The Karl Marx Credit Card — When You’re Short of Kapital

in Economics, Random | June 19th, 2012

Is it a tragedy? Is it a farce? In the land once called East Ger­many, in a town once called Karl-Marx-Stadt, a bank called Sparkasse Chem­nitz ran an online poll let­ting cus­tomers vote for images to place on their cred­it cards. And the hands-down win­ner was Karl Marx, an iron­ic pick giv­en that … well, you don’t need me to explain why.

In response to this selec­tion, Plan­et Mon­ey has encour­aged read­ers to post a tagline for the card on Twit­ter, using the hash­tag #marx­card. Here are a few of our favorites so far:

  • There are Some Things Mon­ey Can’t Buy. Espe­cial­ly If You Abol­ish All Pri­vate Prop­er­ty.
  • From each accord­ing to their abil­i­ty, to each accord­ing to his need. For every­thing else, there’s #Marx­card.
  • The Marx Card — Because Cred­it is the Opi­ate of the Mass­es.
  • The Karl Marx Mas­ter­Card — When You’re Short of Kap­i­tal

Got your own to sug­gest? cc: us on Twit­ter: @openculture

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:

Read­ing Marx’s Cap­i­tal with David Har­vey (Free Course)

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Peefeeyatko: A Look Inside the Creative World of Frank Zappa

in Film, Music | June 19th, 2012

In the last years of his life, Frank Zap­pa spent much of his remain­ing time doing what he loved best: com­pos­ing.

The 1991 doc­u­men­tary Peefeey­atko, by Ger­man-born film­mak­er and com­pos­er Hen­ning Lohn­er, takes us inside Zap­pa’s seclud­ed world to watch and lis­ten as he cre­ates sym­phon­ic com­po­si­tions on an ear­ly dig­i­tal syn­the­siz­er called a Syn­clavier. The film was made not long after Zap­pa learned he had ter­mi­nal can­cer. Like its sub­ject, Lohn­er’s film is eccen­tric, with scenes from mon­ster movies spliced in with footage of Zap­pa work­ing and talk­ing. “Peefeey­atko,” we learn at the end, is Big­foot-lan­guage for “Give me some more Apples.”

Zap­pa talks about his wide range of musi­cal tastes–how from an ear­ly age he would lis­ten to rhythm and blues one minute and the French exper­i­men­tal com­pos­er Edgard Verèse the next. The film includes inter­views with his fel­low avant-garde com­posers John Cage, Pierre Boulez, Ian­nis Xenakis and Karl­heinz Stock­hausen. To describe his rad­i­cal eclec­ti­cism, Zap­pa says: “The eas­i­est way to sum up the aes­thet­ic would be: any­thing, any­time, any­place for no rea­son at all. And I think with an aes­thet­ic like that you can have pret­ty good lat­i­tude for being cre­ative.”

Peefeey­atko runs 59 min­utes, and will be added to our expand­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Frank Zap­pa Debates Cen­sor­ship on CNN’s Cross­fire (1986)

A Young Frank Zap­pa Plays the Bicy­cle on The Steve Allen Show (1963)

John Cage Per­forms Water Walk on “I’ve Got a Secret” (1960)

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Salman Khan Returns to MIT, Gives Commencement Speech, Likens School to Hogwarts

in Graduation Speech, K-12, MIT | June 19th, 2012


This week, Salman Khan returned to his alma mater, MIT, to deliv­er the com­mence­ment speech to the 2012 grad­u­ates. As you know, MIT helped spark the open edu­ca­tion move­ment when it launched its Open­Course­Ware site in 2002. A decade lat­er, the uni­ver­si­ty has placed mate­ri­als for 2100 cours­es online (find many high­light­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es). So it’s fit­ting that the new face of open edu­ca­tion would deliv­er the big speech.

