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The Big Picture: Who Won and Lost in Iraq

in Current Affairs | February 27th, 2007

 

Foreignpolicymagazine
Open Source, an always insight­ful pub­lic radio pro­gram, aired last week a show that took a broad look at the win­ners and losers of the Iraq war. Tak­ing up a theme that was also recent­ly explored in an edi­tion of For­eign Pol­i­cy mag­a­zine, the host, Christo­pher Lydon, spoke with a pan­el of experts from respect­ed think tanks, uni­ver­si­ties, and news­pa­pers, and, togeth­er, they drew con­clu­sions about win­ners and losers, some of which aren’t so obvi­ous. Here’s a quick recap, but we rec­om­mend giv­ing the show a lis­ten (iTunes — Feed — Mp3) and tak­ing a look at its well-done blog.

Win­ners:

  • Iran & Shi­ism: With Iraq, its tra­di­tion­al rival, in chaos, Iran is now free to project its pow­er across the Mid­dle East and tilt the bal­ance of region­al pow­er in favor of Shi­ite Islam. It’s part­ly because Iran is mak­ing such a strong show­ing that the hawks in Wash­ing­ton may feel the strate­gic need to even­tu­al­ly use mil­i­tary force against Iran. In this sense, the US is play­ing out a more extreme ver­sion of the strat­e­gy it used dur­ing the Iran-Iraq War that dragged on through the 1980s. Weak­en one pow­er, then the oth­er.
  • Chi­na:  No one is notic­ing it now, but down the road, we might be writ­ing a his­to­ry that talks about how the US adven­ture in Iraq gave Chi­na the room to emerge rapid­ly as a new super­pow­er — a super­pow­er that could plau­si­bly present itself to the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty as more diplo­mat­ic and peace­ful than the US alter­na­tive.
  • al-Qae­da: The Iraq war has helped al-Qaeda’s recruit­ment efforts, pre­cise­ly as many warned, and, if the US even­tu­al­ly aban­dons Iraq, they’ll feel embold­ened no doubt.
  • Arab Dic­ta­tors: The heat had been ratch­eted up against many Mid­dle East dic­ta­tors, but with every­one dis­tract­ed by Iraq, they are able to per­pet­u­ate their cor­rupt rule for yet a while longer.
  • Mul­ti-Lat­er­al­ism, Old Europe & the UN: They were all dis­missed by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion in the run up to the war, but they’re all look­ing bet­ter and more worth­while with each pass­ing day.

Losers:

  • Iraq & The Unit­ed States: Two obvi­ous picks.
  • Uni­lat­er­al­ism & The Neo-Cons: The neo-con approach has splen­did­ly dis­cred­it­ed itself, but the rub is that neo-cons still sit in pow­er and they may uni­lat­er­al­ly force their way into Iran before the peo­ple get to the bal­lot box again.
  • Tony Blair & the Spe­cial Rela­tion­ship between the US and Eng­land: Tony Blair is say­ing his long good­bye. He’ll be gone before too long, and, with him, may go the only oth­er sub­stan­tial mem­ber of the “Coali­tion of the Will­ing.”
  • The Price of Oil: It’s a los­er if you’re a con­sumer … but not if you’re an exec­u­tive at Exxon.

See Open Cul­ture’s pod­cast col­lec­tions:

Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Sci­ence — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)
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The New Yorker Magazine’s Famous Cartoons Now Available on Podcast

in Media | February 26th, 2007

Here’s a dif­fer­ent kind of pod­cast: You can now find on iTunes a new video pod­cast that fea­tures ani­mat­ed ver­sions of The New York­er’s famous car­toons. A ven­ture called Ring­Tales has appar­ent­ly been giv­en an exclu­sive license to ani­mate and dis­trib­ute The New York­er’s library of over 70,000 car­toons. Each week, they’ll issue three new video ani­ma­tions, which you can access on iTunes as well as by rss feed. They’ll also be avail­able on The New York­er web­site. For more details, see this press release.

