Forensic Linguistics: Finding a Murderer Through Text Messages

in English Language | August 24th, 2011

Mal­colm Coulthard teach­es Foren­sic Lin­guis­tics at Aston Uni­ver­si­ty, Birm­ing­ham. And, in case you’re won­der­ing what this means, foren­sic lin­guis­tics is all about “tak­ing lin­guis­tic knowl­edge, meth­ods and insight, and apply­ing these to the foren­sic con­text of law, inves­ti­ga­tion, tri­al, pun­ish­ment and reha­bil­i­ta­tion.” Or solv­ing crimes, in short.  This may sound rather dry, but when Pro­fes­sor Coulthard talks about his work we get a fas­ci­nat­ing glimpse into what foren­sic lin­guis­tics looks like in prac­tice. In the video above, an excerpt from his inau­gur­al lec­ture at Aston Uni­ver­si­ty (watch the full ver­sion here), Coulthard explains how the analy­sis of text mes­sages helped solve a recent mur­der case. This puts him on the new fron­tier of police work.

Mean­while, in an inter­view with the BBC, Tim Grant, Deputy Direc­tor at the Cen­tre for Foren­sic Lin­guis­tics at Aston Uni­ver­si­ty, explains how his team’s analy­sis of doc­u­ments and writ­ings can help police with their inves­ti­ga­tions. The video does not work in all regions, but there is a tran­script below the video.

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.

Marlon Brando Screen Tests for Rebel Without A Cause (1947)

in Film | August 12th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1940s, Warn­er Broth­ers bought the rights to Robert Lind­ner’s book, Rebel With­out a Cause: The Hyp­no­analy­sis of a Crim­i­nal Psy­chopath, and began turn­ing it into a film. A par­tial script was writ­ten, and a 23-year old Mar­lon Bran­do was asked to do a five-minute screen test in 1947. For what­ev­er rea­son, the stu­dio aban­doned the orig­i­nal project, and even­tu­al­ly revived it eight years lat­er with a new script and a new actor — James Dean, of course. Dean’s own screen test for Rebel With­out a Cause appears here.

Down the road, you can find the Bran­do clip in our col­lec­tion of 275 Cul­tur­al Icons, which fea­tures great thinkers and artists appear­ing in orig­i­nal video & audio. Tol­stoy, Sal­vador Dali, Geor­gia O’Ke­effe, they’re all part of the mix.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The God­fa­ther With­out Bran­do?: It Almost Hap­pened

The James Dean Sto­ry by Robert Alt­man (Com­plete Film)

Paul New­man and James Dean Screen­test for East of Eden

Crater Lake Under the Stars

in Art | August 11th, 2011

Ben Canales took a trip to Crater Lake to shoot the stars, sac­ri­fic­ing mon­ey and per­son­al rela­tion­ships along the way. But he’s not com­plain­ing. The results are just painful­ly pret­ty…

The Math Guy Radio Archive

in Math | August 8th, 2011

Image by Richard Ress­man, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Start­ing back in 1995, Kei­th Devlin, a Stan­ford math pro­fes­sor and pop­u­lar sci­ence writer, began mak­ing appear­ance’s on NPR’s Week­end Edi­tion Sat­ur­day, where he demys­ti­fies math ques­tions, both large and small, that have a bear­ing on our every­day lives. Years lat­er “The Math Guy,” as he’s oth­er­wise called, has built up a com­plete sound archive of his radio appear­ances, which fea­tures 78 episodes record­ed between 1995 and 2001. Here are a few fine exam­ples:

• June 4, 2011 Any Way You Stack It, $14.3 Tril­lion Is A Mind-Ben­der. How can we com­pre­hend the size of the cur­rent US nation­al debt?
• Octo­ber 23, 2010. Check­ing The Math Behind The Green­house Effect.
• June 5, 2010. Run­ning the Num­bers for the World Cup.
• July 4, 2009. Top 10 Rea­sons Why the BMI is Bogus.
• April 4, 2009. Anoth­er Father of the Hydro­gen Bomb. The 100th anniver­sary of the birth of the math­e­mati­cian Stanis­law Ulam.
• Feb­ru­ary 28, 2009. What do we need alge­bra for?
• Decem­ber 27, 2008. ‘Hard Day’s Night’: A Math­e­mat­i­cal Mys­tery Tour. Math­e­mat­i­cal analy­sis of the open­ing chord and oth­er Bea­t­les music.

Again, you can access the com­plete archive here.

H/T @Stanford

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Map of Math­e­mat­ics: An Ani­mat­ed Video Shows How All the Dif­fer­ent Fields in Math Fit Togeth­er

Vin­tage MIT Cal­cu­lus Lessons

Futur­ist Arthur C. Clarke on Mandelbrot’s Frac­tals

Orson Welles Narrates an Animation of Plato’s Cave Allegory

in Philosophy | July 19th, 2011

In 1973, Orson Welles nar­rat­ed this ani­mat­ed short, which fea­tures some­what sur­re­al art­work by Dick Oden. You can see more of Oden’s work here.

The Alle­go­ry of the Cave illus­trates Pla­to’s view of knowl­edge as pre­sent­ed in Book VII of The Repub­lic: in ordi­nary expe­ri­ence, we see only shad­ows of the true world, which we can only behold by pur­su­ing rig­or­ous philo­soph­i­cal analy­sis.

This is not the only time “The Cave” has been set to film in some form. Open Cul­ture read­ers may recall this bril­liant ver­sion done with clay­ma­tion. Glut­tons for pun­ish­ment may wish to peruse this col­lec­tion of 20 YouTube ver­sions at PartiallyExaminedLife.com, many of them fright­ful­ly ama­teur­ish and some of them pre­sent­ing a warped and/or incom­pre­hen­si­ble ver­sion of the sto­ry.

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:

Free­dom Riv­er: A Para­ble Told by Orson Welles

Orson Welles Reads Moby Dick

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog, which recent­ly released an episode dis­cussing Pla­to’s Repub­lic.

