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Here are some links that our kind readers sent our way this week. Enjoy:
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Here are some links that our kind readers sent our way this week. Enjoy:
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Our foreign language lesson podcasts got a little love yesterday from the great Lifehacker site. Many thanks to them. For any visitors who aren’t familiar with our other podcast collections, here’s a list that you’ll want to peruse.
Arts & Culture – Audio Books – Foreign Language Lessons – News & Information – Science – Technology – University (General) – University (B-School) – University (Law School) – Podcast Primer
Ever wondered what Second Life is and if you should care about it? Imagine a 3-D immersive game where you control an avatar and travel through constructed environments–and now take away the game part. What’s left is a fairly wide-open creative space where users can create and sell in-game stuff–houses, objects, clothing, etc–or engage in group activities ranging from concerts to political activism to prostitution. It’s free to join but to own land (and receive a larger stipend of in-game cash) you have to sign up for a monthly subscription.
The online community has been growing fairly rapidly over the past year or two, now boasting over one million users who logged in during the past month. Big business has taken notice of the trend, and companies from Toyota, Microsoft and Sony BMG have all launched virtual presences in SL.
The service has been receiving some of its most enthusiastic press from educators who hope to take advantage of the free-for-all 3D spaces as tools for pedagogy. You can find a lot of engineering schools, medical institutions and, of course, the Star Trek Museum of Science on this list of science places in SL. The world’s creators actively encourage educational participation and teachers from many universities (including Harvard, Columbia and more) have tried running courses or training sessions in the simulation. There is at least one skeptic out there, though: Clark Aldrich, a consultant for an e-learning company, offers up ten things he sees missing from SL as an educational tool.
Whether or not Second Life becomes a permanent fixture of the Internet landscape, it’s certainly captured a lot of peoples’ attention. To learn more about it check out the plethora of podcasts available on iTunes. At the very least this world does offer some zany opportunities for multiple layers of simulation. Check out this video of a U2 “virtual tribute band” performing a concert with lovingly rendered tribute avatars:
Once upon a time we told you about TED Talks, the annual conference that brings together the world’s “thought-leaders, movers and shakers.” These talks have been available on iTunes in both audio (iTunes – Feed) and video (iTunes – Feed). And now you can apparently find some on YouTube. Below we highlight a few.
First up, Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor who recently wrote Stumbling On Happiness, a book that uses psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy and behavioral economics to show how our imagination — our unique ability to predict the future — usually interferes with our basic ability to be happy. Here you get some kernels of thought from the bestselling book, and some insights into why a paraplegic is often as happy as a lottery winner. Good stuff here. Next, we give you Al Gore doing a little stand-up comedy (no kidding) and speaking on global warming, much as he does in An Inconvenient Truth. No other introduction is needed. Lastly, we give you Dan Dennett, Director |
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Next up a series of music blogs, all of which figure into our growing collection of Culture Blogs. As always, these lists are a work in progress, and if you feel that we’ve missed something great, please feel free to email us and let us know.
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What partly explains this shift is how the war has been refracted through the Middle Eastern media. Ever since Al Jazeera started airing in 1996 (you can watch it here in English), the Middle East has had its own free media and seen events through its own lens. And, in the case of the Iraq war, it has meant seeing what we don’t see — the unsanitized war, the bodies, the leveled buildings, etc. — but also much more mundane things that shape overall impressions. It means seeing, for example, how tone-deaf US spokesmen in Baghdad show up at journalist conferences in Abu Dhabi (a completely non-military event outside of Iraq) in army fatigues, leaving essentially the impression that the US sees the larger Middle East as a military stage. Pintak knows the region well, and he articulates America’s perception problem in a balanced and thoughtful way. Check it out here: (iTunes – MP3) Also, on a related note, anyone who wants to digg more deeply into Middle Eastern perspectives may want to explore Mosaic: World News from the Middle East (iTunes Feed). This Peabody award-winning podcast provides a daily compilation of television news reports from across the Middle East. The news comes from independent and state-run news services, and it is all translated into English. |
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Over the past six months, we have created a series of resources that let you access university resources for free and on-the-fly. Below, we have centralized these materials in one place to give you quick access:
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Smart music at no cost. Hard to beat.