NPR Hip Hop

in Comedy, Music, Radio | November 23rd, 2010

You nev­er saw this com­ing, right? A lit­tle hip hop for NPR lis­ten­ers. Adam Cole, a Stan­ford stu­dent, raps it out with Jen­na Sul­li­van. Get the lyrics for “Good Radi­a­tion” below the jump…
(more…)

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Neuroscience and Free Will

in Philosophy, Psychology, Science | November 23rd, 2010

We have free will. We make our own deci­sions. We have long tak­en these basic assump­tions for grant­ed. But what does neu­ro­science make of this? In this excerpt from the BBC Hori­zon spe­cial, “The Secret You,” Mar­cus Du Sautoy (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty) par­tic­i­pates in a brain imag­ing exper­i­ment con­duct­ed by John-Dylan Haynes, a neu­ro­sci­en­tist based in Berlin. And the results? Well, they force us to rethink things a bit. Good­bye Descartes. Good­bye mind before mat­ter. Good­bye to con­scious­ness and free will, as we tra­di­tion­al­ly like to think about them. And wel­come to the world of neu­rons, to brain activ­i­ty that makes your deci­sions before your con­scious self is even aware of them. To delve deep­er into all of this, you can watch Haynes give a 90 minute lec­ture here called “Uncon­scious deter­mi­nants of free deci­sions in the human brain.”

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Five Minutes with Richard Dawkins

in Life, Religion, Science | November 22nd, 2010

You’ll get the schtick pret­ty quick­ly. The BBC’s Matthew Stadlen spends five quick min­utes with celebri­ties, thinkers and news­mak­ers. And, above, he gets down to busi­ness with Richard Dawkins, with the con­ver­sa­tion touch­ing on reli­gion, the after­life, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, moral­i­ty, hap­pi­ness, and the whole point of life. Oth­er thinkers fea­tured in the series include Mar­tin Amis, AC Grayling, Alain de Bot­ton, Bri­an Cox, Sir Ter­ry Pratch­ett and oth­ers.

via Metafil­ter

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45 Great Cultural Icons Revisited

in Art, Literature, Most Popular, Philosophy | November 21st, 2010

It’s no secret. We love to high­light vin­tage video of cul­tur­al icons. This week­end, we showed you the last days of Leo Tol­stoy to com­mem­o­rate the cen­ten­ni­al of the great writer’s death, and you expressed your appre­ci­a­tion. And it led us to think: why not dig through our archive, and revive some of the great trea­sures pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured on Open Cul­ture? And so here it goes: Below, you will find 45+ video & audio clips that record the words and actions of major fig­ures from a bygone era. Artists, archi­tects, film­mak­ers, actors, poets, nov­el­ists, com­posers, musi­cians, world-chang­ing lead­ers, and those not eas­i­ly cat­e­go­rized – they’re all here. So close, you can almost touch them. Enjoy the list, and if we’re miss­ing some good clips, don’t hes­i­tate to send them our way…

Video

  1. Sal­vador Dali (and Oth­er VIPs) on “What’s My Line?”
  2. Arthur Conan Doyle Recounts the Back­sto­ry to Sher­lock Holmes
  3. Orson Welles’ Final Moments
  4. William S. Bur­roughs Shoots Shake­speare
  5. Borges: The Task of Art
  6. Jack Ker­ouac Meets William F. Buck­ley (1968)
  7. Ing­mar Bergman Vis­its Dick Cavett, 1971
  8. Picas­so Paint­ing on Glass
  9. Leonard Bern­stein Breaks Down Beethoven
  10. Record Mak­ing With Duke Elling­ton (1937)
  11. Bertrand Rus­sell on God
  12. Mark Twain Cap­tured on Film by Thomas Edi­son (1909)
  13. A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach
  14. Rod Ser­ling: Where Do Ideas Come From?
  15. Richard Feyn­man: Fun to Imag­ine
  16. Rare Inter­view with Alfred Hitch­cock Now Online
  17. Miles and Coltrane on YouTube: The Jazz Greats
  18. Footage of Nietzsche’s Final Days (May be bogus)
  19. Samuel Beck­ett Speaks
  20. Jimi Hen­drix Plays Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band
  21. Djan­go Rein­hardt at 100
  22. When Pavarot­ti Met James Brown, the God­fa­ther of Soul
  23. James Dean and Ronald Rea­gan Clash in New­ly Dis­cov­ered Video
  24. The Last Czar (1896)
  25. Leon Trot­sky: Love, Death and Exile in Mex­i­co
  26. Revis­it­ing JFK on YouTube
  27. Mahat­ma Gand­hi Talks (in First Record­ed Video)
  28. Mal­colm X at Oxford, 1964
  29. Helen Keller Cap­tured on Video
  30. Anne Frank: The Only Exist­ing Video Now Online
  31. Mike Wal­lace Inter­views 1950s Celebri­ties (Frank Lloyd Wright, Pearl Buck, Sal­vador Dali, Rein­hold Niebuhr, Aldous Hux­ley, Erich Fromm, etc.)

