“Every Country in the World”–Two Videos Tell You Curious Facts About 190+ Countries

in Random | December 15th, 2016

From Wen­dover Productions–a Youtube chan­nel ded­i­cat­ed to explain­ing how our world works, from trav­el, to eco­nom­ics, to geography–comes a two part series called “Every Coun­try in the World.”

In 30 min­utes, the videos tra­verse the world, telling you curi­ous facts about 190+ coun­tries, start­ing with this: Chi­na, despite being so vast, does­n’t have time zones. It’s the same time across the entire coun­try. Mean­while it’s neigh­bor, Afghanistan is “off­set from Green­wich Mean Time by a 30 minute inter­val.” When it’s 9 am in San Fran­cis­co and 5:00 pm in Lon­don, it’s actu­al­ly 9:30 pm in Kab­ul.

How about anoth­er fac­toid: Cana­da is so geo­graph­i­cal­ly large that it’s east­ern bor­der is clos­er to Croa­t­ia than Van­cou­ver. Get the gist?

You can watch “Every Coun­try in the World” above and below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free: Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Lets You Down­load Thou­sands of Maps from the Unit­ed States Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey

Down­load 67,000 His­toric Maps (in High Res­o­lu­tion) from the Won­der­ful David Rum­sey Map Col­lec­tion

The His­to­ry of Car­tog­ra­phy, the “Most Ambi­tious Overview of Map Mak­ing Ever,” Now Free Online

New York Pub­lic Library Puts 20,000 Hi-Res Maps Online & Makes Them Free to Down­load and Use

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A Lccokrkow Garneo: All 245,000 Frames of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange Randomized.

in Film, Random | December 14th, 2016


Watch with cau­tion if you’re sen­si­tive to flash­ing lights and fast mov­ing images.

Stan­ley Kubrick films take a while to unpack. Watch his A Clock­work Orange once, you’ll see one thing. Watch it again, you’ll notice details you did­n’t get the first time. Dit­to the third time, and beyond.

Think you know A Clock­work Orange back­wards and for­wards? Good. Now check out A Lccokrkow Gar­neo, which takes all 245,000 frames of the 1971 dystopi­an film and ran­dom­izes them. You might see some­thing you’ve nev­er seen before.

If you’re prone to epilep­sy, beware. If you’re not, good luck get­ting very far.

A Lccokrkow Gar­neo was arranged by Andrew Fil­ip­pone Jr. (who gave us “Char­lie Rose” by Samuel Beck­ett, a piece of com­i­cal absur­dist the­ater we fea­tured ear­li­er this fall). The score for this ran­dom­ized film is “an impro­vised work, record­ed in one take while the movie played on a near­by mon­i­tor.” That you can watch unfold below.

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:

“Char­lie Rose” by Samuel Beck­ett: Watch Char­lie Rose Meet Char­lie Rose in a Com­i­cal Piece of Absur­dist The­ater

Peter Sell­ers Calls Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange “Vio­lent,” “The Biggest Load of Crap I’ve Seen” (1972)

The Mak­ing of Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange

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When Ursula K. Le Guin & Philip K. Dick Went to High School Together

in Literature, Random | December 1st, 2016

pkd-uklg-high-school

Cre­ative com­mons images are by Ras­mus Ler­dorf and Gor­thi­an , via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

When you run a site like this, you learn all kinds of unex­pect­ed things–most of it rich and reward­ing, some of it strange, triv­ial and still nonethe­less intrigu­ing. Dis­cov­er­ing that Adolf Hitler and Lud­wig Wittgen­stein went to the same Aus­tri­an mid­dle school, like­ly at the same time, fits into the lat­ter cat­e­go­ry. And so too does this:

pkd-uklg

On Twit­ter, jazz crit­ic Ted Gioia recent­ly high­light­ed a curi­ous pas­sage from Ursu­la K. Le Guin’s new book, where she men­tions attend­ing high school with anoth­er sem­i­nal fig­ure in sci-fi lit­er­a­ture, Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Elec­tric Sheep?, Total Recall, Minor­i­ty Report, A Scan­ner Dark­ly etc.).