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More Free Classical Music Podcasts: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner and Some Yo-Yo Ma

in Music | February 26th, 2007

 

MozartipodWe spent some time this week­end over­haul­ing our Arts & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion (plus cre­at­ing a

new Sci­ence Pod­cast Col­lec­tion), and, along the way, we dug up sev­er­al good free pod­casts for clas­si­cal music fans. Here’s a quick overview of what we found:

With last year being the 250th anniver­sary of Mozart’s birth, there was no short­age of pod­casts ded­i­cat­ed to Mozart’s mas­ter­pieces. First, Radio Swe­den (iTunes  Feed  Web Site) reis­sued a dig­i­tal archive of Mozart record­ings by the Roy­al Swedish Opera from the 1940s and 1950s. And, along very sim­i­lar lines, Dan­marks Radio (Feed  Web Site) issued pod­casts of nine Mozart sym­phonies record­ed by the Dan­ish Radio Sym­pho­ny
Orches­tra. (You’ll find here sym­phonies num­bers 15, 17, 23, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, and 41.) Since the web site is in Dan­ish, we’d rec­om­mend access­ing
these high qual­i­ty MP3’s through the rss feed list­ed above. Last­ly, we should men­tion here that, as part of last year’s fes­tiv­i­ties, The Inter­na­tion­al Mozart Foun­da­tion pub­lished online for the first time the entire­ty of of Mozart’s musi­cal scores.

Along with Mozart, you can find plen­ty of Beethoven. We have high­light­ed here before, but it’s worth not­ing again, Deutsche Welle’s pod­cast col­lec­tion called Beethoven­fest (iTunes  Feed  Web Site). You’ll want to give it a look, and also see the pod­cast col­lec­tion put togeth­er by the Boston Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra Con­ser­va­to­ry (iTunes  Feed  Web Site). This edu­ca­tion­al series offers an exten­sive overview and record­ings of Beethoven’s work, as well as that of Arnold Schoen­berg. You can also catch more Beethoven (as well as a lit­tle Mozart and Bach) with the pod­cast series called The Con­cert (iTunes  Feed  Web Site), which fea­tures record­ings from the Isabel­la Stew­art Gard­ner Muse­um in Boston.

Speak­ing of Bach, you may want to give some time to these two pod­casts: Bach Fes­ti­val of Philadel­phia (Feed  Web Site) and Bach Pod­cast from Magnatune.com  iTunes  Feed  Web Site).

Let’s now leave you with a few oth­er good finds. Wag­n­er Operas Pod­cast (iTunes  Feed  Web Site) lets you lis­ten in on record­ings from the annu­al Bayreuth Fes­ti­val, plus more. The Gramo­phone Pod­cast (Feed  Web Site) offers “a month­ly win­dow into the world’s most author­i­ta­tive clas­si­cal
music mag­a­zine, fea­tur­ing an overview of the best releas­es, news,
exclu­sive inter­views with lead­ing fig­ures from the music world, and
lots of great music.” An Inti­mate Tour Through the Music of Yo-Yo Ma (iTunes  Feed  Web Site) offers essen­tial­ly what the title says. Final­ly, we’d rec­om­mend Clas­si­cal Per­for­mance (iTunes  Feed  Web Site), which con­sists of clas­si­cal music per­for­mances from WGB­H’s Stu­dio One in Boston. Hope this fills your week­end (and your iPod).

Get more clas­si­cal music pod­casts here.

See Open Cul­ture’s pod­cast col­lec­tions:

Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Sci­ence — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)

   
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Science Podcast Collection

in Science | February 24th, 2007

 

