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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Used Book Sculptures

in Art, Books | September 27th, 2008

Thanks to a heads up from one of our loy­al read­ers (thanks Bob!) you can see a new artis­tic trend that’s turn­ing books back into trees. Good stuff.

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Paul Newman and James Dean Screentest for East of Eden

in Film | September 27th, 2008

In mem­o­ry of Paul New­man … 

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The Financial Crisis Explained

in Business, Current Affairs | September 25th, 2008

NPR’s Fresh Air has been doing a very good job of demys­ti­fy­ing the finan­cial cri­sis. Here, we have an inter­view with the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning finan­cial jour­nal­ist, Gretchen Mor­gen­son. As you’ll see, the pro­gram (iTunes — RSS Feed — Stream Here) does an excel­lent job of con­nect­ing many small dots, explain­ing pre­cise­ly how the reck­less­ness of Wall Street threat­ens to spill over into Main Street and beyond, harm­ing our indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive finan­cial future. Even if you live out­side the US, this all prob­a­bly applies to you. Def­i­nite­ly worth a lis­ten.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ten Days That Shook The Finan­cial World

This Amer­i­can Life Demys­ti­fies The Cred­it Cri­sis

The 2008 Bailouts V. The Great Depres­sion Bailouts

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