A Building Salvador Dali Could Love

in Art | July 12th, 2011

You’ve seen build­ings mag­i­cal­ly trans­formed into artis­tic can­vas­es before — the Astro­nom­i­cal Clock Tow­er in Prague; the icon­ic build­ings at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty; and then this facade in Ukraine. But have you seen the audi­ence take con­trol of the archi­tec­tur­al paint­ing? That’s what hap­pened in Lyon, France dur­ing the “Fête des lumières,” held last Decem­ber. Throw an audio analy­sis algo­rithm and a micro­phone into the mix, and the audi­ence now dri­ves the sur­re­al archi­tec­tur­al show…

via Boing­Bo­ing

300 Cultural Icons: Great Artists, Writers & Thinkers in Their Own Words

in | June 12th, 2011

• Allen, Woody — Video — The neu­rot­ic New York film­mak­er hosts the Rev­erend Bil­ly Gra­ham in an unlike­ly con­ver­sa­tion.
• Apol­li­naire, Guil­laume — Audio — Reads his famous poem “Le pont Mirabeau” from Alcools. 1913.
• Ash­bery, John — Audio — The Amer­i­can Pulitzer Prize-win­ning poet reads a num­ber of his poems from the 1950s to 1970s.
• Asi­mov, Isaac — Video — Sci-fi writer shares insights on sci­ence, com­put­ing, reli­gion, pop­u­la­tion growth and the uni­verse.
• Auden, W.H. — Audio — Reads lines from his poems at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. 1955.
• Auster, Paul — Audio — Reads from his nov­el Book of Illu­sions at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia.
• Baez, Joan - Video — One of our great folk singers filmed in 1958, when only 17, play­ing at Club 47 in Cam­bridge, Mass.
• Bald­win, James - Video — One of America’s best writ­ers declares inde­pen­dence from some of the more trou­bling assump­tions embed­ded in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
• Bartók, Béla — Audio — Inter­view record­ed in 1944 as part of the “Ask the Com­posers” series.
• Bass, Saul - Video — Icon­ic design­er on mon­ey, qual­i­ty work & his cre­ative lega­cy.
• Brad­bury, Ray - Video — The author of Fahren­heit 451 talks about why lit­er­a­ture is the safe­ty valve of all civ­i­liza­tion.
• Bran­do, Mar­lon - Video — Talks about Civ­il Rights with James Bald­win, Har­ry Bela­fonte, Charl­ton Hes­ton, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Sid­ney Poiti­er.
• Bran­do, Mar­lon - Video — A 23 year old Bran­do screen tests for an ear­ly and even­tu­al­ly aban­doned ver­sion of Rebel With­out a Cause. 1947.
• Beck­ett, Samuel — Video — Rare footage of the avant-garde Irish writer.
• Bel­low, Saul — Audi0 — The Nobel Prize-win­ning author reads from Humboldt’s Gift (1988).
• Bergman, Ing­mar - Video — The Swedish direc­tor makes a lengthy appear­ance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
• Bern­stein, Leonard - Video — The Amer­i­can con­duc­tor breaks down the mak­ing of Beethoven’s Fifth Sym­pho­ny on the mid-1950s tele­vi­sion pro­gram Omnibus.
• Bloom, Harold - Audio — The esteemed Yale lit­er­ary crit­ic talks in inter­view about the Ghast­ly Decline of the Human­i­ties and Oba­ma’s poet­ry.
• Bono — Video — Lead singer of U2/philanthropist tells UPenn grad­u­ates “To pick a fight, Get in it.” (2004)
• Borges, Jorge Luis — Video — Argenti­na’s favorite son fea­tured in doc­u­men­tary called Jorge Luis Borges: The Mir­ror Man.
• Bot­ton, Alain de - Video — A 38 minute look at why pes­simism could be a use­ful approach to liv­ing life, from one of the best pop­u­lar­iz­ers of phi­los­o­phy.
• Bowie, David - Video — Sings “Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy” with Bing Cros­by in 1977. Unex­pect­ed pair­ing.
• Bowie, David - Video — Orig­i­nal music video for Space Odd­i­ty from Bowie’s pro­mo­tion­al film, ‘Love You Till Tues­day’, released in 1969.
• Boyle  T. Cor­aghes­san — Audio — Reads the short sto­ry “Bul­let in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff.
• Brown, James — Video — The God­fa­ther of Soul adapts “Sex Machine” to sell miso soup in a Japan­ese com­mer­cial. (1992)
• Buck­ley, William F. - Video — Con­ser­v­a­tive doyen William F. Buck­ley says he flogged him­self to get through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
• Buck­ley, William F. — Video — Threat­ens to smash Noam Chom­sky in the face. 1969.
• Bukows­ki, Charles — Audio — Reads his poem “Some­thing For The Touts, The Nuns, The Gro­cery Clerks, And You.”
• Buñuel, Luis - Video — Sur­re­al­ist film­mak­er speaks about his col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sal­vador Dali on Chien andalou.
• Bur­roughs, William S. - Video — The great beat writer, 81 years old in this video, resists lit­er­ary con­ven­tion and shoots Shake­speare.
• Bur­roughs, William S. — Video — The cre­ator of exper­i­men­tal nov­els demon­strates his art of cut-up writ­ing.
• Byrne, David - Video — Talk­ing Heads singer tells TED audi­ence how archi­tec­ture helped music evolve.
• Capote, Tru­man — Audio — Reads from his 1958 novel­la Break­fast at Tiffany’s.
• Car­lin, George - Video — The mas­ter riffs through his “Mod­ern Man” rou­tine dur­ing his last appear­ance on The Tonight Show.
• Chan­dler, Ray­mond - Audio — America’s fore­most writer of hard-boiled detec­tive fic­tion in con­ver­sa­tion with Ian Flem­ing, James Bond author. 1958.
• Chom­sky, Noam — Audio/Video — A vast media col­lec­tion focused on Chom­sky and his views on polit­i­cal issues.
• Chom­sky, Noam - Video — The MIT prof talks lin­guis­tics with Ali G. Good for a big laugh.
• Clap­ton, Eric — Video — Back in 1968, a young Eric Clap­ton explains the ele­ments of his sound.
• Clarke, Sir Arthur C. — Video — The futur­ist presents a film about Benoît B. Man­del­brot, the father of frac­tals.
