Cambridge Nights: Late Night TV-Style Show Takes Deep Look at Scientific Thinking

in MIT, Science, Video - Science | January 24th, 2012

Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts is one of the world’s great intel­lec­tu­al cross­roads. With Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty at one end of town and the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy at the oth­er, many of the most influ­en­tial thinkers of our time either work there or vis­it. That gave César Hidal­go an idea.

Hidal­go is a pro­fes­sor at M.I.T., where he stud­ies the rela­tion­ship between physics, net­work sci­ence and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment. Build­ing on his own inter­dis­ci­pli­nary curios­i­ty, Hidal­go thought it would be inter­est­ing to share a lit­tle of Cam­bridge’s intel­lec­tu­al wealth with the out­side world, so in Octo­ber he and the M.I.T. Media Lab launched a series of infor­mal Web inter­views called Cam­bridge Nights: Con­ver­sa­tions About a Life in Sci­ence.

Cam­bridge Nights is a lit­tle like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, if Leno talked about things like frac­tal geom­e­try in the meta­bol­ic the­o­ry of ecol­o­gy. That’s the sub­ject of the dis­cus­sion above fea­tur­ing the renowned physi­cist Geof­frey West, pro­fes­sor and past pres­i­dent of the San­ta Fe Insti­tute, who gives a fas­ci­nat­ing account of the uni­ver­sal scal­ing laws that per­vade all life, from sin­gle-celled organ­isms and com­plex species to whole ecosys­tems.

What sets Cam­bridge Nights apart from oth­er Web forums, like Big­Think, is that guests are under no pres­sure to com­press or “pop­u­lar­ize” their ideas. “We invite them because we want to hear what they have to say, and we want to give them the time to say it com­fort­ably,” writes Hidal­go. “There are many high-speed for­mats out there. Cam­bridge Nights is an alter­na­tive where thoughts can be devel­oped and reflect­ed upon with­out the need to rush.”

In the first sea­son, Hidal­go talks with six schol­ars from fields span­ning the nat­ur­al and social sci­ences, includ­ing physi­cist and net­work sci­en­tist Albert-Lás­zló Barabási, biol­o­gist Marc Vidal and inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment expert Lant Pritch­ett. A num­ber of guests are already lined up for Sea­son Two, includ­ing exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist Steven Pinker.

To view all six videos from Sea­son One, and to learn more about the project, vis­it the Cam­bridge Nights web­site.

Cours­es from MIT can be found in our col­lec­tion of 400 Free Cours­es Online.

via The New York Times

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Nine PAC Ads from Stephen Colbert Spoof U.S. Election System

in Comedy, Current Affairs, Politics | January 24th, 2012

When the Supreme Court, in its infi­nite wis­dom, decid­ed that cor­po­ra­tions enjoy the free speech rights of indi­vid­u­als, it took a bad cam­paign finance sys­tem and made it worse. Sud­den­ly, free-spend­ing PACs, rep­re­sent­ing pow­er­ful busi­ness inter­ests, could flood our cam­paign finance sys­tem with unprece­dent­ed amounts of mon­ey and dis­tort the way we elect lead­ers in the Unit­ed States. In the ear­ly days of the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion process, we’re already see­ing the results. Super PACs, some­times receiv­ing $5 mil­lion from one indi­vid­ual, are run­ning attack ads — lots of attack ads — in pri­ma­ry states. And the real del­uge has yet to come. Just wait until next fall.

What to do about the sanc­tioned dis­tor­tion of our polit­i­cal sys­tem? It’s hard to be opti­mistic when fix­ing the prob­lem would real­is­ti­cal­ly require a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment. But that’s what Lawrence Lessig (Har­vard law pro­fes­sor and founder of Cre­ative Com­mons) is try­ing to do. Appear­ing at Google (see below), Lessig describes how spe­cial inter­ests cor­rupt our polit­i­cal sys­tem, and what we can do to stop it. But even Lessig will admit that it’s an uphill bat­tle.

That leaves us with the next best solu­tion: turn a joke of an elec­tion sys­tem into a good joke. Enter Stephen Col­bert. The come­di­an has cre­at­ed his own Super PAC (run by Jon Stew­art) that comes com­plete with its own TV ads. The par­o­dy above — an attack ad on attack ads — makes its point pret­ty effec­tive­ly. You can watch eight more Col­bert PAC com­mer­cials here, and make a dona­tion to his PAC here. And, if you’re feel­ing gen­er­ous, you can show your sup­port for Open Cul­ture here.