As she sep­a­rate­ly told The Paris Review, Berke­ley High had 5,300 kids dur­ing the 1940s. It was a big high school. And yet “Nobody knew Phil Dick. I have not found one per­son from Berke­ley High who knew him. He was the invis­i­ble class­mate.” Years lat­er, the two authors talked. But nev­er met. PKD always remained some­thing of a ghost.

via @TedGioia

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ursu­la Le Guin Gives Insight­ful Writ­ing Advice in Her Free Online Work­shop

Hear Inven­tive Sto­ries from Ursu­la LeGuin & J.G. Bal­lard Turned Into CBC Radio Dra­mas

33 Sci-Fi Sto­ries by Philip K. Dick as Free Audio Books & Free eBooks

Hear 6 Clas­sic Philip K. Dick Sto­ries Adapt­ed as Vin­tage Radio Plays

Hear VALIS, an Opera Based on Philip K. Dick’s Meta­phys­i­cal Nov­el

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“We Suck” — When Yale Pranked Harvard at the 2004 Big Football Game

in Random, Sports | October 21st, 2016

On a com­plete­ly lighter note.

The blurb to the Youtube video above reads as fol­lows: “In 2004, 24 enter­pris­ing Yale stu­dents cre­at­ed the non-exis­tent “Har­vard Pep Squad” for the big Har­vard-Yale foot­ball game. As the Pep Squad pumped up the Har­vard fans, they dis­trib­uted 1800 pieces of red and white con­struc­tion papers with the under­stand­ing that when all the cards were held up, it would spell “GO HARVARD” See what hap­pens next!”

To get more of the back­sto­ry on what hap­pened that day, read this account by the mas­ter­mind of the prank as well as this account from a 2005 edi­tion of Yale Dai­ly News.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Prince­ton v. Yale, 1903: The Old­est Col­lege Foot­ball Game on Film

The Har­vard Clas­sics: Down­load All 51 Vol­umes as Free eBooks

Yale Launch­es an Archive of 170,000 Pho­tographs Doc­u­ment­ing the Great Depres­sion

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Watch the Burning Man Live Stream

in Random | September 1st, 2016

Every year, right before Labor Day, 50,000 peo­ple trav­el to Black Rock City, Neva­da to take part in Burn­ing Man — an exper­i­men­tal com­mu­ni­ty ded­i­cat­ed to rad­i­cal self reliance, rad­i­cal self-expres­sion and art. The 2016 edi­tion is under­way. And you can feel free to drop in any time. Above, watch a live stream of life on the dusty Playa. Hope­ful­ly things should get pret­ty inter­est­ing on Sat­ur­day night when they set fire to “the Man.”

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!

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

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Why You Shouldn’t Drive Slowly in the Left Traffic Lane

in Random | August 29th, 2016

If you tend to dri­ve slow­ly in the left lane, then take note. At best, you’re cre­at­ing more traf­fic. At worst, you’re increas­ing the chances of an acci­dent. That’s what research indi­cates. And that’s why the author­i­ties are now try­ing to dis­cour­age the prac­tice. Above, you can watch a quick pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment from Vox. Read more on the cons of left-lane dri­ving here.

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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Change Your Life! Learn the Japanese Art of Decluttering, Organizing & Tidying Things Up

in How to Learn for Free, Life, Random, Video - Politics/Society | July 4th, 2016

Cus­tom dic­tates that you should observe July 4th—Amer­i­ca’s Inde­pen­dence Day—out­doors, eat­ing hot dogs, drink­ing beer, wav­ing tiny flags on Main Street, and view­ing fire­works.

Why not lib­er­ate your­self from the tyran­ny of the tra­di­tion­al by spend­ing a por­tion of the day indoors, com­mu­ni­cat­ing affec­tion to your cloth­ing, as orga­ni­za­tion­al expert, Marie Kon­do, author of the best sell­ing book, The Life-Chang­ing Mag­ic of Tidy­ing Up, does in the instruc­tion­al video, above?

Most of us who dwell in small New York City apart­ments are already famil­iar with her teach­ings. Hers is a take-no-pris­on­ers approach to clut­ter con­trol. Any item that doesn’t “spark joy”—be it a pair of stretched-out sweat­pants, a long ago grad­u­a­tion present, a ream of children’s art­work, or a near­ly full bot­tle of slight­ly funky-smelling conditioner—must be dis­card­ed imme­di­ate­ly.