• Clarke, Sir Arthur C. — Video — The author pre­dicts the future in 1964, and nails it.
• Cleese, John — Video — One of the found­ing mem­bers of Mon­ty Python talks about the ori­gin of cre­ativ­i­ty.
• Coel­ho, Paulo — Video — The author of The Alchemist, a mas­sive best­seller, says why the road to suc­cess runs right through fail­ure.
• Cohen, Leonard - Audio — Great singer/songwriter reads sev­er­al poems and per­forms one song that would become an all-time clas­sic. 1966.
• Cohen, Leonard - Video — Reads “The Future” at the begin­ning of a 20 minute inter­view.
• Col­bert, Stephen - Video — Speak­ing at Book Expo Amer­i­ca, Col­bert pumps his book, I Am Amer­i­ca (And So Can You!), and spars with Khaled Hos­sei­ni.
• Col­bert, Stephen — Video — The real Col­bert dish­es out wis­dom & laughs at North­west­ern grad­u­a­tion.
• C0ltrane, John - Video — Trane per­forms “My Favorite Things,” lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly breath­ing new life into the sopra­no sax­o­phone. 1961.
• Conan Doyle, Arthur — Video — Revis­its the back­sto­ry to Sher­lock Holmes (1910).
• Cop­po­la, Fran­cis Ford - Video — The direc­tor recounts how The God­fa­ther was almost made with­out Mar­lon Bran­do.
• Costell0, Elvis — Video — Sings “Pen­ny Lane” for Paul McCart­ney and Pres­i­dent Oba­ma. Love the ver­sion.
• Cum­mings, EE - Audio — The poet reads “Some­where I Have Nev­er Trav­elled” and also “Any­one Lived in a Pret­ty How Town.”
• Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi, Mihaly - Video — The famed psy­chol­o­gist talks about cre­ativ­i­ty, flow and the source of hap­pi­ness.
• Dalai Lama - Video — The Tibetan spir­i­tu­al leader offers an Intro­duc­tion to Bud­dhism at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Dali, Sal­vador - Video — Sur­re­al­ist artist appears on “What’s My Line?” (1952)
• Dali, Sal­vador — Video — The sur­re­al­ist artist gets sur­re­al on a younger Mike Wal­lace. TV inter­view was record­ed in 1958.
• Davis, Miles - Video — Davis and John Coltrane play­ing a nice ren­di­tion of “So What,” the lead­off tune from Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959).
• Dawkins, Richard — Video — The Oxford biol­o­gist debates athe­ism with Chris­t­ian math­e­mati­cian John Lennox.
• Dawkins, Richard — Video — Talks about the awe of life and sci­ence in a great lec­ture from 1991.
• Dawkins, Richard - Video — Debates Alis­ter McGrath, Pro­fes­sor of His­tor­i­cal The­ol­o­gy at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty, about the exis­tence (or non-exis­tence) of God.
• Dean, James - Video — Clash­es with Ronald Rea­gan in new­ly dis­cov­ered footage from 1954.
• Depp, John­ny - Video — The ver­sa­tile actor reads let­ter from Gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son.
• Dia­mond, Jared - Video — The author of Guns, Germs & Steel offers a lec­ture at USC on the Evo­lu­tion of Reli­gion.
• Diaz, Junot -Vide0 — Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author of The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao speaks about his book at Google.
• Diet­rich, Mar­lene — Video — The Ger­man star screen tests for The Blue Angel in 1929, right before becom­ing an inter­na­tion­al star.
• Dis­ney, Walt - Video — The father of Mick­ey Mouse intro­duces the “super car­toon cam­era” that rev­o­lu­tion­ized ani­ma­tion.
• Dylan, Bob — Video — Per­forms “The Times They Are A‑Changin” at the White House.
• Edi­son, Thomas — Audio — The inven­tor recites “Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb” in the late 1870s. One of the ear­ly record­ings of the human voice.
• Egan, Jen­nifer - Video — Pulitzer Prize-win­ning nov­el­ist talks about A Vis­it from the Goon Squad at Google.
• Ein­stein, Albert — Video — The great physi­cist gives a speech. The occa­sion is unknown.
• Ein­stein, Albert — Audio — Explains the mean­ing of E=mc².
• Eliot, T.S. — Audio — Reads his 1922 poem, “The Waste Land,” con­sid­ered a mod­ernist mas­ter­piece.
• Eliot, T.S. — Audio — Reads “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” accom­pa­nied by Por­tishead.
• Elling­ton, Duke — Video — The jazz leg­end appears in a video explain­ing how records were actu­al­ly record­ed, plat­ed and pressed.
• Ell­roy, James - Video — The crime writer tells you how he goes about writ­ing his­tor­i­cal fic­tion.
• Eugenides, Jef­frey - Audio — The Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author reads “Spring Fugue” by Harold Brod­key.
• Faulkn­er, William — Audio — 28 hours of Faulkn­er record­ings from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia.
• Faulkn­er, William — Audio — Reads from As I Lay Dying.
• Fey, Tina — Video — SNL star and 30 Rock cre­ator brings her Bossy­pants book tour to Google.
• Feyn­man, Richard — Video — The Nobel Prize-win­ning physi­cist gives lec­tures at Cor­nell in 1964. Bill Gates posts them online.
• Feyn­man, Richard - Video — The physi­cist hosts the BBC pro­gram Fun to Imag­ine, which uses physics to explain how the every­day world works. (1983)
• Feyn­man, Richard - Video — Pro­duced in 1981 by the BBC and PBS, the show fea­tures Feyn­man talk­ing in a very per­son­al way about the joys of sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery.
• Feyn­man, Richard — Video — Now he plays the bon­gos and sings praise to orange juice.
• Fitzger­ald, F. Scott - Reads lines from Keats’ Ode to a Nightin­gale and Shake­speare’s Oth­el­lo.
• Ford, Richard — Audio — The author of Inde­pen­dence Day reads “The Reunion” by John Cheev­er.
• Frank, Anne - Video — It is the only known footage of Anne Frank, author of the world’s most famous diary, and it’s now online.