Break­ing News: Stephen Col­bert ends qua­si-pres­i­den­tial cam­paign

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James Bond: 50 Years in Film (and a Big Blu-Ray Release)

in Film | January 24th, 2012

The James Bond movie fran­chise began in 1962, with the release of Dr. No, star­ring a young Sean Con­nery. (Watch the orig­i­nal trail­er here.) And it did­n’t take long for the pro­duc­ers, Albert R. Broc­coli and Har­ry Saltz­man, to real­ize that they were onto some­thing. Speak­ing in 1965, Broc­coli and Saltz­man (above) spec­u­lat­ed that they had cre­at­ed “a mod­ern mythol­o­gy,” the Super­man of their age, and a long-last­ing “enter­tain­ment trend.” How right they were.

Fifty years have passed since audi­ences saw the first Bond movie. Sev­en actors have played James Bond in 22 films. And the next movie, Sky­fall, will hit the­aters in Novem­ber, with Daniel Craig play­ing the lead role. This marks a cause for cel­e­bra­tion (or at least a chance for Hol­ly­wood to ring the reg­is­ter). In the very near future, you can buy the com­plete James Bond Film Col­lec­tion (22 titles in total) on Blu-ray for $199.99, which works out to $9 per film and that does­n’t fac­tor in 130 hours of bonus mate­r­i­al. The clip below will pitch you on the Blu-ray release that can be pre-ordered here. If you’re look­ing for free James Bond media, don’t miss Ian Flem­ing (the cre­ator of the James Bond lit­er­ary char­ac­ter) in con­ver­sa­tion with Ray­mond Chan­dler in 1958 here.

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Leonard Cohen’s New Album, Old Ideas: Stream It for Free Online

in Music | January 24th, 2012

Fans of Leonard Cohen, you’ve wait­ed patient­ly. Sev­en long years. Now it’s final­ly here. Cohen’s new album Old Ideas offi­cial­ly hits the streets next week. But it’s now stream­ing online for free cour­tesy of NPR. It will only last a lim­it­ed time. So set­tle in now and lis­ten to the ten tracks, which as Guardian crit­ic Kit­ty Empire puts it, are not about “death, betray­al and God, juicy as these are,” but rather “the stuff that has made Cohen indis­pens­able for six decades: desire, regret, suf­fer­ing, mis­an­thropy, love, hope, and ham­ming it up.”

The poet­ic lines of the first track, “Going Home,” have been pub­lished in The New York­er. You can pre-order the album here. H/T @opedr

More Leonard Cohen Videos & Movies:

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen (1971 Doc­u­men­tary)

Leonard Cohen Recounts “How I Got My Song,” or When His Love Affair with Music Began

Leonard Cohen Reads “The Future” (Not Safe for Work)

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Watch the Film

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Global Warming: A Free Course from UChicago Explains Climate Change

in Science, Video - Science | January 23rd, 2012

Two weeks ago, we fea­tured Har­vard Thinks Green, a series of six TED-style lec­tures pre­sent­ed by Har­vard experts, each focus­ing on the envi­ron­ment and strate­gies for revers­ing cli­mate change. One thing Har­vard Thinks Green did­n’t offer was a primer on cli­mate change itself, a good sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tion of the under­ly­ing prob­lem. Enter Glob­al Warm­ing (YouTube), a 23-lec­ture course pre­sent­ed by David Archer, a pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of The Geo­phys­i­cal Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go. The first half of the class explains cli­mate physics and how the cli­mate works; the sec­ond half shows how human activ­i­ty and ever-increas­ing car­bon lev­els dis­rupt the equi­lib­ri­um of the envi­ron­ment, cre­at­ing a very uncer­tain future for gen­er­a­tions to come. The first, short lec­ture above out­lines the scope of the class.

Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at UChica­go in Fall 2009, Archer’s course was geared to non-sci­ence majors and taught in con­junc­tion with his text­book, Glob­al Warm­ing: Under­stand­ing the Fore­cast, which hap­pens to be avail­able on Ama­zon here. Glob­al Warm­ing (YouTube) is now list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

132 Years of Glob­al Warm­ing Visu­al­ized in 26 Dra­mat­i­cal­ly Ani­mat­ed Sec­onds

A Song of Our Warm­ing Plan­et: Cel­list Turns 130 Years of Cli­mate Change Data into Music

Sal­ly Ride Warns Against Glob­al Warm­ing; Won­ders If Tech­nol­o­gy Can Save Us From Our­selves

Prof. Bri­an Cox Has a Mad­den­ing Con­ver­sa­tion with a Cli­mate Sci­ence-Deny­ing Politi­cian

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Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

in Film, Sci Fi, Video - Arts & Culture | January 23rd, 2012

In 2009, Brook­lyn-based Web devel­op­er Casey Pugh was look­ing for a new way to explore the poten­tial of crowd-sourc­ing when he hit upon an idea of galac­tic pro­por­tions. He took the orig­i­nal 1977 Star Wars film (lat­er known as Episode IV: A New Hope in the chrono­log­i­cal­ly ordered six-part series) and chopped it into 15-sec­ond pieces, invit­ing fans from around the world to choose a piece and re-cre­ate it in what­ev­er medi­um they liked: live-action, pup­petry, ani­ma­tion, you name it. Three years and one Emmy Award lat­er, Pugh and his team have put the best pieces togeth­er and (with the bless­ing of Star Wars cre­ator George Lucas) released the fin­ished film, Star Wars Uncut: The Direc­tor’s Cut. It runs a fun two hours and five min­utes. You can watch the com­plete movie above and learn more on the offi­cial web­site.

