The Costa Concordia Shipwreck Viewed from Outer Space

in Current Affairs | January 19th, 2012

The search for sur­vivors still goes on near the Tus­can island of Giglio, where the Cos­ta Con­cor­dia hit rocks and list­ed help­less­ly to the side. The help­less­ness of the cruise ship has been cap­tured in a remark­able image tak­en by Dig­i­tal Globe from out­er space. Click here (or above) to see the image in a rather stun­ning, enlarged for­mat.

via Uni­verse Today

Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, with Jonathan Miller

in History, Religion | January 18th, 2012

With the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist attacks and the emo­tion­al whiplash that fol­lowed, the monothe­is­tic reli­gions of the West took a more stri­dent­ly polit­i­cal turn. It was in this con­text that Jonathan Miller, the British the­atre and opera direc­tor, felt com­pelled to cre­ate a three-part doc­u­men­tary trac­ing the his­to­ry of reli­gious skep­ti­cism and dis­be­lief.

Broad­cast by the BBC in 2004 under the title, Athe­ism: A Rough His­to­ry of Dis­be­lief, the series was­n’t broad­cast by PBS in Amer­i­ca until 2007, and only after “Athe­ism” had been removed from the title and the word “rough” changed to “brief.”

“I’m rather reluc­tant to call myself an athe­ist,” Miller says at the out­set. “It’s only in the light of such cur­rent con­tro­ver­sies with regard to belief that I’ve found myself will­ing to explic­it­ly artic­u­late my dis­be­lief.”

Miller goes on to guide the view­er through the his­toric evo­lu­tion of reli­gious doubt, from the skep­ti­cism of Greek and Roman philoso­phers to the Deism of Enlight­en­ment intel­lec­tu­als and the emer­gence of explic­it athe­ism in the writ­ings of the 18th cen­tu­ry French aris­to­crat Paul-Hen­ri Thiry, the Baron d’Hol­bach, who wrote in his Sys­tème de la Nature:

If we go back to the begin­ning we shall find that igno­rance and fear cre­at­ed the gods; that fan­cy, enthu­si­asm, or deceit adorned or dis­fig­ured them; that weak­ness wor­ships them; that creduli­ty pre­serves them; and that cus­tom, respect and tyran­ny sup­port them in order to make the blind­ness of men serve its own inter­ests.

Miller also talks with a num­ber of well-known con­tem­po­rary athe­ists, includ­ing play­wright Arthur Miller, physi­cist Steven Wein­berg and philoso­pher Col­in McGinn. Episode One: Shad­ows of Doubt appears above, in its entire­ty, with the oth­er two episodes: “Noughts and Cross­es” and “The Final Hour.”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Athe­ism Tapes Presents Lengthy Inter­views with Arthur Miller, Daniel Den­nett & Richard Dawkins About Reli­gion and Unbe­lief

Steve Mar­tin Writes Song for Hymn-Deprived Athe­ists

Athe­ist Stan­ford Biol­o­gist Robert Sapol­sky Explains How Reli­gious Beliefs Reduce Stress

Ayn Rand Argues That Believ­ing in God Is an Insult to Rea­son on The Phil Don­ahue Show (Cir­ca 1979)

The Monk and the Fish, the Classic Animation by Michael Dudok de Wit

in Art, Film | January 18th, 2012

Edi­tor’s note: The text below dis­cuss­es the end­ing of the film. We rec­om­mend that you watch “The Monk and the Fish” before read­ing.

In this charm­ing and visu­al­ly ele­gant film from 1994, the Dutch-born ani­ma­tor Michael Dudok de Wit tells the sto­ry of a sin­gle-mind­ed monk and a very elu­sive fish. While the set­ting and sym­bols are Chris­t­ian, the sto­ry pro­gres­sion is essen­tial­ly Bud­dhist.