  • All in the Mind iTunes Feed Web Site
    • An Aus­tralian pod­cast that explores the men­tal uni­verse — neu­ro­science real­ly — and takes a clear look at every­thing from addic­tion to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence
  • Astron­o­my Cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Take a week­ly facts-based jour­ney through the cos­mos with Astron­o­my Cast.
  • Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Sci­ence Fes­ti­val (Video) iTunes Web Site
  • CBC Quirks & Quarks Feed Web Site
    • Cov­ers every aspect of sci­ence, from the quirks of the expand­ing uni­verse to the quarks with­in a sin­gle atom…and every­thing in between.
  • Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel Space Pod­cast iTunes Web Site
    • Video pod­casts that take you inside the world of NASA and deep space.
  • Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel Video Pod­casts iTunes Web Site
    • A trove of video pod­casts from Dis­cov­ery.
  • Earth & Sky Clear Voic­es Feed Web Site
    • Earth & Sky reporters inter­view sci­en­tists from around the world. Inter­views are gen­er­al­ly 7 to 15 min­utes in length.
  • Ein­stein and the Mind of God
  • Explor­ing Envi­ron­men­tal His­to­ry Feed Web Site
    • A pod­cast about human soci­eties and the envi­ron­ment in the past. The peri­od­ic pro­grammes fea­ture inter­views with peo­ple work­ing in the field, reports on con­fer­ences and dis­cus­sions about the use and meth­ods of envi­ron­men­tal his­to­ry.
  • Groks Sci­ence Radio Show and Pod­cast - iTunes — Feed — Web Site
    • Dr. Charles Lee and Dr. Frank Ling take an in-depth look at recent events in the world of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, and exam­ine the effects of recent dis­cov­er­ies on our dai­ly lives.
  • Guardian Unlim­it­ed - Sci­ence iTunes Feed
  • Hmmm.… Krul­wich on Sci­ence iTunes Feed Web Site
    • NPR Sci­ence Cor­re­spon­dent Robert Krul­wich demys­ti­fies what’s dense and dif­fi­cult — even if you feel lost when it comes to sci­ence. Cov­er­age that can be delight­ful, mov­ing, fun­ny, per­haps even upset­ting.
  • Jet Stream­ing iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Every week Jet Stream­ing brings an insid­er’s look at the weath­er and cli­ma­tol­ogy. It’s every­thing you want­ed to know about the weath­er, but were afraid to ask.
  • Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Mag­a­zine (The Best of) iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Nation­al Geo­graph­ic needs no par­tic­u­lar intro­duc­tion.
  • Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s Wild Chron­i­cles iTunes Feed Web Site
    • “See the nat­ur­al world like nev­er before through the eyes of Nation­al Geo­graph­ic adven­tur­ers, sci­en­tists, researchers, and the extra­or­di­nary Crit­ter­cam.”
  • NASAcast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A series of videos from NASA.
  • Nature Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Nature, a high­ly respect­ed peer-reviewed sci­ence jour­nal, offers well pro­duced pod­casts that fea­ture sci­en­tists talk­ing about their cut­ting-edge research.
  • New Sci­en­tist Pod­cast Feed Web Site
    • New Sci­en­tist’s week­ly pod­cast on all the lat­est sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy news and fea­tures, includ­ing guests from the world of sci­ence.
  • NOVA iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A series of short videos (“vod­casts”) from the world of sci­ence.
  • NOVA Sci­ence Now iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Irrev­er­ent sto­ries and intrigu­ing per­son­al­i­ties from the world of sci­ence.
  • NOVA e = mc2 iTunes Web Site
    • Hear how 10 top physi­cists describe Ein­stein’s equa­tion in a few min­utes or less.
  • Radi­o­Lab Site, iTunes, Web­site
    • An hour-long sci­ence show from WNYC — each episode tack­les a par­tic­u­lar issue through sev­er­al sto­ries.
  • Sci­ence and Soci­ety iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A host of dis­tin­guished thinkers speak about inno­va­tions in sci­ence — nan­otech­nol­o­gy, space explo­rations, life sci­ences and more.
