This amazing little video charts the location of every asteroid discovered since 1980. As we move into the 1990s, the rate of discovery picks up quite dramatically because we’re now working with vastly improved sky scanning systems. And that means that you will especially want to watch the second half of the video. Below the jump, I’ve pasted some more information that explains what you’re seeing. Thanks to @WesAlwan and Mike for sending this great little clip our way.
Building becomes canvas. Give it a minute to get going. According to an OC reader, the show was organized to celebrate the independence of Ukraine (August 24th). Thanks Olga!
On December 24, 1968, astronauts aboard Apollo 8, making the first human trip around the moon, stumbled upon a most beautiful scene – an “Earthrise.” Almost 40 years later (in 2007), Japan’s Kaguya satellite captured footage of the same scene unfolding: an Earthrise and also this time an Earthset. If you click on the preceding links, you will see some pretty wonderful still shots in HD.
Last week, Jonathan Franzen appeared on the cover of TIME magazine – the first time in a decade that a living novelist has graced the cover page. Authors only get there if they’re flirting with greatness (TIME’s piece is called “Jonathan Franzen: Great American Novelist”) and if they have a new novel coming out. Freedomhits the bookstores next Tuesday, but you can get started with the first two chapters right now. Good Neighbors and Agreeable both appear on The New Yorker magazine web site.
You’ve perhaps seen the “Nine Minute Sopranos” (all 6 seasons summed up in 9 minutes) or “The Wire Wrap Up” (5 seasons of The Wire recapped in five short minutes). Now you get 11 Great Operas in 10 Minutes along with their plot lines that rival the dark twists and turns of any HBO series. (Or maybe it’s the other way around.) La traviata, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Aida – they’re all covered here.
America, as a nation, has some big fish to fry these days. But the energy is being focused right now on a symbolic question. Can the nation tolerate the building of an Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero almost a decade after the 9/11 attacks? Or, more to the point, can America uphold one of its core values – religious tolerance? The debate has smoldered on throughout the summer, and we’ve seen the hard right and left condemn the Cordoba Initiative and Islam more generally. On the right, Newt Gingrich has talked about how we’re facing an “Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.” And built into his thinking is the assumption that when Christians commit abhorrent crimes, it’s a perversion of the religion, not an indictment of its essence. But the same charity doesn’t get extended to the Islamic minority faith in the country. Meanwhile, Sam Harris on the secular/atheist left gets in bed with Gingrich when he says “there is much that is objectionable—and, frankly, terrifying—about the religion of Islam and about the state of discourse among Muslims living in the West.” If it matters, the main difference between Harris and Gingrich is Harris’ consistency, which boils down to a consistent contempt for religion. (Partially Examined Life takes a much closer look at Harris’ arguments here).
All of this makes me wonder: What would someone who actually knows something about Islam say about the whole affair? So here you have it. Karen Armstrong, one of the most well known thinkers in the field of comparative religion, a former Catholic nun, and the author most recently of The Case for God, offering her thoughts on the matter above.
Tony Judt, one of our leading public intellectuals, died earlier this month of ALS, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Judt was no stranger to controversy, and he had his critics. But he lived out his final years in a way that few could feel divided about. He kept writing and publishing. The pace picked up instead of slowing down. And he stayed in the public light, when most would have backed away from it. The video above – a short tribute to his life – isn’t entirely fun to watch. I’ll admit that. But it says something important about how we live, endure illness, and die with our humanity intact. Needless to say, this makes the video eventually 100% relevant to you. Hence why we’re posting. Thanks Mike for another great clip.
Last week, we caught Christopher Walken, the Oscar winning actor, hosting an NYC talk radio show for a day. This week, we have him “covering” Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” in a funny short minute. The Walken reading originally aired last year on the BBC’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The clip comes to us via Jason Kottke.
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This new and growing collection pulls together an assortment of free textbooks available online. The list is mostly slanted toward science and math (that’s what is out there), and the texts are almost entirely written by college professors or qualified high school teachers. In some instances, these texts were originally published in book format, and now the authors have decided to publish them online. In other cases, authors joining the “open textbook” movement (see Flat World Knowledge, CK-12, Curriki, etc.) have published their works for the first time in electronic format, often under a Creative Commons license. We will update the list continually. But if you see good texts missing, please feel free to ping us. You can access 100+ Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection here, and please forward the link to any young students or lifelong learners who might benefit…
P.S. This collection will always appear in the top navigation of the web site. Just look for “Textbooks” in the top nav bar.
Three year olds can wreak havoc on a home, and the precocious ones can recite poetry too. Here we have a toddler reciting Billy Collins’ poem “Litany” (find text here) and also some lines from Lord Alfred Tennyson (while dressed as Superman, of course). It’s good fun, right up there with actor Bill Murray reading Collins poetry at a construction site in New York City…
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Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
