…

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying is a post from: Open Culture

In the mid-1990s, Stephen Fry, the British actor and comedian, had a moment of crisis. He recalled in 2006:

Eleven years ago, in the early hours of the morning, I came down from my flat in central London. I went into my garage, sealed the door with a duvet I’d brought and got into my car. I sat there for at least, I think, two hours in the car, my hands on the ignition key. It was, you know, a suicide attempt, not a cry for help.

Fry didn’t end up killing himself. We know that. Instead, he left the country, heading first to Europe, then to the US where he sought treatment and, at the age of 37, received a diagnosis explaining “the massive highs and miserable lows” he had experienced his whole life: manic depression.

Once he learned to live with manic depression, Fry decided to talk publicly about his struggle and break the taboos around the condition. So, in partnership with the BBC, Fry helped produce the 2006 documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive. Originally aired in two parts (find Part 1 above, Part 2 here), the program puts Fry’s personal experience center stage. But it also brings Fry to talk with other celebrities (Richard Dreyfuss & Carrie Fisher) and everyday people living with bipolar disorder.

Upon the documentary’s release, the BBC published a helpful companion booklet that explores what it means to live with and manage bipolar disorder. You can read it online here. You might also want to watch this related video coming out of Stanford: Robert Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression

The documentary itself resides in our collection of 450 Free Movies Online. H/T Science Dump.

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Stephen Fry: The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive is a post from: Open Culture

Remember Jeff Harris? He’s the photographer who has documented every day of his life with a self-portrait since 1999. Now meet Madeline Schichtel, a young production assistant living in LA. She recorded her daily life in 2011 with a Canon Powershot, then edited each day down to a meaningful one-second shot, creating the video montage “This is What Madeline Did.” Wired writer Steve Silberman (aka @SteveSilberman) found the video unexpectedly charming, and we have to agree. “All My Friends,” by LCD Soundsystem, serves as the soundtrack for this endearing little film.

Madeline 365: A Year in the Life is a post from: Open Culture

It started simply enough in 1999. Jeff Harris, a photographer based in Toronto, took his first self-portrait, something he has since repeated every day. His visual diary now amounts to 4,748 photos and they tell a very personal story. They show the passing of time, some fairly normal moments, but also some difficult ones. In November 2008, Harris was diagnosed with cancer, and his experience with it — his surgery, radiation treatment, eventual paralysis in one leg — all gets visually documented by his project. The video above, originally appearing on TIME’s web site, takes you inside Harris’ project. The clip runs 5 minutes.

via @SteveSilberman

Life in 4,748 Self-Portraits is a post from: Open Culture

When you think of Audrey Hepburn, you think of Roman Holiday, the 1953 film that launched her career. How can you forget Hepburn as Princess Anne? Originally, the part was written for Elizabeth Taylor, then a major star. But something happened during the casting that changed all of that. In his biography of Ms. Hepburn, the author Barry Paris writes:

Her Roman Holiday test took place at Pinewood Studio in London, September 18, 1951, under [Thorold] Dickinson’s direction. “We did some scenes out of the script,” he said, but “Paramount also wanted to see what Audrey was actually like not acting a part, so I did an interview with her. We loaded a thousand feet of film into a camera and every foot of it went on this conversation. She talked about her experiences in the war, the Allied raid on Arnhem, and hiding out in a cellar. A deeply moving thing.”

Later, so the story goes, the director William Wyler watched the footage (shown above) in Rome and found it irresistible. He claimed: “She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, ‘That’s the girl!’”

In watching the footage, one thing will leap out. Hepburn’s adolescence was hardly suited for a princess. Living in the Dutch town of Arnhem during World War II, she experienced the harsh German occupation firsthand and suffered from malnutrition, acute anemia, respiratory problems, and edema by the war’s end. It was a formative experience that later made her a devoted activist for children’s rights.

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Audrey Hepburn’s Screen Test for Roman Holiday (1953) is a post from: Open Culture

In 1976 a youthful fan named Stuart sent John Lennon a six-page list of questions. The former Beatle responded with answers, along with a child-like drawing of a lamb standing on a cloud, saying, “Hi Stuart.”

Stuart wanted to know a few things, like what sort of album Lennon was working on. “Until it’s been on tape,” Lennon replied, “I never know what it will be.” He also wondered if the famous musician was writing anything, like perhaps an autobiography. “Yes, I have been writing, but not an autobiography. I’ve noticed that people tend to DIE after writing their life story.”

The young fan included a list of words and names, along with the question: How would you characterize the following figures in one word?

• John: “Great”
• Paul: “Extraordinary”
• George: “Lost”
• Ringo: “Friend”
• Elvis: “Fat”
• Yoko: “Love”
• Howard Cosell: “Hum”

Lennon signed off with, “It was a pleasure, hope ya dig it/John Lennon.”

via Lists of Note

John Lennon Sums Up Elvis, Yoko & Howard Cosell in One Word is a post from: Open Culture

Pickin’ & Trimmin’ is a documentary short film from 2008 profiling “The Barbershop” in Drexel, North Carolina, where Lawrence Anthony and David Shirley have barbered for decades, and where bluegrass musicians have jammed in the back room every weekend. Directed by Matt Morris, the award-winning film showcases the people and atmosphere of a small community in rural America, perhaps better than anything you’ve seen before. And the music played in the back room is simply wonderful.

You can find photos taken at The Barbershop on Flickr here. The film itself has been added to the Documentary section of our Free Movies collection.

Update: Lawrence Anthony, the head barber portrayed in this film, passed away in 2009. His son continues to run The Barbershop, but severe water damage has left the shop in need of repair. Here is a video showing the current situation.

By profession, Matthias Rascher teaches English and History at a High School in northern Bavaria, Germany. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twitter.

Pickin’ & Trimmin’ in a Down-Home North Carolina Barbershop: Award-Winning Short Film is a post from: Open Culture

18 months after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, the polemical writer Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. His fans began to fear the worst last month when Hitchens, suddenly hospitalized with pneumonia, couldn’t attend a widely-publicized debate in London. The promoters of the event, Intelligence², quickly turned the debate into a celebration of Hitchens’ life. Stephen Fry played host, and Richard Dawkins, Christopher Buckley, Salman Rushdie, Lewis Lapham, Martin Amis, James Fenton and Sean Penn all paid tribute. Above, we’re highlighting the poignant video once again.

Also fittingly, we’re bringing back another clip that features Hitchens discussing how his struggle with cancer affected his views on the question of an afterlife. “I would say it fractionally increases my contempt for the false consolation element of religion and my dislike for the dictatorial and totalitarian part of it,” he responded. “It’s considered perfectly normal in this society to approach dying people who you don’t know but who are unbelievers and say, ‘Now are you gonna change your mind?’ That is considered almost a polite question.” During the event taped last February (watch the full program here), Hitchens made his views pretty clear: No deathbed conversion for me, thanks, but it was good of you to ask.

And finally we cap things off with a montage of 22 comments from Christopher Hitchens. When you add them all up, you get some vintage Hitchens — everything that made him sometimes loved, sometimes hated but always respected.

If you have never spent time reading Hitch, we’re going to recommend his last piece for Vanity Fair — his reflection on Nietzsche’s famous line “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” It was published last week, and it’s quite the coda.

RIP Christopher Hitchens: Stephen Fry Pays Tribute, Hitch Rejects the Deathbed Conversion is a post from: Open Culture