The talk is a bit inward­ly focused, a cel­e­bra­tion of MIT and its Hog­warts qual­i­ties. But the lat­ter half gets to Khan’s phi­los­o­phy of life, his recipe for liv­ing well in the world. It boils down to 1) being pos­i­tive and smil­ing when in doubt, 2) sur­ren­der­ing your ego dur­ing times of con­flict, 3) lis­ten­ing to oth­ers, 4) down­play­ing mate­r­i­al con­cerns and focus­ing on health and rela­tion­ships, and 5) using a num­ber of thought exper­i­ments to gain per­spec­tive on life. Those he explains along the way.…

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The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps — Peter Adamson’s Podcast Still Going Strong

in Philosophy, Podcasts | June 19th, 2012

Last August, we fea­tured Peter Adam­son’s pod­cast The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps (iTunes – RSS Feed – Web Site), a chrono­log­i­cal­ly unin­ter­rupt­ed “look at the ideas and lives of the major philoso­phers (even­tu­al­ly cov­er­ing in detail such giants as Pla­to, Aris­to­tle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant) as well as the less­er-known fig­ures of the tra­di­tion.” Con­tin­u­ing at the rate of one episode a week, Adam­son and his guest philo­soph­i­cal experts have since cov­ered names like Lucretius, Seneca, and Plutarch. They’ve most recent­ly reached Alexan­der of Aphro­disias, an espe­cial­ly astute ancient com­men­ta­tor on Aris­to­tle and oppo­nent of Sto­ic atti­tudes toward fate; Quin­til­ian, Lucian, Themistius, and the inter­play between rhetoric and phi­los­o­phy in the Roman Empire; and the emer­gence of astron­o­my, ush­ered in by Ptole­my dur­ing a time when observers still had much to say about astrol­o­gy.

Don’t miss the episodes where Adam­son brings in spe­cial­ists on the par­tic­u­lar philoso­pher, philo­soph­i­cal sub­field, or quirk in philo­soph­i­cal his­to­ry to which his pod­cast­ing jour­ney brings him. Since our last post on the show, we’ve heard Richard Sorab­ji talk about time and eter­ni­ty in Aris­to­tle, James War­ren on Epi­cure­anism, and Raphael Wolf on Cicero, to name but a few. Such is Adamson’s atten­tion to detail — and ded­i­ca­tion to the Zeno’s Para­dox-rem­i­nis­cent cause of pure con­ti­nu­ity — that, after putting out 85 episodes, he remains in the ancient world. Imag­ine the boun­ty of dis­cus­sion when he reach­es, say, the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, let alone the twen­ti­eth. To pre­pare your­self for that, you’d bet­ter start lis­ten­ing now; a show express­ly cre­at­ed with­out gaps must, it seems only nat­ur­al, be expe­ri­enced with­out them.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life: A Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast

Phi­los­o­phy Bites: Pod­cast­ing Ideas From Pla­to to Sin­gu­lar­i­ty Since 2007

55 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Richard Dawkins Explains Why There Was Never a First Human Being

in Biology, Video - Science | June 19th, 2012

Last year, right before pub­lish­ing his illus­trat­ed chil­dren’s book The Mag­ic of Real­i­ty, Richard Dawkins appeared at The New York­er Fes­ti­val and walked the crowd through a short thought exper­i­ment. Imag­ine pulling out your fam­i­ly geneal­o­gy. Now snap a pho­to of each ances­tor going back 185 mil­lion gen­er­a­tions. What would it show? First off, your very dis­tant grand­fa­ther was a fish. Sec­ond­ly, you can nev­er put your fin­ger on the very first human being, a prover­bial Adam and Eve. 185,000,000 snap­shots can nev­er cap­ture that one moment.

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:

Free Online Biol­o­gy Cours­es

Dar­win: A 1993 Film by Peter Green­away

Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse: Richard Dawkins Presents Cap­ti­vat­ing Sci­ence Lec­tures for Kids (1991)

Richard Dawkins & John Lennox Debate Sci­ence & Athe­ism

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Modern Masters: Watch BBC Series Introducing the Art of Warhol, Matisse, Picasso and Dali

in Art, Television | June 18th, 2012

Mod­ern art. Like it or not, it’s had a pro­found impact on the way our world looks. As crit­ic Alas­tair Sooke explains in this four-part series from the BBC, the great art­works of the past cen­tu­ry have exert­ed an influ­ence that extends far beyond muse­um walls.

Mod­ern Mas­ters, first broad­cast in 2010 on the main­stream chan­nel BBC One, looks at the life, work, and abid­ing influ­ence of Hen­ri Matisse, Pablo Picas­so, Sal­vador Dali and Andy Warhol. “Art dur­ing the 20th cen­tu­ry was rad­i­cal, intox­i­cat­ing, and immense­ly influ­en­tial,” says Sooke, deputy art crit­ic of The Dai­ly Tele­graph. “Matisse, Picas­so, Dali and Warhol did­n’t just change art his­to­ry; they changed the world.”