(Note to self: ask Mom what­ev­er became of my Spir­it of ’76 water­col­or. She had it framed because it won a prize. Best Bicen­ten­ni­al Obser­vance by a 4th Grad­er or some such. Things like that don’t just van­ish into thin air, unless…)

The total makeover Kon­do pro­pos­es is an ardu­ous, oft-emo­tion­al, week-long task. Don’t blow your entire July 4th hol­i­day try­ing to com­plete the job.

Instead, take an hour or two to refold your clothes. New York­ers’ draw­ers are where Kondo’s influ­ence is felt most deeply. Whether or not we sub­scribe to her prac­tice of treat­ing each gar­ment like a trea­sured friend, our under­wear def­i­nite­ly has more room to breathe, when not on active duty.

See below for a graph­ic demon­stra­tion of how to best fold shirts, pants, and sev­er­al species of undies, using Kondo’s Kon-Marie method.

And don’t be tempt­ed to decamp to the back­yard bar­be­cue when you run across chal­lenges like over­alls or baby one­sies. Watch below as Kon­do tack­les a shirt with kimono sleeves, a pair of Edo-style mata hike pants, and a sweater with a marked resem­blance to a Thneed.

If you’re begin­ning to feel like fire­works may be over­rat­ed, Kon­do deliv­ers a 45-minute overview of her phi­los­o­phy as part of the Talks at Google pro­gram below. Or lose your­self to an entire playlist of Kon­do fold­ing videos here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

53 New York Times Videos Teach Essen­tial Cook­ing Tech­niques: From Poach­ing Eggs to Shuck­ing Oys­ters

Moby Lets You Down­load 4 Hours of Ambi­ent Music to Help You Sleep, Med­i­tate, Do Yoga & Not Pan­ic

Free Col­or­ing Books from World-Class Libraries & Muse­ums: The New York Pub­lic Library, Bodleian, Smith­son­ian & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day, author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine, will be read­ing from her trav­el mem­oir, No Touch Mon­key! And Oth­er Trav­el Lessons Learned Too Late at Indy Reads Books in down­town Indi­anapo­lis, Thurs­day, July 7. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Wizard of Oz Broken Apart and Put Back Together in Alphabetical Order

in Film, Random | May 11th, 2016

WARNING: This film con­tains extreme­ly fast edit­ing, flash­es of light, abrupt changes in image and sound.

Back in 2001, Matt Bucy had the inspi­ra­tion to do some­thing tru­ly orig­i­nal — take the entire Wiz­ard of Oz, cut it up, and put it back together–this time in alpha­bet­i­cal order. And that’s pre­cise­ly what he did sev­er­al years lat­er, in 2004. A coder, Bucy cre­at­ed an app that made it easy to decon­struct the beloved 1939 film. He told Vox:

That [app] spit out a big text file with all the words and their loca­tions in the film, which I then import­ed into a spread­sheet, sort­ed in alpha­bet­i­cal and then chrono­log­i­cal order, and fed into anoth­er lit­tle pro­gram that took the sort­ed list and pro­duced the edit. So basi­cal­ly, it was edit­ed in Excel.…

All told, I think it took about sev­en days spread out over a cou­ple of months. Dis­as­sem­bly was mind-bend­ing in itself. It was lit­er­al­ly hard to talk after mov­ing word by word, or syl­la­ble by syl­la­ble, through the film. Eng­lish stopped sound­ing like lan­guage, and at times I had to stop because I could not fig­ure out what a word was — I just could­n’t hear it right.

When final­ly alpha­bet­ized, the film, says Bucy, had a sur­pris­ing ener­gy to it. A cer­tain je ne sais quoi. Yes it’s hard to describe. Maybe you can put your own words to it.

In 2016, Bucy final­ly made the alpha­bet­ized Wiz­ard of Oz avail­able to the rest of world. You can watch it here. And do heed the warn­ing above.

via Vox

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Com­plete Wiz­ard of Oz Series, Avail­able as Free eBooks and Free Audio Books

Watch the Ear­li­est Sur­viv­ing Filmed Ver­sion of The Wiz­ard of Oz (1910)

Dark Side of the Rain­bow: Pink Floyd Meets The Wiz­ard of Ozin One of the Ear­li­est Mash-Ups

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