Audio:

  1. Tchaikovsky’s Voice Cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1890)
  2. Aldous Hux­ley Nar­rates Brave New World
  3. Tru­man Capote Reads from Break­fast at Tiffany’s
  4. Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five
  5. William Faulkn­er Audio Archive Goes Online
  6. The John Lennon Inter­views
  7. Rare Record­ing of Walt Whit­man Read­ing
  8. Vir­ginia Woolf: Her Voice Recap­tured
  9. T.S. Eliot Reads The Waste Land
  10. Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”
  11. F. Scott Fitzger­ald Reads Shake­speare
  12. James Joyce Read­ing from Finnegans Wake
  13. Rare Ezra Pound Record­ings Now Online
  14. William Car­los Williams Reads His Poet­ry (1954)
  15. Inter­views with Schoen­berg and Bartók

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London 360

in Random | November 19th, 2010

Here’s an amaz­ing way to get the lay of the land in Lon­don. Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jef­frey Mar­tin has stitched togeth­er 7,886 high-res images, cre­at­ing an 80 gigapix­el (or 80 bil­lion pix­el) panoram­ic pho­to­graph of Eng­land’s great cap­i­tal. The pho­to is also inter­ac­tive, which means you can play aer­i­al tourist. When you enter the site, click on “Show Land­marks” (low­er left cor­ner), make a selec­tion, and then start fly­ing around the city.

These pho­tos were tak­en from a 36 floor build­ing, using a DSLR cam­era and a 400mm lens. And it now stands as the world’s largest 360 pho­to.

via newslite

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Ayn Rand Argues That Believing in God Is an Insult to Reason on The Phil Donahue Show (Circa 1979)

in Philosophy, Politics, Religion | November 19th, 2010

Ayn Rand — she’s often con­sid­ered the intel­lec­tu­al dar­ling of Amer­i­ca’s polit­i­cal right. Rand’s free mar­ket think­ing rubbed off on Alan Greenspan in a big way. At the Cato Insti­tute, Stephen Moore writes, “Being con­ver­sant in Ayn Rand’s clas­sic nov­el about the eco­nom­ic car­nage caused by big gov­ern­ment run amok [Atlas Shrugged] was prac­ti­cal­ly a job require­ment.” Supreme Court Jus­tice Clarence Thomas acknowl­edges a deep debt to The Foun­tain­head, Rand’s cel­e­bra­tion of the indi­vid­ual, and makes his law clerks watch the 1949 film adap­ta­tion of the nov­el. Rand Paul, the new Tea Par­ty sen­a­tor, calls him­self a fan of both books. And Ayn Rand book sales surged once Oba­ma came into office. You get the pic­ture.

Giv­en this love affair, it’s a lit­tle incon­gru­ous to redis­cov­er old footage (cir­ca 1979) that fea­tures Rand com­ing out “against God,” call­ing faith an abdi­ca­tion of indi­vid­ual respon­si­bil­i­ty (so impor­tant to her phi­los­o­phy), an insult to the human intel­lect, and a sign of psy­cho­log­i­cal weak­ness. If she were alive today, Rand would eas­i­ly give the “new athe­ists” (Richard Dawkins, Christo­pher Hitchens, Daniel Den­nett, etc.) a very good run for their mon­ey. It’s not exact­ly the stuff that tra­di­tion­al­ly makes you a con­ser­v­a­tive saint, but stranger things have hap­pened. Maybe.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Athe­ism: A Rough His­to­ry of Dis­be­lief, with Jonathan Miller

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why He’s Uncom­fort­able Being Labeled an ‘Athe­ist’

Athe­ist Ira Glass Believes Chris­tians Get the Short End of the Media Stick

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David Sedaris and Ian Falconer Introduce “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk”

in Audio Books, Books, Comedy | November 18th, 2010

David Sedaris’ new col­lec­tion of com­ic sto­ries, Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary, was recent­ly released with an accom­pa­ny­ing video that fea­tures the voice of Sedaris and the art­work of Ian Fal­con­er.