  • Sci­ence Fri­day Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • From the well known NPR pro­gram host­ed by Ira Fla­tow.
  • Sci­ence Fri­day Video iTunes Web Site
    • From the well known NPR pro­gram host­ed by Ira Fla­tow.
  • Sci­ence Mag­a­zine Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Audio­casts from Sci­ence Mag­a­zine.
  • Sci­ence Talk: The Pod­cast of Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can iTunes Feed Web Site
    • The host, Steve Mirsky, explores the lat­est devel­op­ments in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy through inter­views with lead­ing sci­en­tists and jour­nal­ists.
  • Sci­ence Times iTunes — RSS
    • Want to know more about black holes? Or progress in the cure for can­cer? Learn about the lat­est news and trends in sci­ence, med­i­cine and the envi­ron­ment from the reporters and edi­tors of the pop­u­lar Sci­ence Times sec­tion of The New York Times. David Cor­co­ran is your host.
  • Slack­er Astron­o­my:iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Lots of slack­ing and astron­o­my.
  • The Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity: iTunes Feed Web Site
    • The sto­ry of tech­no­log­i­cal progress is one of dra­ma and intrigue, sud­den insight and plain hard work. Explore tech­nol­o­gy’s spec­tac­u­lar fail­ures and many mag­nif­i­cent suc­cess sto­ries.
  • The Miss­ing Link Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A pod­cast on the His­to­ry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, and Med­i­cine put out by Prof. Eliz­a­beth Green Mus­sel­man.
  • The Naked Sci­en­tists iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Dr. Chris Smith, of Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, takes an inter­ac­tive look at dif­fer­ent aspects of sci­ence, medecine and tech­nol­o­gy.
  • The Sci­ence Show iTunes Feed Web Site
    • One of the longest run­ning and well-regard­ed sci­ence shows on Aus­tralian radio.
  • The Skep­tics’ Guide to the Uni­verse iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A week­ly pod­cast that explores the world of the para­nor­mal and fringe sci­ence. It’s host­ed by Dr. Steven Novel­la is an aca­d­e­m­ic neu­rol­o­gist on full-time fac­ul­ty at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine.
  • This Week in Sci­ence Feed Web Site
    • Self describes as: “A week­ly sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy radio show pre­sent­ing a humor­ous and irrev­er­ent look at the week in sci­ence and tech. Each week TWIS dis­cuss­es the lat­est in cut­ting edge sci­ence news on top­ics such as genet­ic engi­neer­ing, cyber­net­ics, space explo­ration, neu­ro sci­ence, and a show favorite Count­down to World Robot Dom­i­na­tion.”
  • This Week in Virol­o­gy iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A week­ly pod­cast host­ed by two Pro­fes­sors from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. “We talk about virus­es — the kind that make you sick. The pod­cast cov­ers how virus­es work, how they make you sick, and the lat­est in news about virus­es.” You can find it at
  • USGS Core­Cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • From the US Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey, Core­Cast brings you straight sci­ence insight on nat­ur­al haz­ards; cli­mate change; satel­lite imagery and mon­i­tor­ing; water qual­i­ty; human health and wildlife dis­ease; and much more. Tune into Core­Cast. It’s nat­ur­al sci­ence from the inside out.
  • 60 Sec­ond Sci­ence iTunes Feed Web Site
    • From Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, lead­ing sci­ence jour­nal­ists offer a brief com­men­tary on the lat­est devel­op­ments in the world of sci­ence. Pre­sent­ed by Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can.
  • 60 Sec­ond Psych iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Lead­ing sci­ence jour­nal­ists pro­vide a week­ly one-minute com­men­tary on the lat­est devel­op­ments in the sci­ence of brain and behav­ior. Pre­sent­ed by Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can.
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The Top 25 Educational Podcasts on iTunes