• Franklin, Aretha - Video — An Amer­i­can trea­sure sings “My Coun­try, Tis of Thee” at Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s Inau­gu­ra­tion.
• Fran­kl, Vic­tor - Video — Aus­tri­an psy­chi­a­trist and Holo­caust sur­vivor on Man’s Search for Mean­ing.
• Franzen, Jonathan — Audio — One of Amer­i­ca’s hottest writ­ers reads “Love Trou­ble Is My Busi­ness” by Veron­i­ca Geng.
• Freud, Sig­mund — Audio — The Only Known Record­ing of His Voice, 1938
• Freud, Sig­mund — Video — Home movies pro­vide a rare glimpse of Freud’s pri­vate life.
• Fried­man, Mil­ton — Video — Influ­en­tial econ­o­mist offers defense of cap­i­tal­ism and greed in 1979 on Phil Don­ahue Show.
• Fry, Stephen — Video — British writer and actor offers some pearls of wis­dom in “What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18.”
• Fry, Stephen - Video — Gets ani­mat­ed about lan­guage.
• Fry, Stephen - Video — Tells us his thoughts on phi­los­o­phy and unbe­lief.
• Gaiman, Neil - Video — The British writer offers a New Year’s Bene­dic­tion in Jan­u­ary 2010. Record­ed at Sym­pho­ny Hall in Boston.
• Gand­hi, Mahat­ma — Video — The first record­ed video (with sound) of Mahat­ma Gand­hi. Shot some­time before 1947.
• Gehry, Frank — Video/Audio — Two tow­er­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, the archi­tect Frank Gehry and the composer/conductor Esa-Pekka Salo­nen, dis­cuss their work.
• Gib­son, William - Video — The Father of Cyber­punk reads from his nov­el Spook Coun­try in Sec­ond Life.
• Gilbert, Eliz­a­beth - Video — Author of Eat, Pray, Love talks about writ­ers, their “genius,” and the expec­ta­tions that we place on it.
• Gilliam, Ter­ry - Video — Mon­ty Python animator/cast mem­ber shows you how to make your own cutout ani­ma­tion.
• Gins­berg, Allen — Audio — Mul­ti­ple read­ings by the Beat writer span­ning sev­er­al decades.
• Gins­berg, Allen -Video — The Beat poet takes a tug­boat ride, 1969.
• Gins­berg, Allen — Video — Face to Face with Jere­my Isaacs in 1995.
• Glass, Ira - Video — The host of This Amer­i­can Life talks about the art of sto­ry­telling.
• Godard- Jean-Luc -Video — One of the dri­ving forces behind La Nou­velle Vague cin­e­ma in con­ver­sa­tion with Woody Allen.
• Gould, Glenn — Video — A young Gould plays Bach mov­ing­ly.
• Gould, Glenn — Video — An old­er Gould per­forms Bach’s Gold­berg Vari­a­tions in 1981.
• Green­away, Peter -Video — The film direc­tor presents a lec­ture “Nine Clas­sic Paint­ings Revis­it­ed” at UC Berke­ley.
• Hav­el, Václav - Audio — Speaks at Colum­bia; Revis­its the Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion.
• Hawk­ing, Stephen — Audio — The physi­cist tells us to aban­don Earth or face extinc­tion.
• Hem­ing­way, Ernest — Audio — The great Amer­i­can nov­el­ist reads from his work “In Harry’s Bar in Venice.”
• Hem­ing­way, Ernest — Audio — The nov­el­ist records his Nobel Prize accep­tance speech from Havana, Cuba. 1954
• Hen­drix, Jimi - Video — Gui­tar hero plays Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club Band in June, 1967, right after the album came out.
• Hen­son, Jim - Video — The leg­endary pup­peteer shows you how to make your own pup­pets. A 15 minute primer. (1969)
• Her­zog, Wern­er — Video — The great film­mak­er in con­ver­sa­tion with anoth­er one, Errol Mor­ris. At Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, 2007.
• Her­zog, Wern­er — Audio — Her­zog in con­ver­sa­tion with Cor­mac McCarthy. High point: Her­zog reads a pas­sage from McCarthy’s All the Pret­ty Hors­es.
• Hitch­cock, Alfred — Audio — Fran­cois Truf­faut, leg­endary French direc­tor, con­duct­ed 12 hours of inter­views with Hitch­cock in 1962.
• Hitch­cock, Alfred - Video — The direc­tor recalls work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound, and Dal­i’s mem­o­rable dream sequence.
• Hitch­cock, Alfred - Video — Rare inter­view con­duct­ed with the film­mak­er by Tom Sny­der in 1973.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video — The essayist/journalist/critic responds to Red­dit user ques­tions.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video —  Revis­es the Ten Com­mand­ments.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video — A well known sup­port­er of the Iraq War gets water board­ed to decide whether it is tor­ture or not.
• Hitchens, Christo­pher - Video — Goes head to head with Dinesh D’Souza in a debate about religion/atheism.
• Hol­i­day, Bil­lie - Video — The great jazz vocal­ist sings “Strange Fruit.” TIME called it the song of the cen­tu­ry in 1999.
• Hol­ly, Bud­dy — Audio — His first record­ing at age 12.
• Hop­kins, Antho­ny — Video — The great actor is well versed in the work of fel­low Welsh­man Dylan Thomas. Reads “Do not go gen­tle into that good night.”
• Hop­per, Den­nis — Video — Easy Rid­er star reads Rud­yard Kipling on John­ny Cash Show. 1970.
• Horne, Lena - Video — The actress appears on “What’s My Line?” in 1958.
• Horowitz, Vladimir - Vide0 — The great Russ­ian pianist returns to Moscow in 1986. Plays Mozart.
• Hurston, Zora Neale - Video — The author sings ‘Uncle Bud,’ a pop­u­lar song in the South in 1939.
• Hus­ton, John - Video — The film­mak­er (The Mal­tese Fal­con, The Asphalt Jun­gle) lives the good life in his Irish cas­tle. 1966.
• Hux­ley, Aldous — Audio — The author him­self nar­rates a dra­ma­tized ver­sion of his nov­el Brave New World.
• Hux­ley, Aldous - Video — The author warns of dic­ta­tor­ship in Amer­i­ca.
• Hux­ley, Aldous — Video — Presents “The Ulti­mate Rev­o­lu­tion” at UC Berke­ley, 1962. Warns of those who will ter­ror­ism and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to cre­ate will­ing slaves out of the pop­u­la­tion.
• Ionesco, Eugène - Video — French absur­dist play­wright inter­viewed in 1961.