If you’re not famil­iar with him, Fal­con­er has drawn over 30 cov­ers for The New York­er (see exam­ple here), while also cre­at­ing the amaz­ing Olivia the Pig series for chil­dren. (Be sure to watch this Olivia Goes to Venice clip for a quick primer.) If this video whets your appetite, then let me direct your atten­tion to Sedaris read­ing the actu­al sto­ry “The Squir­rel and the Chip­munk.” It orig­i­nal­ly aired on This Amer­i­can Life.

Or, as reg­u­lar read­ers know, you can snag a free audio copy of Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk – Sedaris does some of the nar­ra­tion! – if you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al of Audible.com. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion (as I did), or can­cel it, and still keep the free book. The choice is entire­ly yours.

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Frankenstein Hits the Silver Screen (1910)

in Film, Literature | November 17th, 2010

100 years ago, J. Sear­le Daw­ley wrote and direct­ed Franken­stein. It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute film (when most films were actu­al­ly shot in just one day). It marked the first time that Mary Shel­ley’s lit­er­ary cre­ation was adapt­ed to film. And, some­what notably, Thomas Edi­son had a hand (albeit it an indi­rect one) in mak­ing the film. The first Franken­stein was shot at Edi­son Stu­dios, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny owned by the famous inven­tor.

You can down­load the movie at the Inter­net Archive, or find it per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. (Also, you can find Mary Shel­ley’s nov­el  in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.) To get more infor­ma­tion on Daw­ley’s short film, please vis­it The Franken­stein blog.

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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MoMA Puts Pollock, Rothko & de Kooning on Your iPad

in Art, iPad, Museums | November 17th, 2010

Through next April, you can vis­it “Abstract Expres­sion­ist New York,” – an exhib­it at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (NYC) that looks back at the work of Jack­son Pol­lock, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Willem de Koon­ing and many oth­ers. If you can’t make the trip, then you can do the next best thing. Fire up your iPad, down­load the free app cre­at­ed by MoMA, and start watch­ing a slideshow of 60 paint­ings cur­rent­ly on dis­play in “AB EX NY.” All images are pre­sent­ed in high res­o­lu­tion, and the app also fea­tures 20 videos cre­at­ed by the cura­tors, each of which con­cen­trates on indi­vid­ual painters and their tech­niques. And did I men­tion that the app is free? (via Arts Beat)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Hockney’s iPad Art Goes on Dis­play

Vis­it 890 UNESCO World Her­itage Sites with Free iPhone/iPad App

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The Physics Behind “Unstoppable”

in Film, Physics | November 16th, 2010

Can they stop the train loaded with haz­ardous chem­i­cals before this “mis­sile the size of the Chrysler Build­ing” hits a pop­u­lat­ed area and “vapor­izes every­thing in front of it?” That’s the big ques­tion that dri­ves along the plot of the new Den­zel Wash­ing­ton thriller, Unstop­pable. If you don’t believe me, just watch the trail­er above. Now we get all aca­d­e­m­ic on you and ask: Is that train real­ly as pow­er­ful as a sky­scraper-sized mis­sile? And then we turn to Emory physics pro­fes­sor Sid­ney Perkowitz for the answer:

Perkowitz is a good per­son to size things up. He’s not just any physics pro­fes­sor. This physics prof wrote the book Hol­ly­wood Sci­ence: Movies, Sci­ence and the End of the World and he sits on the advi­so­ry board of the Sci­ence and Enter­tain­ment Exchange, a Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences pro­gram that tries to bring more sci­en­tif­ic accu­ra­cy to mass mar­ket enter­tain­ment. Thanks Stephen for the good tip here …

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Europe: 10 Centuries in 5 Minutes

in History | November 16th, 2010

Here you have it. Europe, evolv­ing from medieval times until today. We start cir­ca 1000 A.D with the Holy Roman Empire and Moor­ish Span­ish (oth­er­wise known as Al-Andalus). Then comes the frac­tur­ing of medieval king­doms and the rise of the Ottoman Empire off in the East, until every­thing starts to uni­fy again. And, at long last, the map we all rec­og­nize today.

Note: The maps used in this video come from the Cen­ten­nia His­tor­i­cal Atlas, which has been required read­ing for all begin­ning stu­dents at the US Naval Acad­e­my for the past decade.

via The Map Room

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