in Uncategorized | February 22nd, 2007


ItuneslogoBelow, you’ll find iTunes’ rank­ing of the top 25 edu­ca­tion­al pod­casts. For your con­ve­nience, we’ve includ­ed links to the feed for each pod­cast so that you can access it any way you like. We’ll aim to
update this list twice per month and high­light what’s new and worth lis­ten­ing to.

#1. Cof­fee Break Span­ish  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#2. MyDai­lyPhrase Ital­ian  iTunes  Web Site

#3. Legal Lad’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Law­ful Life  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#4. Gram­mar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Bet­ter Writ­ing  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#5. Learn French with Dai­ly Pod­casts  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#6. The French Pod Class  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#7. Twelve Byzan­tine Rulers: The His­to­ry of the Byzan­tine Empire  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#8. Final­ly Learn Span­ish — Beyond the Basics iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#9. French for Begin­ners  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#10. JapanesePod101.com  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#11. MyDai­lyPhrase Ger­man  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#12. Man, God and Soci­ety in West­ern Lit­er­a­ture (Course at UC-Berke­ley) iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#13. Learn Span­ish Sur­vival Guide  iTunes  Feed

#14. Learn Ger­man with German-Podcast.de  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#15. LearnItalianPod.com  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#16. Let’s Speak Ital­ian  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#17. NPR: Satire from the Unger Report  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#18. Learn Man­darin Chi­nese with Chinesepod.com  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#19. Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy Tips from the Top Floor iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#20. Just Vocab­u­lary iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#21. Learn French by Pod­cast  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#22. One Thing in a French Day  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#23. TEDTalks (Video)  iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#24. LSAT Log­ic in Every­day Life (Prince­ton Review) iTunes  Feed  Web Site

#25. Life and Death in the USA: Med­i­cine & Dis­ease in Social Con­text iTunes   Web Site

See Open Cul­ture’s pod­cast col­lec­tions:

Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)

 
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Part 4: Learning the Languages of the New World Powers — China

in Language Lessons | February 21st, 2007

china-flag.jpgChi­na is the 800 pound goril­la among the new emerg­ing world pow­ers Its econ­o­my, says Gold­man Sachs, may out­size every econ­o­my except the Unit­ed States by 2016, and even sur­pass the US as soon as 2039. There is no point in bela­bor­ing things. Chi­na will be a force to be reck­oned with.

Accord­ing to yesterday’s New York Times, the hottest lan­guage being stud­ied right now by busi­ness trav­el­ers is Man­darin, and quite right­ly so. Man­darin is the offi­cial lan­guage of Chi­na and Tai­wan, and it’s also spo­ken in Sin­ga­pore. (Can­tonese is wide­ly spo­ken in Hong Kong.) As the Times arti­cle notes, speak­ing a lit­tle Man­darin can trans­late into new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, and so it could be worth spend­ing some time get­ting con­ver­sant in the lan­guage. You could spend $2,500 for a week-long Man­darin course. How­ev­er, if you’d like to do it on the cheap, we have some sol­id, free resources for you.

To get up and run­ning, you’ll want to check out the well-reviewed pod­cast called Chi­nese Lessons with Serge Mel­nyk (iTunes Feed Web Site). Put togeth­er by an Eng­lish speak­er who stud­ied Man­darin Chi­nese for almost 20 years (and who has lived in Bei­jing and Shang­hai for 12 years), the free pod­cast cur­rent­ly offers 55 lessons that last between 20 and 30 min­utes on aver­age. A sec­ond option, which also gets very high marks, is Chinesepod.com (iTunes Feed Web Site). Pro­duced by native speak­ers, these dai­ly audio pod­casts, each 10 to 20 min­utes in length, will immerse you in col­lo­qui­al (read: use­ful) Man­darin. Both of these pod­casts are free, and the freely avail­able mate­r­i­al will keep you busy for some time. How­ev­er, each pod­cast also offers addi­tion­al resources for a rea­son­able fee, although you can cer­tain­ly get by with­out them.

Beyond these pod­casts, you may want to check out a cou­ple oth­er free alter­na­tives: Think and Talk Like the Chi­nese (iTunes Web Site) and Chi­nese Learn Online (iTunes Feed Web Site). Also, if you’re look­ing for more sys­tem­at­ic approach­es to learn­ing Man­darin, we’ve includ­ed some options in our new Ama­zon store.

Also, one of our read­ers asked us to through this one into the mix: Chinese-Tools.com

Please see the pre­vi­ous install­ments in this series:

Part 1: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese
Part 2: Russ­ian
Part 3: Hin­di

See Open Culture’s pod­cast col­lec­tions: Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)

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Steve Jobs on DRM: The Business Strategy Behind the Manifesto

in Apple, Television | February 20th, 2007

JobsdrmMost of the out­side world did­n’t care. They did­n’t even know what Steve Jobs was talk­ing about. But with­in tech cir­cles it was a big deal, a land­mark moment. Jobs’ s anti-DRM man­i­festo, Thoughts on Music, moved us all clos­er to the day when music would be set free. (DRM = Dig­i­tal Rights Man­age­ment. Get more info here.) The reac­tion in the tech press was, of course, jubi­lant. Here’s a quick sam­ple reac­tion from the major tech blog, Giz­mo­do:

“Steve Jobs dropped a big one on us today, and no it was­n’t a new Mac­Book. Instead it was his anti-DRM Man­i­festo, a state of the union for the music indus­try so to speak. In a nut­shell, he advised the music indus­try to give up on DRM. It won’t work. There are smart peo­ple cir­cum­vent­ing this stuff, and with all the CDs being ripped in the world, just give up on it.

