We Didn’t Start the Fire, or The World From 1949 to 1989

in History, Video - Politics/Society | November 29th, 2008

If you could sync up a pho­to with every name and event men­tioned in Bil­ly Joel’s “We Did­n’t Start the Fire,” you’d have a mon­tage that offers a pret­ty good glimpse into the sec­ond half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. That’s what a Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go grad stu­dent fig­ured out when he put this viral video togeth­er. We’ve added it to our YouTube playlist. Thanks Bob for the tip!

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Books Authors Want (and Plan to Give) for the Holidays

in Books | November 28th, 2008

Pen­guin asked its sta­ble of writ­ers what books they plan to give friends dur­ing the hol­i­days, and what books they’d hope to receive. Here’s a quick sam­pling. And if you want to list your own gift ideas, feel free to add them to the com­ments below.

Khaled Hos­sei­ni, author of The Kite Run­ner and A Thou­sand Splen­did Suns, is giv­ing The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. And so, too, is Michael Pol­lan (The Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma). It won the Pulitzer after all.

Michael Lewis (Liar’s Pok­er) not so secret­ly hopes to wind up with a copy of Mal­colm Glad­well’s new book Out­liers: The Sto­ry of Suc­cess. He’s not the only one, to be sure.

Friends of Eliz­a­beth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) will be get­ting The Prin­ci­ples of Uncer­tain­ty by Maira Kalman. And, in turn, they may be giv­ing her biogra­phies of great adven­tur­ers like Cap­tain Cook and Ernest Shack­le­ton. (Per­son­al­ly, I’d rec­om­mend Endurance: Shack­le­ton’s Incred­i­ble Voy­age. Great read.)

Last­ly, Nick Hor­by (High Fideli­ty) is offer­ing up Mark Har­ris’ Pic­tures at a Rev­o­lu­tion.

For more book ideas, vis­it the full list and also see our read­er-cre­at­ed list: Life-Chang­ing Books.

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The Birth Of A Tornado

in Science, Video - Science | November 26th, 2008

It’s almost eerie to watch how a tor­na­do takes shape. As you’ll see below, it starts with a wisp of noth­ing much and, with­in min­utes, morphs into a ter­ri­ble force. For more pre­cise details on how tor­na­does form, you can check out this dynam­ic pre­sen­ta­tion over at USA Today.

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Top 10 Amazing Biology Videos

in Biology, Science | November 26th, 2008

This week, Wired has post­ed a piece — Top 10 Amaz­ing Biol­o­gy Videos — that has start­ed swirling around the web. Here you’ll find some seri­ous videos (for exam­ple, a clip below show­ing high speed gene sequenc­ing in action) along­side some lighter videos that fea­ture, um, shrimp run­ning on a tread­mill. This piece is the log­i­cal fol­low up to Wired’s ear­li­er post: 10 Amaz­ing Physics Videos.

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Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash Together in 1969: Free MP3s

in Music | November 24th, 2008

Two Amer­i­can icons got togeth­er in Nashville in 1969 and record­ed at least 22 tracks togeth­er, includ­ing some well known clas­sics: Ring of Fire, I Walk The Line, Girl From the North Coun­try, and You Are My Sun­shine. You can lis­ten in on the his­toric col­lab­o­ra­tion for free here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Peter Schiff on the Economy and What’s Coming Next

in Current Affairs | November 24th, 2008

Last week, we fea­tured a rather pre­scient video clip high­light­ing Peter Schiff and his warn­ings in 2006-07 that that our econ­o­my is in deep trou­ble. Since then, many have won­dered where Schiff sees things going next. So NPR’s Plan­et Mon­ey (iTunes — Rss Feed — Stream) caught up with him on Fri­day and asked him just that: The upshot is nowhere good. We’ve got some deep, under­ly­ing prob­lems — prob­lems that go well beyond asset bub­bles. We’re head­ed for anoth­er Depres­sion. And it’s in part because all of the gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion is hurt­ing, not help­ing, things. There’s noth­ing very hope­ful here. But, if Schiff is right again, it could pay to lis­ten and get his take on what the future could look like.

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The White Album Turns 40

in Music | November 23rd, 2008

The Bea­t­les’ White Album turned 40 last week. And that put the clas­sic album back in the spot­light, lead­ing crit­ics to revis­it the band’s most exper­i­men­tal and con­tro­ver­sial work. Was it their mas­ter­piece or biggest mess? (Feel free to post your thoughts in the com­ments below.) For one look back, you can lis­ten to this pod­cast from WNY­C’s Sound Check (iTunes — Feed — MP3). And, for good mea­sure, we’re throw­ing in some video clips from the album’s stu­dio ses­sions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts from Yes­ter­day
What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot
The Grey Video: Mix­ing The Bea­t­les with Jay‑Z

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Malcolm Gladwell and The Secret of Success

in Books | November 20th, 2008

Mal­colm Glad­well, the author of The Tip­ping Point and Blink, has a new book out. And it’s almost guar­an­teed to be anoth­er best­seller. Out­liers: The Sto­ry of Suc­cess takes on an idea at the cen­ter of Amer­i­can mythol­o­gy, the con­cept of the “self-made man.” For Glad­well, suc­cess sto­ries aren’t large­ly the prod­uct of smarts and hard work, as we’re repeat­ed­ly told. More often, they’re “the prod­uct of hid­den advan­tages and extra­or­di­nary oppor­tu­ni­ties and cul­tur­al lega­cies that allow [suc­cess­ful indi­vid­u­als] to learn and work hard.” And, as you’ll hear in this inter­view (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), good tim­ing (includ­ing the month and decade of your birth), cir­cum­stance, and luck also play a fair­ly impor­tant role. You can buy the new book in print here, or down­load the audio book from Audi­ble for as lit­tle as $7.49.

As a quick aside, The Leonard Lopate show (where we found this inter­view) appears in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast col­lec­tion, which you think­ing types might enjoy.

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Hitler’s Real Estate Downfall

in Comedy, Current Affairs | November 20th, 2008

What hap­pens when you take the 2004, Acad­e­my award-nom­i­nat­ed Ger­man film Der Unter­gang (The Down­fall) and turn it into a spoof? Here, the “down­fall” is all about the decline of the hous­ing mar­ket, and how Hitler becomes just anoth­er man with a home under water. There are some clas­sic lines here, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you looked to buy a home in recent years. Thanks Bob for the tip.

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Monty Python Channel Launches on YouTube

in Comedy | November 19th, 2008

The Mon­ty Python Chan­nel on YouTube was launched with these words:

“For three years you YouTu­bers have been rip­ping us off, tak­ing tens of thou­sands of our videos and putting them up on YouTube… We know who you are … we know where you live … and we could come after you in ways too hor­ri­ble to men­tion…” “But being the extra­or­di­nar­i­ly nice chaps we are, we’ve fig­ured out a bet­ter way to get our own back. It’s time to take mat­ters in our own hands by launch­ing our very own Mon­ty Python chan­nel on YouTube.”

The videos are offered in high qual­i­ty, straight from the Mon­ty Python vault. Down the road, you’ll get a com­pre­hen­sive, well orga­nized col­lec­tion. Below, we’ve added one of the videos that you’ll find in the mix, the clas­sic Mon­ty Python bit, “Every Sperm is Sacred.” And we’ve also added the Python chan­nel (if you don’t object) to our col­lec­tion: Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube: 80 Cul­tur­al Video Col­lec­tions. 

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