“The Monk and the Fish is not a sto­ry about the solu­tion of a con­flict,” Dudok de Wit explained to Sarah Moli­noff in a 2009 inter­view for the Oxon­ian Review. “It’s more about the rise above the con­flict, the rise above dual­i­ty.” The monk does­n’t catch the fish; he and the fish are unit­ed. Dudok de Wit took his inspi­ra­tion from the Ten Ox Herd­ing Pic­tures, a series of Zen poems and images from 12th Cen­tu­ry Chi­na, which illus­trate the jour­ney to enlight­en­ment through the sto­ry of an oxherd’s strug­gle with a way­ward bull. He said:

The gen­e­sis of the film was the end­ing. It was that sequence I want­ed to cre­ate, where there is a serene union between the monk and the fish. The end­ing by itself would be flat, too abstract, to pull the audi­ence in, so I clear­ly need­ed to have a build-up, to estab­lish and feel empa­thy with the char­ac­ter. In con­trast to the end­ing, in the begin­ning the monk is obsessed, obsessed, obsessed, but in the end­ing he arrives at a res­o­lu­tion. In a qui­et way, not with a big act.

The Lon­don-based artist hand-paint­ed each frame in ink and water­col­or. Like the sto­ry, the visu­al style was inspired by the Far East. “The Japan­ese in par­tic­u­lar, and also the Chi­nese and Kore­ans,” said Dudok de Wit, “have a way of using neg­a­tive space, of not fill­ing the pic­ture, which is very typ­i­cal of the Far East and very untyp­i­cal of the West. We can be inspired by it, but it’s pro­found­ly in their culture–in their genes maybe, and not so much in ours. It’s not just about the brush line, it’s also the space around the line that is inspir­ing.”

For the music, Dudok de Wit chose a clas­sic from the West­ern canon, La Folia, a tra­di­tion­al theme that was often adapt­ed or quot­ed by com­posers like Bach, Vival­di, Corel­li, Han­del and Liszt. The film­mak­er select­ed a few of his favorite variations–mainly from Corel­li and Vivaldi–and asked com­pos­er Serge Bes­set to lis­ten to them and cre­ate a new ver­sion to fit the film.

The Monk and the Fish took six months to cre­ate, and was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Short Ani­mat­ed Film at both the Acad­e­my Awards and the British Acad­e­my Film Awards. You will find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online, along with anoth­er mov­ing short by Dudock de Wit, Father and Daugh­ter. They appear in the Ani­ma­tion Sec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein’s The Giv­ing Tree: The Ani­mat­ed Movie

Physicist Lawrence Krauss Explains How Everything Comes from Nothing

in Physics, Video - Science | January 17th, 2012

Last fall, we fea­tured a talk by the hot-shot the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist Lawrence Krauss, “A Uni­verse from Noth­ing,” which answered some big enchi­la­da ques­tions: What is our cur­rent under­stand­ing of the uni­verse? When did the uni­verse begin? What came before it? How could some­thing come from noth­ing? And what will hap­pen to the uni­verse in the future?

The lec­ture gave a snap­shot of the think­ing laid out in Krauss’ new­ly-released book by the same title: A Uni­verse from Noth­ing: Why There Is Some­thing Rather than Noth­ing. The book just hit the stands, and right now it’s #51 on the Ama­zon best­seller list. Not bad for a text that delves into the com­plex mys­ter­ies of dark mat­ter, quan­tum mechan­ics and cos­mol­o­gy.

In case you missed the orig­i­nal lec­ture, we have post­ed “A Uni­verse from Noth­ing” below for your view­ing plea­sure. (It has racked up over a mil­lion views on YouTube.) And you can catch the video trail­er for Krauss’ new book right above. Find more great physics videos in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es and Great Sci­ence Videos.

190 Thinkers Answer the Question: “What is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation?”

in Science | January 16th, 2012

It’s a new year, which means it’s time for the Edge.org to pose its annu­al ques­tion to some of the world’s finest minds. The 2012 edi­tion asks the ques­tion, “What is Your Favorite Deep, Ele­gant, or Beau­ti­ful Expla­na­tion?” And the replies — 190 in total — fea­ture thoughts by Sher­ry Turkle, Robert Sapol­sky, Steven Pinker, and Daniel Den­nett, plus the ones excerpt­ed below. If you’re will­ing to ven­ture down the rab­bit hole, you can access the com­plete col­lec­tion of respons­es here.