Amaz­ing to hear the man speak with­out the PR mouth­piece, with­out regards to any­thing but what he feels is right for the world. He even throws the iPod/iTunes monop­oly to the wind with these notions.”

Now before we start a peti­tion to can­on­ize Jobs, it seems worth reflect­ing for a moment on whether St. Steve found reli­gion, or whether Jobs was just being a bril­liant CEO … yet again. And that’s why its worth giv­ing a lis­ten to Robert X. Cringe­ly’s recent pod­cast arti­cle DRM Catch­er (iTunes — Feed). (You can also read the text ver­sion here.) Cringe­ly is a par­tic­u­lar­ly astute observ­er of how tech­nol­o­gy trends dove­tail with busi­ness strate­gies, and he’s right to see Jobs’ man­i­festo as dri­ven less by ideals than by what makes the most busi­ness sense for Apple at this par­tic­u­lar moment. DRM helped put Apple into its mar­ket lead­er­ship posi­tion. Now, hav­ing a lock on 75% of the mar­ket, the best way to sell more iPods is to drop DRM. It’s smart busi­ness think­ing that you see at work here, not altru­ism. You can bet on that.

Give the pod­cast some of your time, and be sure to lis­ten to the part about Google’s ambi­tious web strat­e­gy, which ties into his recent think­ing (see this piece) about the big plans that Google has on the hori­zon.

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Part 3: Learning the Languages of the New World Powers — Hindi

in Language Lessons | February 20th, 2007

indiaflag.gifIf you take even the slight­est time to read the news­pa­per these days, you’ll know that the two
most impor­tant emerg­ing pow­ers are India and Chi­na. Gold­man Sachs main­tains that India has posi­tioned itself to become a dom­i­nant glob­al sup­pli­er of man­u­fac­tured goods and ser­vices, and, in the com­ing decades, it’s econ­o­my will like­ly grow faster than any oth­er. With­in 30 years, you can expect India to have the third largest econ­o­my over­all, right behind the US and Chi­na. Watch out for India.

Among Indi­a’s huge pop­u­la­tion of 1.1 bil­lion peo­ple, Hin­di is the dom­i­nant and offi­cial lan­guage. Yet it’s impor­tant to note that, as a result of Britain’s long colo­nial involve­ment in India, an esti­mat­ed 4% of the pop­u­lace speaks Eng­lish. This might not sound like much, but when you do the math, it turns out that you’re actu­al­ly talk­ing about 40+ mil­lion peo­ple, which makes India one of the largest Eng­lish speak­ing coun­tries in the world. And the impact is only ampli­fied when you con­sid­er that Eng­lish is spo­ken main­ly by the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic elite.

Although the preva­lence of Eng­lish is itself con­tribut­ing to Indi­a’s eco­nom­ic growth (just think of how many Amer­i­can call-cen­ter jobs have migrat­ed to India in recent years), and although Eng­lish will like­ly remain the lin­gua fran­ca of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, it seems log­i­cal to assume that Hin­di, spo­ken by 40% of the coun­try, will become more impor­tant as the coun­try grows into the third largest econ­o­my.

At the moment, there’s not exact­ly a pletho­ra of pod­casts that will teach you Hin­di. How­ev­er, the most promi­nent one is per­haps the most con­cep­tu­al­ly cool. It’s called Learn Hin­di from Bol­ly­wood Movies (iTunes Feed Web Site). Bol­ly­wood is the infor­mal name giv­en to Indi­a’s Hin­di-lan­guage film indus­try. And the idea here is that you can pick up some Hin­di as they play and explain select­ed clips from well-known Bol­ly­wood films. So far, they’ve put togeth­er 21 episodes, which are a bit kitsch, often bizarrely humor­ous, and not par­tic­u­lar­ly slick when it comes to sound qual­i­ty. If you want to sam­ple it, check out this seg­ment which will teach you how to get a trav­el­er’s visa. Final­ly, if Bol­ly­wood is your thing, you’ll want to check out this Eng­lish-speak­ing pod­cast, Pod­Masti — Every­thing You Ever Want­ed to Know about Bol­ly­wood & India (iTunes — Feed — Web Site).