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!

Relat­ed Star Wars Good­ies:

Star Wars as Silent Film

Star Wars the Musi­cal: The Force is Strong in this One

Darth Vader’s Theme in the Style of Beethoven

Kurt Rus­sell Audi­tions for Star Wars

The Star Wars Hol­i­day Spe­cial (1978): It’s Oh So Kitsch

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Michel Foucault: Free Lectures on Truth, Discourse & The Self (UC Berkeley, 1980–1983)

in Philosophy | January 23rd, 2012

Image by Nemo­main, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Michel Fou­cault (1926–1984) was an enor­mous­ly influ­en­tial French philoso­pher who wrote, among oth­er things, his­tor­i­cal analy­ses of psy­chi­a­try, med­i­cine, the prison sys­tem, and the func­tion of sex­u­al­i­ty in social orga­ni­za­tions. He spent some time dur­ing the last years of his life at UC Berke­ley, deliv­er­ing sev­er­al lec­tures in Eng­lish. And hap­pi­ly they were record­ed for pos­ter­i­ty:

These last lec­tures are also avail­able on YouTube (in audio for­mat).

One of Fou­cault’s more con­tro­ver­sial and mem­o­rable books was Dis­ci­pline and Pun­ish (1977), which traced the tran­si­tion from the 18th cen­tu­ry use of pub­lic tor­ture and exe­cu­tion to–less than 50 years later–the preva­lence of much more sub­tle uses of pow­er, with a focus on incar­cer­a­tion, reha­bil­i­ta­tion, pre­ven­tion, and sur­veil­lance.

Here he is in 1983 com­ment­ing on that book (thanks for the link to Seth Paskin). The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast recent­ly dis­cussed the book with Katharine McIn­tyre, doc­tor­al can­di­date at Colum­bia. Fou­cault’s image of the panop­ti­con well cap­tures mod­ern pri­va­cy con­cerns in the elec­tron­ic age.

Final­ly, we leave you with a School­house Rock-style pre­sen­ta­tion of Fou­cault’s book The His­to­ry of Sex­u­al­i­ty, Vol­ume 1 and some vin­tage video of Fou­cault’s 1971 debate with Noam Chom­sky. Fou­cault’s lec­tures have been added to our list of Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, part of our big col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jacques Lacan, Aca­d­e­m­ic Rock Star, Gives a Pub­lic Lec­ture, 1972

Lovers and Philoso­phers — Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beau­voir Togeth­er in 1967

Phi­los­o­phy with a South­ern Drawl: Rick Rod­er­ick Teach­es Der­ri­da, Fou­cault, Sartre and Oth­ers

100 Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es (Part of Our List of 875 Free Cours­es Online)

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Yosemite National Park in All of Its Time-Lapse Splendor

in Video - Arts & Culture | January 23rd, 2012

This video shows Yosemite Nation­al Park in all of its glo­ry. Watch as dark­ness descends over Half Dome after a gor­geous sun­set. Then, look­ing to the heav­ens, we observe the bril­liant sky and the mil­lions of stars vis­i­ble. It’s Yosemite like you’ve nev­er seen it before.

The video was cre­at­ed by Shel­don Neill and Col­in Dele­han­ty, who share an inter­est in time-lapse pho­tog­ra­phy and found each oth­er via Vimeo. The result, after numer­ous vis­its to Yosemite, was this com­plet­ed project. All time-laps­es were shot on the Canon 5D Mark II with a vari­ety of Canon L and Zeiss CP.2 lens­es. The music accom­pa­ny­ing the video is “Out­ro” from the new album Hur­ry Up, We’re Dream­ing by elec­tron­ic band M83.

One of the scenes from this video is of El Cap­i­tan, a ver­ti­cal rock for­ma­tion that’s twice the height of the Empire State Build­ing. Wall: The Jour­ney Up tells the hero­ic sto­ry of Steve Wampler’s quest to become the first per­son with Cere­bral Pal­sy to climb El Cap­i­tan. The inspir­ing video/film trail­er is worth watch­ing.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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