The Global Challenges Facing The Next U.S. President

in Current Affairs, Video - Politics/Society | October 3rd, 2008

CNN recent­ly host­ed a con­ver­sa­tion with sev­er­al recent Sec­re­taries of State, and they all dis­cussed the major chal­lenges that Barack Oba­ma or John McCain will be fac­ing next year. This is no ordi­nary time, and it’s rare to find Hen­ry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, War­ren Christo­pher, Col­in Pow­ell, and James Bak­er all sit­ting on the same stage and offer­ing their advice. Below, we have post­ed the first seg­ment. You can watch the remain­ing parts here.

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UCLA on YouTube

in YouTube | October 2nd, 2008

Add anoth­er one to our col­lec­tion: Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube: 75 Edu­ca­tion­al Video Col­lec­tions

UCLA has brought their videos to YouTube, join­ing a grow­ing num­ber of oth­er well-respect­ed cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions. Com­pared to oth­er new­com­ers, the ini­tial set of videos (see the UCLA col­lec­tion here) is rea­son­ably strong, and I sus­pect that it will get more sub­stan­tive over time. Straight off the bat, I’d point you to a longer course that you can watch online. It’s called Life, Con­cepts & Issues, and the first video appears below.

While on the top­ic of YouTube, I want to men­tion that I’ve been work­ing at Stan­ford on a fun (and also free) media project that we’ll be rolling out next week. Stay tuned for more details.

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NPR’s Planet Money Podcast

in Business | October 2nd, 2008

This is worth a quick men­tion: If you’re try­ing to make sense of our rapid­ly chang­ing (and these days dete­ri­o­rat­ing) econ­o­my, then you’ll want to spend some time with NPR’s Plan­et Mon­ey. The pod­cast has been tak­ing an expert look at the day-to-day break­down of the finan­cial sys­tem and gov­ern­ment efforts to bail it out. Plus, it’s been keep­ing an eye on how the fias­co poten­tial­ly affects you. To stay on top of things, you can grab the pod­cast here: iTunes — Rss Feed. Also see the Plan­et Mon­ey Pod­cast web site here.

Now and Then: More Poetry in Motion

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | October 1st, 2008

Bil­ly Collins, for­mer US Poet Lau­re­ate and one of Amer­i­ca’s best-sell­ing poets, reads his poem “Now and Then” with ani­ma­tion by Eun-ha Paek of Milky Ele­phant. (Yup, it’s added to our YouTube playlist and also see the pre­vi­ous ani­mat­ed Bil­ly Collins poem.)

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The Web According to Google in 2001

in Google, Web/Tech | October 1st, 2008

Google recent­ly turned 10, and, as part of the cel­e­bra­tion, it has re-pub­lished its first search engine index from 2001. A mere 1.3 bil­lion pages. Now, go ahead and do your van­i­ty search and see if you show up. Me, I’m bare­ly there. You?

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Depression Humor Revived

in Comedy, Video - Arts & Culture | September 30th, 2008

You know things are look­ing bleak when com­e­dy starts mak­ing fod­der out of depres­sion themes. Here’s a bit that tells you how to go from office work­er to home­less drifter in sev­en easy steps. (Video cour­tesy of How­cast)

via Val­ley­wag

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Jonathan Franzen Reads

in Audio Books, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | September 29th, 2008

In a quick three min­utes, you can watch the some­times cocky author of The Cor­rec­tions read from an essay on bird watch­ing, cour­tesy of BigThink.com, where you can also find more videos with intel­lec­tu­al heft.

For more thought­ful video, also see our YouTube playlist and the relat­ed col­lec­tion: Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube: 70 Edu­ca­tion­al Video Col­lec­tions.

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China’s Space Walk: Fresh Footage

in Current Affairs, Science, Video - Science | September 29th, 2008

As US stock declines, Chi­na’s stock keeps going up. It’s the sto­ry of the decade, real­ly. Here’s footage from Chi­na’s first space walk this past week …

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What Happens on Mars

in Science, Video - Science | September 29th, 2008

From The Dai­ly Dish:

“Clouds move across the sky on Mars. The sun ris­es. Snow falls — but nev­er touch­es the ground.”

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George Orwell’s 1984: Download Free Audio Book Version

in Audio Books, Literature | September 28th, 2008

I first post­ed this one dur­ing the dead of sum­mer, so it seemed worth revis­it­ing this now that we’re all a bit more focused .…

Over at the Inter­net Archive, you can find George Orwell’s clas­sic, 1984, avail­able as a free audio book. As you’ll see, the record­ing is pro­fes­sion­al­ly done. You can down­load the full zip file here. Or alter­na­tive­ly you can get the indi­vid­ual mp3 files, or stream them, from this page. On a more per­ma­nent basis, you can find Orwell’s 1949 work housed in our Free Audio Book Col­lec­tion along with lots of oth­er free texts. Or see it on our list of Life Chang­ing Books.

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