• Irv­ing, John — Video — The best­selling writer gives advice to aspir­ing nov­el­ists.
• Jobs, Steve — Video — In one of our favorite grad­u­a­tion speech­es, the Apple CEO tells Stan­ford stu­dents about his phi­los­o­phy of life. Stay hun­gry, stay fool­ish.
• Jobs, Steve - Video — The Apple founder demos the first Mac in 1984.
• Jobs, Steve - Video — Talk­ing about what it was like to work with icon­ic design­er Paul Rand.
• Jones, James Earl — Audio — Jones reads pas­sages from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” in 1973. From 92nd St. Y in NYC.
• Jones, James Earl — Video — Also reads Oth­el­lo at White House Poet­ry Jam.
• Joyce, James — Audio — Rare audio record­ing of James Joyce read­ing from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
• Joyce, James - Video — Rare footage of James in Paris dur­ing 1920s.
• Jung, Carl -Video — The famous psy­chol­o­gist tells us why death is a ful­fill­ment, rather than a nega­tion, of life.
• Kara­jan, Her­bert von - Video — The con­duc­tor leads the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic through Beethoven’s mas­ter­piece cir­ca 1966.
• Kas­parov, Gar­ry — Video —  Talks Chess, Tech­nol­o­gy and a Lit­tle Life at Google
• Kauf­mann, Wal­ter - Audio — Emi­nent philoso­pher lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)
• Keller, Helen - Video — Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sul­li­van appear in a rare piece of footage from the 1930s.
• Ker­ouac, Jack — Video — Meets up with the infant ter­ri­ble of the con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment, William F. Buck­ley. (1962)
• Ker­ouac, Jack - Video — Reads from his gen­er­a­tion-defin­ing nov­el On the Road.
• Kesey, Ken — Audio/Video — Ani­mat­ed video fea­tures audio from Kesey’s first acid trip at gov­ern­ment spon­sored research tri­al.
• Kiefer, Anselm — Video — The Ger­man painter cre­ates his world of ruina­tion before your eyes.
• Lacan, Jacques - Video — The psy­cho­analy­sis rock star gives a pub­lic lec­ture at The Catholic Uni­ver­si­ty of Lou­vain in 1972.
• Lang, Fritz — Video — Direc­tor Fritz Lang dis­cuss­es vio­lence in film.
• Leary, Tim­o­thy - Video — The Har­vard psy­chol­o­gist, LSD pro­po­nent gets inter­viewed from prison dur­ing the 1970s.
• Lee, Bruce - Video — Mar­tial arts star Bruce Lee audi­tions for The Green Hor­net (1964).
• Lee, Bruce — Video — The young actor appears in his first and only TV inter­view in Decem­ber 1971.
• Lee, Spike — Video/Audio — In con­ver­sa­tion with Paul Hold­en­gräber at The New York Pub­lic Library.
• Lennon, John — Audio — Short­ly after The Bea­t­les broke up, John Lennon con­duct­ed a 3 hour inter­view with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wen­ner.
• Lennon, John — Video — The Bea­t­le and Yoko Ono appear on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
• Lennon, John -Video — Footage recap­tures the “bed-ins” that John and Yoko famous­ly staged in Mon­tre­al and Ams­ter­dam in 1969 to protest the Viet­nam War.
• Less­ing, Doris - Video — Reacts to win­ning the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture.
• Lévy, Bernard-Hen­ri — Audio/Video — France’s “rock-star philoso­pher” debates Slavoj Žižek, the Slo­van­ian “Elvis of cul­tur­al the­o­ry.
• Lynch, David - Video — The film­mak­er inter­views Paul McCart­ney. The sub­ject? Med­i­ta­tion.
• Lynch, David - Video — Lists his favorite movies and film­mak­ers.
• Mail­er, Nor­man — Video — The con­tro­ver­sial writer in con­ver­sa­tion with anoth­er con­tro­ver­sial writer, Mar­tin Amis. 1991.
• Mail­er, Nor­man — Video — Famous­ly feuds with Gore Vidal on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971.
• Mail­er, Nor­man - Video — The great writer and box­ing enthu­si­ast revis­its the Rum­ble in the Jun­gle: Muham­mad Ali v. George Fore­man.
• Man­dela, Nel­son - Video — His first inter­view ever on TV. Record­ed May, 1961.
• Mar­tin, Steve - Video — Bril­liant come­di­an writes song for hymn-deprived athe­ists.
• McFer­rin, Bob­by — Video — The singer shows the pow­er of the pen­ta­ton­ic scale in a fun video.
• McLuhan, Mar­shall - Video — Debates the mean­ing of the Dig­i­tal Age with Nor­man Mail­er in 1968.
• McLuhan, Mar­shall — Video —  The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage.
• Miller, Arthur - Video — The play­wright (Death of a Sales­man, The Cru­cible) talks about his expe­ri­ence with McCarthy­is­m/an­ti-com­mu­nism in Amer­i­ca. 1971.
• Miller, Hen­ry — Video — The nov­el­ist Hen­ry Miller (Trop­ic of Can­cer, Trop­ic of Capri­corn), then 81 years old, rem­i­nisces about his dif­fi­cult ear­ly life in New York.
• Mor­ri­son, Toni — Video - In con­ver­sa­tion with Fran Lebowitz at the New York Pub­lic Library.
• Mor­ris, Errol — Video/Audio — Film­mak­er talks with Philip Goure­vitch about what actu­al­ly hap­pened at Abu Ghraib prison.
• Mur­ray, Bill — Video — The fun­ny man reads poet­ry, includ­ing Bil­ly Collins, at a con­struc­tion site.
• Mur­ray, Bill - Video — Reads more Collins poet­ry (“For­get­ful­ness”) at the 16th Annu­al Poets House Walk Across the Brook­lyn Bridge.
• Nabokov, Vladimir - Video — The Russ­ian author mar­vels over dif­fer­ent Loli­ta book cov­ers.
• Nabokov, Vladimir - Video — A mid 1950s inter­view with Vladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling con­duct­ed soon after the pub­li­ca­tion of Loli­ta (1955).
• New­man, Paul - Video — Screen­tests for role in East of Eden with James Dean.
• New­man, Paul — Video — The star hangs out with oth­er icon­ic stars (Natal­ie Wood, Robert Red­ford, Jane Fon­da, Julie Andrews, Christo­pher Plum­mer, and Rock Hud­son) at the beach in Mal­ibu, 1965.
