Time Magazine Picks Favorite Open Courses

in Online Courses | May 19th, 2009

Recent­ly, Time Mag­a­zine ran a piece called “Log­ging On to the Ivy League” that tells a sto­ry we’re all famil­iar with here — many major uni­ver­si­ties are now record­ing cours­es and mak­ing them freely avail­able online. (See our full list of cours­es here.) Some­what iron­i­cal­ly, the arti­cle most­ly fea­tures cours­es from non ivy league uni­ver­si­ties (Berke­ley, Stan­ford, MIT, etc.) But maybe I’m being too picky in men­tion­ing that. Per­haps I should sim­ply tell you what cours­es Time likes best. (These are high­light­ed in the print edi­tion.) First up: the often-men­tioned physics cours­es taught by MIT’s Wal­ter Lewin (more on that here). Next, Mar­tin Lewis’ course, The Geog­ra­phy of US Elec­tions, which comes out of Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies (my day job). Loy­al read­ers will remem­ber that we fea­tured Lewis’ course on Open Cul­ture last fall. And then there’s Mar­i­an Dia­mond’s Human Anato­my course. We’ve post­ed the first lec­ture of this pop­u­lar UC Berke­ley course above. You can access the com­plete course via these links: iTunes — Feed — YouTube. Enjoy.

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The New Digital Book Marketplace at Scribd

in Amazon Kindle, Books, e-books | May 19th, 2009

The ground under­neath tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­ing has shift­ed once again. Scribd, the “YouTube of doc­u­ments,” has opened up a new store where authors can upload and sell their books. And here’s the clinch­er. You don’t need a cost­ly gad­get (like the Kin­dle) to read these dig­i­tal books. Any com­put­er with an inter­net con­nec­tion will do. And appar­ent­ly, you can use smart phones as well.

As not­ed in the LA Times, Kem­ble Scott, a best­selling author from San Fran­cis­co, has pub­lished his sec­ond book — The Sow­er — on Scribd, and it goes for $2 per copy. Of that, Scott will get to keep $1.60, which beats the cut he received for his first tra­di­tion­al­ly-pub­lished book. You can watch a video intro­duc­ing the new dig­i­tal book mar­ket­place above. You can also read more about it in The New York Times. If you have some thoughts about Scrib­d’s new move, let us know in the com­ments below.

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Obama at Notre Dame

in Current Affairs | May 18th, 2009

The media want­ed to turn this into a bit­ter con­tro­ver­sy. But it turned out to be far less than that. Aside from a few heck­lers, the crowd at Notre Dame’s grad­u­a­tion gave Barack Oba­ma, the com­mence­ment speak­er, a gen­uine­ly warm recep­tion. And what the pres­i­dent gave back is a speech whose moral con­tent is hard to take issue with, no mat­ter where you sit on the polit­i­cal spec­trum. A uniter, not a divider. Part 1 above. And then Part 2 and  Part 3.

As a quick aside, while Notre Dame had the tact to give Oba­ma the per­func­to­ry hon­orary degree, Ari­zona State did­n’t, and here’s what Jon Stew­art’s Dai­ly Show had to say about that.

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Stanford Online Writing Courses — The Summer Lineup

in Uncategorized | May 18th, 2009

A quick fyi: On Mon­day morn­ing, Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies opens up reg­is­tra­tion for its sum­mer line­up of online writ­ing cours­es. Offered in part­ner­ship with the Stan­ford Cre­ative Writ­ing Pro­gram (one of the most dis­tin­guished writ­ing pro­grams in the coun­try), these online cours­es give begin­ning and advanced writ­ers, no mat­ter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gift­ed writ­ing instruc­tors. As you will see, there are a cou­ple of cours­es offered in con­junc­tion with The New York Times. The idea here is that you’ll learn writ­ing from a Stan­ford  writ­ing instruc­tor and then get your work reviewed by a New York Times book crit­ic. Quite a perk. And the cours­es sell out quick­ly. For more infor­ma­tion, click here, or sep­a­rate­ly check out the FAQ and the tes­ti­mo­ni­als.

Caveat emp­tor: These class­es are not free, and I helped set them up. So while I whole­heart­ed­ly believe in these cours­es, you can take my views with a grain of salt.