Where did we come from? I find the expla­na­tion that we were made in stars [that we are all star­dust] to be deep, ele­gant, and beau­ti­ful. This expla­na­tion says that every atom in each of our bod­ies was built up out of small­er par­ti­cles pro­duced in the fur­naces of long-gone stars. We are the byprod­ucts of nuclear fusion. The intense pres­sures and tem­per­a­tures of these giant stoves thick­ened col­laps­ing clouds of tiny ele­men­tal bits into heav­ier bits, which once fused, were blown out into space as the fur­nace died. The heav­i­est atoms in our bones may have required more than one cycle in the star fur­naces to fat­ten up. Uncount­able num­bers of built-up atoms con­gealed into a plan­et, and a strange dis­e­qui­lib­ri­um called life swept up a sub­set of those atoms into our mor­tal shells. We are all col­lect­ed star­dust. And by a most ele­gant and remark­able trans­for­ma­tion, our starstuff is capa­ble of look­ing into the night sky to per­ceive oth­er stars shin­ing. They seem remote and dis­tant, but we are real­ly very close to them no mat­ter how many lightyears away. All that we see of each oth­er was born in a star. How beau­ti­ful is that?

Kevin Kel­ly, Wired co-founderhere and don’t miss Susskind’s com­plete physics lec­tures here].

Leonard Susskind, Physics Pro­fes­sor, Stan­ford.

[T]here is one ele­gant and deep state­ment (which, alas, is not quite an “expla­na­tion”) … that I find very use­ful as well as beau­ti­ful­ly sim­ple.

I refer to the well-known lines Lord Acton wrote in a let­ter from Naples in 1887 to the effect that: “Pow­er tends to cor­rupt, and absolute pow­er cor­rupts absolute­ly.” At least one philoso­pher of sci­ence has writ­ten that on this sen­tence an entire sci­ence of human beings could be built.

I find that the sen­tence offers the basis for explain­ing how a failed painter like Adolph Hitler and a failed sem­i­nar­i­an like Joseph Stal­in could end up with the blood of mil­lions on their hands; or how the Chi­nese emper­ors, the Roman popes, or the French aris­toc­ra­cy failed to resist the allure of pow­er. When a reli­gion or ide­ol­o­gy becomes dom­i­nant, the lack of con­trols will result in widen­ing spi­rals of license lead­ing to degra­da­tion and cor­rup­tion. [More here].

Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi; Psy­chol­o­gist

You can dive into the full col­lec­tion at Edge.org. The pho­to above was tak­en by Mar­co Bel­luc­ci.

200,000 Martin Luther King Papers Go Online

in e-books, History | January 16th, 2012

What bet­ter way to cel­e­brate the birth­day of Mar­tin Luther King, Jr.? Today, the King Cen­ter has made avail­able online 200,000 papers belong­ing to the civ­il rights leader — the first step to bring­ing more than one mil­lion doc­u­ments to the web. The doc­u­ments give you a good glimpse of Dr. King’s role as a schol­ar, father, pas­tor and cat­a­lyst for change. And, among the papers, you will find “speech­es, telegrams, scrib­bled notes, patient admo­ni­tions and urgent pleas.” Notable doc­u­ments worth vis­it­ing include King’s 1964 Nobel Prize Accep­tance Lec­ture, his Eulo­gy for the Four Girls Mur­dered in Birm­ing­ham (1963), a draft of his world-chang­ing “I Have a Dream” speech, and much more.