• Nichol­son, Jack - Video — The actor puts his mon­ey and star pow­er behind hydro­gen pow­ered Chevys in 1978. And he dri­ves one too.
• O’Brien, Conan - Video — The red-head­ed come­di­an pays a hilar­i­ous vis­it to Google.
• O’Brien, Conan — Video — Now deliv­ers the Dart­mouth com­mence­ment address, 2011. The best address of the year.
• O’Connor,  Flan­nery — Audio — Reads “A Good Man is Hard to Find” at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty, 1959.
• O’Keeffe, Geor­gia - Video —  Footage of the 92 year old Geor­gia O’Ke­effe tak­en in and around her home in New Mex­i­co.
• Page, Jim­my — Video — Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957). Lat­er becomes Led Zep­pelin gui­tarist.
• Page, Lar­ry - Video — Google co-founder/CEO returns to U. Michi­gan to give 2009 com­mence­ment speech.
• Pamuk, Orhan — Audio — The Nobel Prize-win­ning author from Turkey reads “My Russ­ian Edu­ca­tion” by Vladimir Nabokov.
• Pavarot­ti, Luciano — Video — Sings “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” with the God­fa­ther of Soul, James Brown. Check it.
• Pen­nebak­er, DA - Video — The direc­tor of the clas­sic 1967 Bob Dylan doc­u­men­tary Don’t Look Back talks with music crit­ic Greil Mar­cus.
• Picas­so, Pablo - Video — Picas­so at his home in Val­lau­ris, paint­ing on glass with a cam­era rolling on the oth­er side. (1950)
• Pinker, Steven - Video — Har­vard lin­guist and cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist explains how innu­en­do makes the world work.
• Plath, Sylvia — Video — Reads her poem “Dad­dy,” writ­ten on Octo­ber 12, 1962, short­ly before her death, and pub­lished posthu­mous­ly in Ariel in 1965.
• Plath, Sylvia - Video — Reads “Ariel.”
• Polan­s­ki, Roman - Video — On mak­ing his clas­sic 70s film Chi­na­town.
• Pol­lock, Jack­son — Video — The short film Jack­son Pol­lock 51 fea­tures the abstract expres­sion­ist painter up close, paint­ing on glass.
• Pow­er, Saman­tha - Video — Har­vard prof and Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author gives grad­u­a­tion speech at Pitzer, 2008.
• Pound, Ezra — Audio — A rich col­lec­tion of audio record­ings of Ezra Pound is now online thanks to U. Penn­syl­va­nia.
• Rand, Ayn — Video — Ear­ly in his career, Mike Wal­lace sits down and inter­views the author of Atlas Shrugged. (1959)
• Rand, Ayn — Video — Cir­ca 1979, Rand tells talk show host Phil Don­ahue all about her athe­ist views.
• Rauschen­berg, Robert -Video — Tells of how he knocked on Willem De Kooning’s door and flat-out asked the mas­ter for an orig­i­nal draw­ing – so he could erase it.
• Reed, Lou - Video — Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot close to 500 short movies of friends, celebri­ties, mod­els. Along with Reed, you will find Nico, Den­nis Hop­per, and oth­ers.
• Reed, Lou — Video — A very hip and blonde Lou Reed sings Sweet Jane in Paris, 1974.
• Rein­hardt, Djan­go - Video — Djan­go, the great jazz gui­tarist, per­forms “J’Attendrai” (I Will Wait) in 1939.
• Richards, Kei­th — Video — The Rolling Stones’ gui­tarist inter­viewed in a less usu­al set­ting, The New York Pub­lic Library.
• Rogers, Mr. — Video — The chil­dren’s tele­vi­sion icon goes to Wash­ing­ton to explain the impor­tance of fund­ing for pub­lic tele­vi­sion. 1964.
• Roth, Philip — Video — The author of Port­noy’s Com­plaint dis­pels myths about aging.
• Roth, Philip — Video — The cel­e­brat­ed Amer­i­can nov­el­ist talks about the myths of aging.
• Rowl­ing, JK - Video — Author of the Har­ry Pot­ter series imparts wis­dom to Har­vard’s grad­u­at­ing class in 2008.
• Rowl­ing, JK - Video — Gives a pub­lic read­ing of the first chap­ter of Har­ry Pot­ter and the Death­ly Hal­lows.
• Rus­sell, Bertrand - Video — The British philoso­pher sends a mes­sage to peo­ple liv­ing 1,000 years from now.
• Rus­sell, Bertrand - Video — Explains why he doesn’t believe in God.
• Rus­sell, Kurt - Video — Audi­tions for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars.
• Sagan, Carl - Video — His last TV inter­view.
• Sandel, Michael - Video — The Har­vard philoso­pher on the lost art of demo­c­ra­t­ic debate.
• Sandel, Michael — Video — One of the most pop­u­lar Har­vard cours­es, Jus­tice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, now appears online.
• Sand­burg, Carl - Video — The poet appears on “What’s My Line?” in 1960.
• Sapol­sky, Robert - Video — Lead­ing biol­o­gist demys­ti­fies human behav­ior in free course.
• Schoen­berg, Arnold - Audio — The Aus­tri­an com­pos­er dis­cuss­es art, music, etc.
• Schn­abel, Julian — Video — The artist/filmmaker explains how he over­comes cre­ative ruts.
• Scors­ese, Mar­tin - Video — The leg­endary film­mak­er picks his favorite gang­ster films.
• Sedaris, David - Audio/iTunes — The fun­ny man reads his sto­ry “Of Mice and Men” from When You are Engulfed in Flames.
• Sedaris, David - Audio — Reads “Solu­tion to Saturday’s Puzzle”from When You Are Engulfed in Flames.
• Sear­le, John — Audio — The UC Berke­ley philoso­pher offers three free cours­es online.
• Seeger, Pete - Video — The great Amer­i­can folk singer talks about his clas­sic song, Turn! Turn! Turn!.
• Seeger, Pete - Video — The folk giant, at 91, per­forms BP protest song.
• Segovia, Andrés - Video — Father of clas­si­cal gui­tar plays one of his favorites, “The Leg­end of Asturias.”
• Sell­ers, Peter - Video — The British come­di­an reads lyrics from The Bea­t­les’ A Hard Day’s Night in Shake­speare­an mode. (1964)
• Ser­ling, Rod — Video — The host/creator of The Twi­light Zone tells stu­dents where ideas come from.
