Steve Jobs Demos the First Macintosh in 1984

in Apple, Life, Technology | October 5th, 2011

We orig­i­nal­ly post­ed this video back in 2009, and it seems like the right time to bring it back. It cap­tures the first of many times that Steve Jobs thrilled audi­ences with the promise of what tech­nol­o­gy could deliv­er. The video takes you back to Jan­u­ary 1984, when Jobs demoed the first Mac­in­tosh. (The event was famous­ly pro­mot­ed by Rid­ley Scot­t’s com­mer­cial dur­ing the Super Bowl. See below) A young Jobs, sport­ing a bow tie and a fuller head of hair, could bare­ly hold back his smile and some tears, and the crowd sim­ply could­n’t con­tain its enthu­si­asm, giv­ing Jobs a five-minute stand­ing ova­tion. That’s where the video ends, fad­ing hap­pi­ly and suit­ably to black. We’ll miss you Steve. Read the New York Times obit here.

For anoth­er great Steve Jobs moment, don’t miss his inspir­ing Stan­ford 2005 grad­u­a­tion talk where he dis­cussed his approach to liv­ing and urged the young grad­u­ates to â€śStay Hun­gry, Stay Fool­ish.” So far as com­mence­ment speech­es go, it’s hard to beat this one.

Both video men­tioned above appear in our Cul­tur­al Icons col­lec­tion — a media col­lec­tion that fea­tures great artists and thinkers speak­ing in their own words.

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Frank W. Buckles, The Last U.S. Veteran of World War I

in Film, History, Life | September 22nd, 2011

Frank Woodruff Buck­les was born on Feb­ru­ary 1st, 1901. At the age of 16, he enlist­ed in the U.S. Army by con­vinc­ing recruit­ing offi­cers that he was, in fact, 21. In this short film, Buck­les recalls this time so long ago and the last year of the Great War. There are two par­tic­u­lar­ly mov­ing pas­sages in this doc­u­men­tary: when he talks about the dif­fi­cul­ties vet­er­ans expe­ri­enced after return­ing home, and when Buck­les voic­es his opin­ions on war in gen­er­al, and par­tic­u­lar­ly war today (“How did we get involved in this thing, Iraq? It was crazy, we have no damn busi­ness in there.”)

Frank died on Feb­ru­ary 27th, 2011, at the age of 110. The last sur­viv­ing U.S. vet­er­an of World War I, he was prop­er­ly laid to rest at Arling­ton Nation­al Ceme­tery (find video of the cer­e­mo­ny here). There are two trib­utes to Mr Buck­les that offer more insight into his life: a short video by the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs and an obit­u­ary in the Wash­ing­ton Post.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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She Was the One: An Animated 9/11 Remembrance

in History, Life, Media | September 9th, 2011

The first day was all smoke, debris, orga­nized may­hem, and pure dis­be­lief. The next day, real­i­ty hit home. That’s when you walked out in the streets (in my case, Brook­lyn), and saw your first miss­ing per­son sign, one of hun­dreds you’d see over the com­ing months in Man­hat­tan and the out­er bor­oughs. The num­bers you heard on TV, the body count, became real faces — real peo­ple.

In Octo­ber 2003, Sto­ryCorps, a non­prof­it ded­i­cat­ed to record­ing oral his­to­ries of every kind, got under­way with a small Sto­ry­Booth in Grand Cen­tral Ter­mi­nal. Eight years lat­er, it has record­ed and archived more than 35,000 inter­views from 70,000 par­tic­i­pants. And, more recent­ly, it has turned its focus to 9/11 and the days that fol­lowed. The goal: to memo­ri­al­ize in sound every per­son lost on that day. You can vis­it the emerg­ing audio archive here.

