Water Balloon Exploding at 2,000 Frames per Second

in Science | April 18th, 2008

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Global Geopolitics: A New Stanford Course on iTunes

in Online Courses, Stanford | April 17th, 2008

Today we’re high­light­ing for you a new course post­ed on Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s iTunes site. Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed by Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies (where I hap­pi­ly spend my days), Glob­al Geopol­i­tics is taught by geog­ra­phy expert Mar­tin Lewis, and “exam­ines the glob­al polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion from a geo­graph­i­cal per­spec­tive. Top­ics include: how the coun­tries of the world were formed and came to occu­py their present ter­ri­to­r­i­al con­fig­u­ra­tions; bor­der con­flicts and oth­er spa­tial­ly based inter­na­tion­al issues; strug­gles for seces­sion from estab­lished states and move­ments for ter­ri­to­ri­al­ly based auton­o­my; and the devel­op­ment and enlarge­ment of supra­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions such as the Euro­pean Union (EU) and the Asso­ci­a­tion of South­east Asian Nations (ASEAN). While the course is glob­al­ly com­pre­hen­sive, spe­cial atten­tion will be giv­en to cur­rent sites of geo-polit­i­cal ten­sion. Maps will be used exten­sive­ly for both descrip­tive and ana­lyt­i­cal pur­pos­es.”

[NOTE: This is an enchanced pod­cast that allows you to see images and maps ref­er­enced in the lec­tures. To view them, click on View, then Show Art­work, in iTunes. This will let you see them on your com­put­er.]

You can now down­load the first lec­ture. Addi­tion­al lec­tures will be released in week­ly install­ments. The course is also list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties.

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Free Digital Fiction from Penguin

in Books | April 17th, 2008

Pen­guin is pre­sent­ing six sto­ries, by six authors, over six weeks, in a series called We Tell Sto­ries. And they’re using the web to tell these sto­ries in orig­i­nal ways. One sto­ry, The 21 Steps, gets told over Google Maps — an approach that scores points for cre­ativ­i­ty, but also tires a lit­tle quick­ly. You can access all six sto­ries here. Also check out our exten­sive col­lec­tion of free audio­books here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Learn Moviemaking From a Master (Courtesy of Apple)

in Apple, Film | April 16th, 2008

The folks at Apple have rolled out an intrigu­ing new pod­cast that takes you inside the world of moviemak­ing. The Set to Screen Series (get it on iTunes here) fol­lows Baz Luhrmann, the Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed direc­tor (Moulin Rouge! and William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet) as he works on a new film. And every three weeks, from now through Octo­ber, a new video pod­cast will be released that shows you how films get made. On-set still pho­tog­ra­phy, cos­tume design, cin­e­matog­ra­phy, scor­ing — it all gets cov­ered here. And yes, of course, this pod­cast is all in video. You can get more info on this project here.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven Read by 18 YouTubers (or Christopher Walken)

in Literature | April 15th, 2008

Can you bear it? If not, here’s a ver­sion by Christo­pher Walken.

(This video has not been added to our YouTube playlist.)

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MIT’s (Free) Introduction to Physics

in Physics, Science | April 13th, 2008

Wel­come to MIT. Here’s your intro­duc­tion to Physics.

Today, we present Physics I: Clas­si­cal Mechan­ics, a fresh­man course taught by Wal­ter Lewin, the pop­u­lar physics pro­fes­sor who was recent­ly writ­ten up in The New York Times. The course cov­ers the foun­da­tions of mod­ern physics, which takes you from Isaac New­ton’s ground­break­ing work to super­novas, and which cov­ers such oth­er top­ics as Flu­id Mechan­ics, Kinet­ic Gas The­o­ry, Bina­ry Stars, Neu­tron Stars, Black Holes, Res­o­nance Phe­nom­e­na, Musi­cal Instru­ments, and Stel­lar Col­lapse.

You can down­load the course lec­tures in video via iTunes or in var­i­ous for­mats here. (The course is also list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties, which now con­tains over 200 free cours­es.) For more lec­ture series by Wal­ter Lewin, look here (Elec­tric­i­ty and Mag­net­ism) and here (Vibra­tions and Waves).

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The Perfect Library

in Books | April 12th, 2008

Get the “ulti­mate read­ing list,” accord­ing to the Tele­graph. The book­list (access here) ranges from “clas­sics and sci-fi to poet­ry, biogra­phies and books that changed the world.” And while you’re at it, check out this list of life-chang­ing books cre­at­ed by our very own read­ers.

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The New York Literary Canon

in Books | April 10th, 2008

As a New York­er liv­ing rather per­ma­nent­ly in sun­ny Cal­i­for­nia, I feel some­what oblig­ed to men­tion this: New York Mag­a­zine has pulled togeth­er a list of “26 works of lap­idary New York­i­tude” — that is, high­ly lit­er­ary books that obsess over the great city. On the list, you’ll find works by Nor­man Mail­er, Bernard Mala­mud, Don Delil­lo, Woody Allen, and beyond. You can snag the full list here.

via Kottke.org

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50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time

in Comedy, Television | April 9th, 2008

Nerve and IFC have pulled togeth­er a fun list that counts down the 50 fun­ni­est sketch­es in tele­vi­sion his­to­ry. Hap­pi­ly, the list fea­tures many video clips, and this inspired us to post one of our own. Here we have John Belushi, appear­ing on Sat­ur­day Night Live in the late 1970s, per­form­ing a clas­sic bit called “Samu­rai Del­i­cat­assen.” Check out the full list of 50 here, and find many more SNL skits on Hulu.com here (if you’re liv­ing in the US).

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet, Robert Hass

in Literature | April 9th, 2008

This week, the Pulitzer Prize for poet­ry went to Robert Hass, a UC Berke­ley pro­fes­sor and for­mer U.S. poet lau­re­ate. To mark the occa­sion, we’re post­ing here Sier­ra Club Radio’s inter­view with Hass. The inter­view, record­ed this past Sat­ur­day (mp3 — iTunes — web site), delves into Hass’ “thoughts on the inter­sec­tion between lan­guage and our envi­ron­ment, how he decid­ed to use his posi­tion as Poet Lau­re­ate for advo­ca­cy, and has him read­ing selec­tions from his new book of poet­ry Time and Mate­ri­als — win­ner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. He also gives some insights into the col­lec­tion and sto­ries behind some of the poems.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

101 Ear­ly Wal­lace Stevens Poems on Free Audio

Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work

The Art of Read­ing a Poem (Accord­ing to Harold Bloom)

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