In terms of oth­er free Hin­di lan­guage resources, we’d rec­om­mend review­ing this web page that has col­lect­ed and cat­e­go­rized a host of web-based resources for learn­ing Hin­di. It will point you in a lot of good direc­tions. Oth­er­wise, if you want a more com­pre­hen­sive approach, you can take a look at the sev­er­al items that we’ve placed in our new Ama­zon store. Giv­en the dearth of free options, these may be worth explor­ing.

Tomor­row, we end with Chi­nese, where we have lots of free pod­casts in store for you. If you missed Parts 1 & 2, you can catch them here.

Part 1: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese

Part 2: Russ­ian

See Open Cul­ture’s pod­cast col­lec­tions: Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)

If you need a new/bigger iPod or iPod Gear to lis­ten to our pod­casts, snag one from our new Ama­zon store.

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Part 2: Learning the Languages of the New World Powers — Russian

in Language Lessons | February 19th, 2007

russia-flag.jpgAlong with Brazil, Rus­sia is the oth­er junior mem­ber of the BRICs (see Part 1 for more on the BRIC con­cept.)

While it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the coun­try that’s first on Amer­i­ca’s list of future eco­nom­ic com­peti­tors, it’s expect­ed to be a play­er. And, if Gold­man Sachs is right, Rus­sia, a resource-rich nation, will over­take Italy’s econ­o­my in 2018; France’s in 2024; the UK’s in 2027 and Ger­many’s in 2028 — that’s assum­ing that none of its under­ly­ing prob­lems (a declin­ing pop­u­la­tion, Vladimir Putin’s heavy-hand­ed pol­i­tics, envi­ron­men­tal dete­ri­o­ra­tion, etc.) become too severe.

Through­out the Cold War, the Russ­ian lan­guage was very in vogue. When the Wall fell in 1989, it fad­ed. Now, if the eco­nom­ic pre­dic­tions hold true, it could become the lan­guage of the future yet again. As of this moment, there’s no short­age of good pod­casts that can get you speak­ing a lit­tle Russ­ian. First, we’ll point you to A Spoon­ful of Russ­ian (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). This well-reviewed pod­cast gives you a chance to learn con­ver­sa­tion­al Russ­ian from a native Russ­ian speak­er (Natalia Wor­thing­ton), and when it comes to teach­ing the alpha­bet, they use video to teach Cyril­lic let­ters.

Next, if you’re look­ing to do busi­ness in Russ­ian, this pod­cast is for you. Sim­ply called

Busi­ness Russ­ian (iTunes Feed Web Site) this series, pre­sent­ed by the UCLA Cen­ter for World Lan­guages, teach­es stu­dents, as you could guess, the essen­tials of Russ­ian busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Final­ly, to give things a lit­tle more of an intel­lec­tu­al twist, we present

Russ­ian Lit­er­a­ture (iTunes Feed), anoth­er UCLA pod­cast that lets users improve their
com­pre­hen­sion and vocab­u­lary by lis­ten­ing to excerpts from Tol­stoy,
Gogol, Chekhov and oth­er Russ­ian lit­er­ary greats.

Final­ly, if you’re look­ing for a more com­pre­hen­sive approach to learn­ing Russ­ian, we’ve list­ed sev­er­al prod­ucts on the mar­ket in our new Ama­zon store.

See our com­plete col­lec­tion of For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­casts.

Check in tomor­row for our third install­ment ded­i­cat­ed to speak­ing Hin­di.

