The Stanford Mini Med School: Visit the Web Site

in Science, Stanford | February 18th, 2010

Back in Jan­u­ary, we gave you a heads up about a new course avail­able online: The Stan­ford Mini Med School. Now it’s time for a quick update: the Stan­ford School of Med­i­cine has launched a hand­some web site that con­ve­nient­ly cen­tral­izes the video lec­tures in one place. 10 lec­tures (from the Fall term) now appear. Even­tu­al­ly, anoth­er 20 lec­tures will get post­ed. You can start watch­ing here.

For more cours­es, vis­it this big list of Free Online Cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties.

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Bill Gates on Energy: Innovating to Zero!

in Current Affairs, Science, TED Talks | February 18th, 2010

The major TED con­fer­ence wrapped up late last week. And now the videos start to roll out. Above Bill Gates (to quote TED) “unveils his vision for the world’s ener­gy future, describ­ing the need for mir­a­cles to avoid plan­e­tary cat­a­stro­phe and explain­ing why he’s back­ing a dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent type of nuclear reac­tor. The nec­es­sary goal? Zero car­bon emis­sions glob­al­ly by 2050.”

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Werner Herzog Reads Curious George

in Comedy, Film | February 18th, 2010

Ok, it’s not real­ly Wern­er Her­zog. Just a lit­tle play­ful satire. A guess at how the Ger­man direc­tor might reinterpret/read the chil­dren’s clas­sic Curi­ous George. This ver­sion is dark and exis­ten­tial.

via Abe Books

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The Science/Liberty Nexus

in History, Politics, Science | February 18th, 2010

You can’t get good democ­ra­cy with­out sci­ence, and you can’t get good sci­ence with­out democ­ra­cy. That’s why great polit­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic rev­o­lu­tions have his­tor­i­cal­ly gone hand-in-hand. It’s an intrigu­ing argu­ment that Tim­o­thy Fer­ris (UC Berke­ley) makes in his new book, The Sci­ence of Lib­er­ty, and debates in an inter­view with Michael Kras­ny, aired last week on KQED in San Fran­cis­co. You can stream the inter­view below, or access it via mp3 or iTunes.

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Deep Thinking on the Web

in Education | February 17th, 2010

This morn­ing, a New York Times edi­to­r­i­al is help­ing get the word out. Deep think­ing is alive and well on the web:

There is a lot of talk about how the Inter­net is dri­ving cul­ture ever low­er, but it also makes a wealth of seri­ous think­ing avail­able. From the com­fort of home, one can down­load free audio books by authors like Jane Austen and Joseph Con­rad and free pod­casts of uni­ver­si­ty lec­tures (openculture.com has an assort­ment of both).

The rest of the piece right­ly focus­es on a BBC pod­cast called In Our Time (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). It’s list­ed in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion, along with many oth­er thought­ful pro­grams that make mean­ing­ful sub­jects rel­e­vant to a broad­er, glob­al audi­ence. (For some­thing sim­i­lar in video, see our col­lec­tions of Intel­li­gent Video Sites and Smart YouTube Chan­nels.)

Yes, intel­li­gent media does­n’t dom­i­nate the web. But, it’s flour­ish­ing in the nich­es and crevices, and we want to bring it to the sur­face. Per­haps you’ll want to join us? If you’re inter­est­ed in con­tribut­ing to Open Cul­ture, we’re always look­ing for your sug­ges­tions. I have put togeth­er a page that out­lines our edi­to­r­i­al approach. Take a look, and if you find great pieces of intel­li­gent media while surf­ing the web, please send them our way. We thank you in advance.

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Carl Sandburg on “What’s My Line?”

in Literature, Poetry, Television | February 17th, 2010

What’s My Line? aired on CBS from 1950 to 1967, mak­ing it the longest-run­ning game show in Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion his­to­ry. Dur­ing its eigh­teen sea­sons, the show fea­tured hun­dreds of celebri­ties, includ­ing some of Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing cul­tur­al fig­ures. The clip above dusts off the 1960 appear­ance made by Carl Sand­burg, the poet, writer, and three time win­ner of the Pulitzer Prize. And now for a video that’s not all fun and games: here’s audio of Sand­burg read­ing his anti­war poem Grass. (You can also get more free audio record­ings of Sand­burg’s poet­ry over at the Inter­net Archive.)

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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Animated

in Art | February 15th, 2010

Falling­wa­ter was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935. Con­struc­tion began a year lat­er and was even­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed in 1939. Many con­sid­er Falling­wa­ter one of Wright’s finest cre­ations. Hence why Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine count­ed it as one of the 28 Places to See Before You Die. Now, thanks to the mini movie above, you can watch the build­ing of Falling­wa­ter take place right before your eyes, and then take a tour of the house. It’s all done in com­put­er graph­ics and runs 4+ min­utes. And, as one read­er tells us, the “video is as real as it gets.” You can learn more about the film and the house at this web site. Thanks Mike for the great tip.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Validation, or The Magic of Free Parking

in Comedy, Film | February 15th, 2010

Kurt Kuen­ne’s short film, “Val­i­da­tion,” has played at 34 film fes­ti­vals and won 17 awards. This 16 minute indie offers a “fable about the mag­ic of free park­ing” — mean­ing they’re talk­ing about “val­i­da­tion” in a larg­er sense than park­ing per se … We’ve added the clip to our YouTube favorites.

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