• Shake­speare, William - Video — 20 minute video fea­tures Prof. Stan­ley Wells talk­ing about the Cobbe por­trait, and why it’s believed to present the real Shake­speare.
• Sil­ver­stein, Shel — Video — The chil­dren’s author nar­rates a short film based on his famous book, The Giv­ing Tree. (1964)
• Simon, David - Video — The cre­ator of The Wire sits down to talk with Bill Moy­ers.
• Singer, Peter - Video — The Aus­tralian philoso­pher explains how greed dri­ves us, and how it gave rise to the Wall Street melt­down.
• Smith, Pat­ti — Video — The “god­moth­er of punk” recalls her friend­ship with artist Robert Map­plethor­pe.
• Spacey, Kevin — Video — Spacey does nine imper­son­ations in six min­utes. Jim­my Stew­art, Katharine Hep­burn, Mar­lon Bran­do, Al Paci­no, etc.
• Stein, Gertrude - Video — A home movie that gives you a glimpse of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tok­las. 1927.
• Stein­beck, John — Video — The great Amer­i­can author deliv­ers his Nobel Address in 1962.
• Stevens, Wal­lace — Audio — Exten­sive num­ber of poet­ry read­ings from the 1950s.
• Strauss, Leo — Audio — A father of mod­ern con­ser­vatism presents 15 sem­i­nars at U. Chica­go.
• Streep, Meryl - Video — Oscar-win­ning actress gives com­mence­ment speech at Barnard/Columbia. An inspi­ra­tion on screen and off.
• Talese, Gay — Video — Drink­ing at New York Times put Mad Men to Shame.
• Tan, Amy -Video —  The author of The Joy Luck Club locates the source of her own cre­ativ­i­ty in her fam­i­ly his­to­ry and big exis­ten­tial ques­tions.
• Taran­ti­no, Quentin - Video — Pulp Fic­tion direc­tor lists his favorites films since 1992.
• Tay­lor, Eliz­a­beth — Video — The young star appears on the long-run­ning TV show, What’s My Line?, in 1954.
• Tchaikovsky, Pyotr — Audio — The Russ­ian com­poser’s voice cap­tured on an Edi­son Cylin­der (1890).
• Thomp­son, Hunter S. — Video — Gonzo jour­nal­ist inter­views Kei­th Richards. Not entire­ly coher­ent­ly.
• Thomp­son, Hunter S. — Video — Gets con­front­ed by the Hel­l’s Angels on 1960s Cana­di­an TV show.
• Thomas, Michael Tilson- Video — Direc­tor of San Fran­cis­co Sym­pho­ny on “How Mahler Changed My Life.”
• Tolkien, J.R.R. — Video — The author of The Hob­bit and The Lord of the Rings appears in a BBC doc­u­men­tary.
• Tol­stoy, Leo — Video — Great footage of the last days of the tow­er­ing Russ­ian nov­el­ist. 1910.
• Toscani­ni, Arturo — Video — Con­ducts Beethoven’s 5th at Carnegie Hall in 1952.
• Twain, Mark — Video — Amer­i­ca’s fabled writer cap­tured on film by Thomas Edi­son in 1909.
• Updike, John — Video —  Appears on The Dick Cavett Show with John Cheev­er in 1981.
• Updike, John - Video — Charles McGrath’s wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion with John Updike at the Times Cen­ter in New York on Octo­ber 28, 2008.
• Vidal, Gore - Video — Vidal and William F. Buck­ley going at it, almost com­ing to blows, dur­ing the con­test­ed pres­i­den­tial cam­paign of 1968.
• Von­negut, Kurt - Audio — Reads from his nov­el Slaugh­ter­house Five.
• Von­negut, Kurt - Video — The writer sketch­es some bril­liant blue­prints for envi­sion­ing the “shape” of a sto­ry, all in less than 4 min­utes and 37 sec­onds.
• Von­negut, Kurt - Video — Con­ducts uncon­ven­tion­al inter­view in Sec­ond Life.
• Waits, Tom - Video — The singer reads “The Laugh­ing Heart” by Charles Bukows­ki.
• Walken, Christo­pher — Video — The much loved actor reads lines oh-so-dra­mat­i­cal­ly from Lady Gaga’s Pok­er Face. Hys­ter­i­cal.
• Walken, Christo­pher - Video — And then he reads the chil­dren’s clas­sic.
• Walken, Christo­pher - Audio — Hosts radio show in NYC for a day.
• Wal­lace, David Fos­ter — Audio — A good soul has pulled togeth­er a series of audio record­ings by David Fos­ter Wal­lace.
• Wal­lace, Mike - Video — Before 60 Min­utes, Wal­lace ran his own inter­view show, talk­ing with many celebri­ties.
• Warhol, Andy - Video — In 1979, Warhol cre­at­ed pub­lic access tele­vi­sion pro­grams. In this episode, he chats with Bian­ca Jag­ger & Steven Spiel­berg.
• Warhol, Andy — Video — The painter, who invent­ed the expres­sion “15 Min­utes of Fame, “eats a ham­burg­er in 4 min­utes. (1982)
• Waters, Mud­dy - Video — The blues leg­end sings “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had” on The Blues & Gospel Train. (1964)
• Wayne, John — Audio — Great west­ern star recites/interprets the Pledge of Alle­giance.
• Welles, Orson — Video — Great film­mak­er appears on The Merv Grif­fin Show hours before he died of a heart attack at his Los Ange­les home. (1985)
• Welles, Orson - Video — Welles reads a short selec­tion from Melville’s clas­sic, Moby Dick.
• Welles, Orson — Audio — Welles presents dra­ma­tized radio broad­casts dur­ing the 1930s, includ­ing famous Mar­t­ian inva­sion episode.
• Whit­man, Walt — Audio — An authen­tic wax cylin­der record­ing of Whit­man read­ing from his late poem ‘Amer­i­ca’ that appeared in 1888.
• Williams, William Car­los — Audio — Abun­dant num­ber of read­ings record­ed dur­ing the 1940s and 50s.
• Won­der, Ste­vie — Video — Singer/songwriter Ste­vie Won­der pre­mieres “Sketch­es of a Life,” a sprawl­ing, hybrid pop-clas­si­cal con­cer­to, writ­ten between 1976 and 1994.
• Wolff, Tobias — Video — The author/Stanford lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor reads his short sto­ry “The Ben­e­fit of a Doubt.”
• Wolff, Tobias — Video —  One of our best short sto­ry writ­ers in con­ver­sa­tion with Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Car­ried.
• Woolf, Vir­ginia — Audio — Record­ing comes from a 1937 BBC radio broad­cast. The talk, enti­tled “Crafts­man­ship,” was part of a series called “Words Fail Me.” The only known record­ing of her voice.
  