Episode one, Andy Warhol: For a series exam­in­ing the influ­ence of 20th cen­tu­ry art through the prism of celebri­ty artists, it’s fit­ting that Sooke should begin with an artist obsessed with celebri­ty. Sooke fol­lows Warhol (see above) from his impov­er­ished child­hood in Pitts­burgh to New York City, where he strug­gled as a com­mer­cial artist before becom­ing famous as a pop artist. Along the way he shows how Warhol’s aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty now per­me­ates our cul­ture. The oth­er three episodes pro­ceed along sim­i­lar lines. Each is just under an hour long.

Episode two, Hen­ri Matisse:

Episode three, Pablo Picas­so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU5TDkjhLNs#t=09

Episode four, Sal­vador Dali:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Robert Hugh­es, Famed Art Crit­ic, Demys­ti­fies Mod­ern Art: From Cézanne to Andy Warhol

Simon Schama Presents Van Gogh and the Begin­ning of Mod­ern Art

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Paul McCartney Turns a Spry 70 Today, Thanks to Meditation, a Vegetarian Diet and Three Hour Gigs

in Life, Music | June 18th, 2012

Paul McCart­ney turns 70 today, and he’s look­ing a whole lot more spry than some of his con­tem­po­raries. (Hel­lo Kei­th Richards!) What’s the key to his longevi­ty? It starts with putting on three hour shows. He recent­ly told one news­pa­per, “I’ve been hav­ing car­dio-vas­cu­lar exer­cise for years but it’s on stage. I can’t believe I do a three-hour show with­out tak­ing a breath.”

You could also trace his dura­bil­i­ty back to lifestyle choic­es made in the 1960s. Above, McCart­ney explains to David Lynch how he took up tran­scen­den­tal med­i­ta­tion when the Bea­t­les met Mahar­ishi Mahesh Yogi through George Har­ri­son and his wife in 1967. Famous­ly, The Bea­t­les trav­eled to India in ’68 to study TM at the Mahar­ishi’s ashram. The trip did­n’t go well, but McCart­ney stuck with the med­i­ta­tion. Below, we also give you McCart­ney extolling the virtues of a veg­e­tar­i­an diet, some­thing he took up decades ago. The clip comes from a longer video he shot for PETA, a non-prof­it he has sup­port­ed for years..

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Do Khan Academy Videos Promote “Meaningful Learning”?

in K-12, Video - Science | June 18th, 2012

If you ever won­dered whether pro­fes­sion­al sci­en­tists are skep­ti­cal about some of the incred­i­bly fun, attrac­tive and brief online videos that pur­port to explain sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples in a few min­utes, you’d be right.

Derek Muller com­plet­ed his doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion by research­ing the ques­tion of what makes for effec­tive mul­ti­me­dia to teach physics. Muller curates the sci­ence blog Ver­i­ta­si­um and received his Ph.D. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney in 2008.

It’s no small irony that Muller’s argu­ment, that online instruc­tion­al videos don’t work, has reached its biggest audi­ence in the form of an online video. He launch­es right in, lec­ture style, with a gen­tle attack on the Khan Acad­e­my, which has famous­ly flood­ed the Inter­net with free instruc­tion­al videos on every sub­ject from arith­metic to finance.

While prais­ing the academy’s founder, Salman Khan, for his teach­ing and speak­ing tal­ent, Muller con­tends that stu­dents actu­al­ly don’t learn any­thing from sci­ence videos in gen­er­al.

In exper­i­ments, he asked sub­jects to describe the force act­ing upon a ball when a jug­gler toss­es it into the air. Then he showed them a short video that explained grav­i­ta­tion­al force.

In tests tak­en after watch­ing the video, sub­jects pro­vid­ed essen­tial­ly the same descrip­tion as before. Sub­jects said they didn’t pay atten­tion to the video because they thought they already knew the answer. If any­thing, the video only made them more con­fi­dent about their own ideas.

Sci­ence instruc­tion­al videos, Muller argues, shouldn’t just explain cor­rect infor­ma­tion, but should tack­le mis­con­cep­tions as well. He prac­tices this approach in his own work, like this film about weight­less­ness in the space sta­tion. Hav­ing to work hard­er to think through why an idea is wrong, he says, is just as impor­tant as being told what’s right.

Kate Rix is an Oak­land-based free­lance writer. See more of her work at .

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