Under­writ­ten by JPMor­gan Chase, the archive lets you nav­i­gate through doc­u­ments by theme and by type of doc­u­ment. Or you can sim­ply use a ded­i­cat­ed search engine. Once you find a doc­u­ment of inter­est, you can zoom into the con­tent. But, I am not see­ing a way to scroll up and down the enlarged pages — some­thing that seri­ous­ly lim­its your abil­i­ty to read any giv­en text. If I’m miss­ing some­thing please let me know in the com­ments below …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

MLK’s Soar­ing “I Have a Dream” Speech, 1963

MLK’s Haunt­ing “I’ve Been to the Moun­tain­top” Speech, 1968

100 Years in 10 Minutes: A Quick Video History of the Past Century

in History | January 16th, 2012

When you write his­to­ry, you’re always con­front­ed with the ques­tion: what facts and events will make it into your his­tor­i­cal account, and which ones will be left out? When it comes to this viral video pro­duced by Dono­linio Stu­dio, what makes the cut? Europe. Amer­i­ca. Men. And a long list of down­ers: war, depra­va­tion, nat­ur­al dis­as­ter, a‑bombs, social cri­sis, finan­cial cri­sis, geno­cide and assas­si­na­tion, all set to a dra­mat­ic sound­track by Hans Zim­mer. What gets left out? Any­thing that seem­ing­ly makes life worth liv­ing and, with some minor excep­tions, human achieve­ment. And, yes, Africa and Latin Amer­i­ca too — except for the first World Cup tour­na­ment played in Uruguay. (Note: we’re pret­ty sure that Eng­lish isn’t the first lan­guage of the film­mak­ers. Hence the spelling errors in the cap­tions.)

Speak­ing of human achieve­ment and his­tor­i­cal omis­sions, we’d like to pay trib­ute to Mar­tin Luther King Jr. on his birth­day by high­light­ing two of MLK’s mem­o­rable speech­es — his soar­ing “I Have a Dream” speech pre­sent­ed in August 1963, and then fast for­ward to his pre­scient “I’ve Been to the Moun­tain­top” speech, deliv­ered just the day before he was assas­si­nat­ed in April 1968.

To dig deep­er into the past, don’t miss the his­to­ry cours­es (42 in total) in our col­lec­tion of 400 Free Cours­es Online.

Terms of Use Agreement

in | January 15th, 2012

This Agree­ment was last revised on July 28, 2024

Wel­come to the online ser­vice of Open Cul­ture, LLC. (“Open Cul­ture,” “we,” or “us”).  This page explains the terms by which you may use Open Culture’s online and/or mobile ser­vices and web sites (col­lec­tive­ly the “Ser­vice”).  By access­ing or using the Ser­vice, you sig­ni­fy that you have read, under­stood, and agree to be bound by this Terms of Use Agree­ment (“Agree­ment”) and to the col­lec­tion and use of your infor­ma­tion as set forth in the Open Cul­ture Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy whether or not you are a reg­is­tered user of our Ser­vice.

We reserve the right to amend this Agree­ment at any time by noti­fy­ing you as pro­vid­ed in this Agree­ment, pro­vid­ed that no notice shall be required for non-sub­stan­tive changes to the Agree­ment. If we sub­stan­tive­ly amend this Agree­ment, we will give you at least sev­en (7) days notice before the changes take effect, dur­ing which peri­od of time you may reject the changes by ter­mi­nat­ing your account and imme­di­ate­ly dis­con­tin­u­ing use of the Ser­vice. Your con­tin­ued use of the Ser­vice after any such change con­sti­tutes your accep­tance of the new Terms of Use.  If you do not agree to any of these terms or any future Terms of Use, do not use or access (or con­tin­ue to access) the Ser­vice.  This Agree­ment applies to all vis­i­tors, users, and oth­ers who access the Ser­vice (“Users”).

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You under­stand and agree that you may be exposed to User Con­tent that is inac­cu­rate, objec­tion­able, inap­pro­pri­ate for chil­dren, or oth­er­wise unsuit­ed to your pur­pose, and you agree that Open Cul­ture shall not be liable for any dam­ages you allege to incur as a result of User Con­tent.