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Learning the Languages of the New World Powers

in Language Lessons | February 18th, 2007

Accord­ing to a much dis­cussed report by Gold­man Sachs, the economies of Brazil, Rus­sia, India, and Chi­na — or what they col­lec­tive­ly call the BRICs — are rapid­ly grow­ing and could over­shad­ow today’s major eco­nom­ic pow­ers (includ­ing the US) by 2050. What does that mean for you? One thing is for sure: To stay com­pet­i­tive in our glob­al­ized world, you’ll need to know more than Eng­lish. And you’ll be par­tic­u­lar­ly well served if you can speak the lan­guages of the BRICs.

Over the com­ing week, we’ll point you to pod­casts that will teach you some Por­tuguese, Russ­ian, Hin­di and Chi­nese. The pod­casts are all free, and they make learn­ing con­ve­nient and fun. Our cov­er­age will start with Brazil and work its way through the acronym.

If you need an iPod to lis­ten to our pod­casts, check out our new store on Ama­zon.

Part 1: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese

brazilflag.jpgBrazil is South Amer­i­ca’s sleep­ing giant. Expec­ta­tions of this large, resource-rich coun­try

have always been high, and while the opti­mistic sce­nar­ios haven’t panned out so far, the coun­try’s for­tunes may be about to change. Accord­ing to the Gold­man Sachs report, Brazil’s econ­o­my could over­take Italy by 2025; France by 2031; and the UK and Ger­many by 2036. There may be obsta­cles and detours along the way. But, for now, things seem to be inch­ing in the right direc­tion. And, no mat­ter how things go, Brazil remains an out­stand­ing place to trav­el, and, for that rea­son alone, it’s a good idea to pick up some Por­tuguese.

Once a colony of Por­tu­gal, Brazil is the only South Amer­i­can coun­try that offi­cial­ly speaks Por­tuguese. But because Brazil’s pop­u­la­tion is so large (182,000,000), it turns out that Por­tuguese is the dom­i­nant lan­guage on the con­ti­nent, although just bare­ly. (51% speak Por­tuguese v. 49% Span­ish.) The Por­tuguese spo­ken by Brazil­ians is not quite the same as the ver­sion spo­ken in Por­tu­gal itself. You’ll find dif­fer­ences in pro­nun­ci­a­tion, into­na­tion, spelling, vocab­u­lary, gram­mar, etc.

Today, we’re high­light­ing three series of podcasts/mp3’s that will get you up to speed:

First, we have Brazil­ian Por­tuguese. It’s a home­grown intro­duc­tion to Brazil­ian Por­tuguese, which will teach you the dif­fer­ences between the lan­guage spo­ken in Brazil and that in Por­tu­gal, and it will also give you an intro­duc­tion to Brazil­ian cul­ture. Mp3s for lessons 1–16 can be found here; audio files for lessons 17 and beyond can be accessed here. (The lat­ter ones can also be locat­ed on iTunes.) Just as a gen­er­al note, the pod­cast qual­i­ty improves as the lessons get more advanced. So keep that in mind.

Sec­ond, we amaz­ing­ly stum­bled upon series of intro­duc­to­ry lessons, col­lec­tive­ly called Por­tuguese Pro­gram­mat­ic Course, that was put togeth­er by the US For­eign Ser­vice, and they’re appar­ent­ly now in the pub­lic domain. From this page, you can down­load pdf text files that accom­pa­ny relat­ed audio files that you’ll need to down­load and unzip. The For­eign Ser­vice approach to teach­ing lan­guages is gen­er­al­ly very well regard­ed. Lan­guage lovers will def­i­nite­ly want to check out the full col­lec­tion of For­eign Ser­vice lan­guage lessons here.

Third, we have “Ta Fal­a­do: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Pro­nun­ci­a­tion for Span­ish Speak­ers” (iTunes Feed Web Site). This pod­cast is pro­duced by the Lan­guage Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter in the Depart­ment of Span­ish and Por­tuguese at UT-Austin, and it helps stu­dents who know some Span­ish make the tran­si­tion to speak­ing Por­tuguese.

Final­ly, if you’d like to take things to the next lev­el, then you can always check out some more com­pre­hen­sive lan­guage learn­ing sys­tems out on the mar­ket. We’ve list­ed a few in our Ama­zon store.

Next, Part 2: Learn­ing Russ­ian.

See our com­plete col­lec­tion of For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­casts. It now cov­ers 17 lan­guages.

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