• Wright, Frank Lloyd - Video — The most impor­tant Amer­i­can archi­tect of the last cen­tu­ry appears on What’s My Line? in 1956.
• X, Mal­colm — Video — Debates at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty in 1964 and makes great ref­er­ence to Shake­speare’s Ham­let.
• Zinn, Howard - Video — The peo­ple’s his­to­ri­an talks about wars and the role gov­ern­ments play in man­u­fac­tur­ing them…
• Zizek, Slavoj -Video — The influ­en­tial philosopher/theorist explains the good kar­ma of cap­i­tal­ism in an RSA ani­mat­ed video.
• Zizek, Slavoj — Video — Liv­ing in the End Times Accord­ing to Slavoj Zizek.

More to come …

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann at 50

in History | April 11th, 2011

50 years ago today, Adolf Eich­mann, a key archi­tect of the Holo­caust, went on tri­al before an Israeli tri­bunal in Jerusalem. Dur­ing the war, Eich­mann served as the Trans­porta­tion Admin­is­tra­tor of the “Final Solu­tion to the Jew­ish Ques­tion,” mean­ing he coor­di­nat­ed all the trains that trans­port­ed Jews to their deaths in East Euro­pean exter­mi­na­tion camps. When the Nazis fell, Eich­mann fled to Argenti­na where he hoped to live out his days in com­fort­able anonymi­ty, work­ing as a fore­man for Mer­cedes Benz.

The Mossad spent most of the 1950s track­ing him down, then famous­ly got their man in May, 1960. Back in Israel, the philoso­pher Han­nah Arendt cov­ered the Eich­mann tri­al for The New York­er and lat­er reduced the essence of the for­mer SS colonel to a sim­ple phrase: “the banal­i­ty of evil.” Elab­o­rat­ing she said, “The deeds were mon­strous, but the doer—at least, the very effec­tive one now on trial—was quite ordi­nary, com­mon­place, and nei­ther mon­strous nor demon­ic.”

Tak­en from The Spiel­berg Jew­ish Film Archive, the footage above shows you the open­ing moments of the tri­al and tes­ti­mo­ny from Holo­caust sur­vivors. Eich­mann is there too, encased in glass, look­ing as banal as Arendt sug­gest­ed. After 14 weeks of tes­ti­mo­ny, Eich­mann was found guilty of 15 crim­i­nal counts, includ­ing crimes against human­i­ty, and he was hanged in May, 1962 – the only civ­il exe­cu­tion ever car­ried out by the state of Israel.

A new book by Emory his­to­ri­an Deb­o­rah Lip­stadt revis­its the tri­al with the ben­e­fit of some his­tor­i­cal dis­tance. In this video, Lip­stadt reminds us why the tri­al held such impor­tance for the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Japan’s Earthquake & Tsunami: How They Happened

in Science, Video - Science | March 31st, 2011

On March 11th, Japan suf­fered a 9.0 earth­quake, fol­lowed by a mas­sive tsuna­mi. Just weeks lat­er, NOVA has pro­duced a 47 minute doc­u­men­tary that does an impres­sive job of explain­ing the sci­ence behind these twin geo­log­ic cat­a­stro­phes. The pro­gram fol­lows Roger Bil­ham, a seis­mol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, who arrived in Japan two days after the quake. And what you get is a blow-by-blow account of the unfold­ing events, cou­pled with some sound analy­sis and stun­ning footage (like the ground split­ting open and push­ing water to the sur­face.) This is by far the most sub­stan­tive treat­ment of Japan’s quake/tsunami that we’ve encoun­tered to date…

via Sci­ence Dump

The Birth of a Word: Deb Roy at TED

in MIT, Science, TED Talks | March 16th, 2011

Deb Roy is the direc­tor of the Cog­ni­tive Machines group at the MIT Media Lab. For the first few years of his son’s life, Roy installed cam­eras in every room of the fam­i­ly home. Now he jokes that he has the “largest home video col­lec­tion ever made” – rough­ly 90,000 hours of images and footage of the grow­ing baby’s world. The pur­pose was to con­sid­er and ana­lyze all the fac­tors impact­ing his son’s first words, includ­ing the 7 mil­lion words that the boy heard from his father, moth­er, nan­ny, and oth­er vis­i­tors to the house.

Roy’s talk made one of the biggest splash­es at TED this year, not only for what he learned about ear­ly lan­guage acqui­si­tion, but also for his breath­tak­ing data visu­al­iza­tion maps. Even by TED stan­dards, it’s an idea-packed 20 min­utes: Impres­sive. And when you con­sid­er that Roy is now on sab­bat­i­cal and employed by the AI com­pa­ny Bluefin Labs, work­ing on, among oth­er things, social media and mar­ket research, it all becomes more than a lit­tle bit fright­en­ing.

On a brighter note, Roy’s son turned out to be an ear­ly talk­er.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.