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Ecological Intelligence

in Current Affairs, Science | May 17th, 2009

Daniel Gole­man has fol­lowed up his pre­vi­ous best­sellers, Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Social Intel­li­gence, with a new one — Eco­log­i­cal Intel­li­gence: How Know­ing the Hid­den Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Every­thing. Eco­log­i­cal intel­li­gence is a way for us to avert envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe, and it depends on our know­ing whether prod­ucts are tru­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly or not. These days many prod­ucts look “green” — or they’re mar­ket­ed that way — but when you scratch the sur­face, you real­ize that these new prod­ucts are often more dam­ag­ing than the “non-green” prod­ucts they’re meant to replace. This week, Gole­man was inter­viewed by Bill Moy­ers. With this 17 minute video, you’ll get a quick intro­duc­tion to what “eco­log­i­cal intel­li­gence” means, and how you can become a smarter con­sumer. Along the way, Gole­man rec­om­mends two handy web sites that will let you assess the envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness of prod­ucts. One is called GoodGuide (which is also avail­able as a free iPhone app). The oth­er is SkinDeep.

Relat­ed Video:

The Sto­ry of Stuff in 20 Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

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Timothy Leary’s Wild Ride and the Folsom Prison Interview

in History | May 15th, 2009

Tim­o­thy Leary had a wild ride. He start­ed as a Har­vard psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor, then went coun­ter­cul­ture in 1960s and advo­cat­ed the ther­a­peu­tic and spir­i­tu­al ben­e­fits of LSD. Before too long, his legal prob­lems began. In 1965 and 1968, he was arrest­ed for pos­sess­ing mar­i­jua­na (less than a half ounce) and giv­en a 10 year prison sen­tence. But he escaped from a low secu­ri­ty prison and fled to Alge­ria with the help of The Weath­er­men (any­one remem­ber Bill Ayers?). He moved then to Switzer­land, Lebanon, and even­tu­al­ly Afghanistan. But, being the “most dan­ger­ous man in Amer­i­ca” accord­ing to Richard Nixon, Leary was deport­ed back to the US. And his next stop was Fol­som State Prison, where, start­ing in 1974, he was locked in soli­tary con­fine­ment and even housed next to Charles Man­son for a time. Above, we fea­ture a clip from a Fol­som prison inter­view. The com­plete 27 minute inter­view can be watched over at the Inter­net Archive, which has cre­at­ed a big Tim­o­thy Leary Video Archive. As a quick foot­note, Leary was released from prison in 1976 by Gov­er­nor Jer­ry Brown (who is now the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Cal­i­for­nia).

Relat­ed Video:

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: BBC Video

Grate­ful Dead Free Con­cert Archive

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Getting Hired and Fired by The New Yorker, As Told by Tweets

in Media, Random | May 14th, 2009

After 17 years of climb­ing the lad­der, Dan Baum final­ly land­ed his dream job at The New York­er. But things did­n’t work out quite as he planned. On Twit­ter this week, Baum tells the sto­ry of his rise and fall. You can read a con­sol­i­dat­ed Twit­ter-style tran­script here. A pret­ty intrigu­ing look at what hap­pens inside the mag­a­zine world.

PS Find us on Twit­ter. We’re @openculture

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Frank Lloyd Wright and Other Vintage TV

in Television | May 14th, 2009

Above, we fea­ture Frank Lloyd Wright, who appeared on What’s My Line?, Amer­i­ca’s longest-run­ning game show, back in June 1956. Dur­ing its eigh­teen sea­sons, the show fea­tured many cul­tur­al VIPs, includ­ing Alfred Hitch­cock, Sal­vador Dali, Grou­cho Marx, Carl Sand­burg and oth­ers.

Along sim­i­lar lines, it’s worth not­ing that YouTube now hosts a series of old-time tele­vi­sion shows. With­in this archive, you’ll find the com­plete episodes of The Lone Ranger, Bonan­za, You Bet Your Life, Burns and Allen, and Star Trek.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vin­tage Radio Archive: The Lone Ranger, Abbott & Costel­lo, and Bob Hope

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.