The poignant clip above, which tells the per­son­al sto­ry of Richie Pecorel­la and Karen Juday, appears in a larg­er series of Sto­ryCorps ani­mat­ed videos, all avail­able here. You can sup­port the Sto­ryCorps project by mak­ing a dona­tion, large or small today.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Archive of 9/11 TV Cov­er­age Launch­es with 3,000+ Hours of Video

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Endless Summer: Hollywood Icons at the Beach (1965)

in Film, Life, Television | September 6th, 2011

It’s a quick glimpse into a bygone era, a more inno­cent era, before TMZ, Perez Hilton and The Super­fi­cial made being a celebri­ty a more dif­fi­cult propo­si­tion. The date is August 1965. The place is Mal­ibu. And the peo­ple? Some of the biggest stars in Hol­ly­wood — Paul New­man, Natal­ie Wood, Robert Red­ford, Jane Fon­da, Julie Andrews, Christo­pher Plum­mer, and Rock Hud­son — enjoy­ing some sim­ple, inti­mate moments at the beach. The video above comes from a set of films orig­i­nal­ly belong­ing to Rod­dy McDowall, all now appear­ing on YouTube for the first time. Oth­er clips in the col­lec­tion fea­ture:

Natal­ie Wood, Jane Fon­da, and Hope Lange Ear­li­er That Sum­mer

Labor Day 1965 at Rock Hud­son’s House

Robert Red­ford at the West­wood Fox 1965

Christo­pher Plum­mer, Sal Mineo, Natal­ie Wood, and Juli­et Mills at Mal­ibu

Natal­ie Wood, Lau­ren Bacall, Suzanne Pleshette and oth­ers togeth­er in Mal­ibu

Jane Fon­da and Julie Andrews Togeth­er

 

via World­of­Won­der

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The Beatles: Why Music Matters in Two Animated Minutes

in Animation, Life, Music | August 18th, 2011

Lee Gin­gold makes the point rather artis­ti­cal­ly by way of The Bea­t­les.

Music can shape our youth­ful minds (which reminds me of this great ani­mat­ed short, I Met the Wal­rus).

Music pro­vides the emo­tion­al sound­track for the good times and bad times in our lives.

It fires the imag­i­na­tion.

It brings us togeth­er. Just watch 13,500 peo­ple sing “Hey Jude” in Trafal­gar Square.

The bot­tom line? Music mat­ters…

via Kim Sher­rell & @Alyssa_Milano

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Our Extraterrestrial DNA

in Life, Physics, Video - Science | August 17th, 2011

The search for extrater­res­tri­al life brings us right back to where we start­ed, plan­et Earth, at least for a moment. NASA researchers have dis­cov­ered evi­dence that some build­ing blocks of DNA, the mol­e­cule that holds the genet­ic instruc­tions for life, were like­ly cre­at­ed in space and then brought to Earth by mete­orites, leav­ing behind a “kit of ready-made parts” that con­tributed to the ori­gin of life. All of this gets spelled out by Dr. Michael Calla­han in this video released last week by NASA’s God­dard Space Flight Cen­ter.

If you still find your­self doubt­ing our extrater­res­tri­al ori­gins, then chew on this more basic fact under­scored by physi­cist Lawrence Krauss. We are all star­dust. Put sim­ply, every lit­tle atom in our bod­ies comes from a super­no­va, an explod­ing star…

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and we’ll deliv­er great cul­ture right to your vir­tu­al doorstep, day in, day out.

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A Day in California

in Life | August 9th, 2011

Opin­ions are famous­ly mixed on South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. It has nev­er been Woody Allen’s kind of place. In Annie Hall, he quipped “I mean, who would want to live in a place where the only cul­tur­al advan­tage is that you can turn right on a red light.” But this is com­ing from a guy who prefers fog and over­cast skies to sun­ny days at the beach, some­one who does­n’t quite con­nect with what has drawn 25 mil­lion peo­ple to the region. Ryan Kil­lack­ey’s short film, “A Day in Cal­i­for­nia,” will speak to those res­i­dents, or any­one who dreams of the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia life. He worked on the project for a year and a half, and it com­bines 10,000 images into a seam­less whole. Learn more about the project or watch the film here.

via @alyssa_milano

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Mariachi Band Serenades Beluga Whale at Mystic Aquarium

in Life, Music | August 5th, 2011

Last month, the Mari­achi band, “Los Trovadores de Amer­i­ca,” played at a wed­ding held at the Mys­tic Aquar­i­um in Ston­ing­ton, Con­necti­cut. Before wrap­ping up, the guys were good enough to ser­e­nade one of the bel­u­ga whales. And, you know, the sea crea­ture seemed to appre­ci­ate it. Enjoy the week­end … H/T @sheerly

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