3.) User Con­tent License Grant

By post­ing any User Con­tent on the Ser­vice, you express­ly grant, and you rep­re­sent and war­rant that you have all rights nec­es­sary to grant, to Open Cul­ture a roy­al­ty-free, sub­li­cens­able, trans­fer­able, per­pet­u­al, irrev­o­ca­ble, non-exclu­sive, world­wide license to use, repro­duce, mod­i­fy, pub­lish, list infor­ma­tion regard­ing, edit, trans­late, dis­trib­ute, syn­di­cate, pub­licly per­form, pub­licly dis­play, and make deriv­a­tive works of all such User Con­tent and your name, voice, and/or like­ness as con­tained in your User Con­tent, in whole or in part, and in any form, media or tech­nol­o­gy, whether now known or here­after devel­oped, for use in con­nec­tion with the Ser­vice and Open Culture’s (and its suc­ces­sors’ and affil­i­ates’) busi­ness, includ­ing with­out lim­i­ta­tion for pro­mot­ing and redis­trib­ut­ing part or all of the Ser­vice (and deriv­a­tive works there­of) in any media for­mats and through any media chan­nels.  You also here­by grant each User of the Ser­vice a non-exclu­sive license to access your User Con­tent through the Ser­vice, and to use, repro­duce, dis­trib­ute, dis­play and per­form such User Con­tent as per­mit­ted through the func­tion­al­i­ty of the Ser­vice and under this Agree­ment.

If the fea­tures of the Ser­vice allow you to remove or delete User Con­tent from the Ser­vice, or if you can­cel your User account, the above licens­es grant­ed by you in your User Con­tent ter­mi­nate with­in a com­mer­cial­ly rea­son­able time after you remove or delete such User Con­tent from the Ser­vice or can­cel your User account.  You under­stand and agree, how­ev­er, that Open Cul­ture may retain, but not dis­play, dis­trib­ute, or per­form, serv­er copies of User Con­tent that have been removed or delet­ed. The above licens­es grant­ed by you in User Con­tent for which the Ser­vice does not pro­vide you a means to delete or remove are per­pet­u­al and irrev­o­ca­ble.

4.) End User License Grant

A.      Open Cul­ture Ser­vice.  Sub­ject to the terms and con­di­tions of this Agree­ment, you are here­by grant­ed a non-exclu­sive, lim­it­ed, non-trans­fer­able, freely revo­ca­ble license to use the Ser­vice as per­mit­ted by the fea­tures of the Ser­vice.  Open Cul­ture reserves all rights not express­ly grant­ed here­in in the Ser­vice and the Open Cul­ture Con­tent (as defined below).  Open Cul­ture may ter­mi­nate this license at any time for any rea­son or no rea­son.

B.        Mobile Soft­ware.  We may make avail­able soft­ware to access the Ser­vice via a mobile device (“Mobile Soft­ware”). To use the Mobile Soft­ware you must have a mobile device that is com­pat­i­ble with the Mobile Ser­vice.  Open Cul­ture does not war­rant that the Mobile Soft­ware will be com­pat­i­ble with your mobile device.  Open Cul­ture here­by grants you a non-exclu­sive, non-trans­fer­able, revo­ca­ble license to use a com­piled code copy of the Mobile Soft­ware for one Open Cul­ture account on one mobile device owned or leased sole­ly by you, for your per­son­al use.  You may not: (i) mod­i­fy, dis­as­sem­ble, decom­pile or reverse engi­neer the Mobile Soft­ware, except to the extent that such restric­tion is express­ly pro­hib­it­ed by law; (ii) rent, lease, loan, resell, sub­li­cense, dis­trib­ute or oth­er­wise trans­fer the Mobile Soft­ware to any third par­ty or use the Mobile Soft­ware to pro­vide time shar­ing or sim­i­lar ser­vices for any third par­ty; (iii) make any copies of the Mobile Soft­ware; (iv) remove, cir­cum­vent, dis­able, dam­age or oth­er­wise inter­fere with secu­ri­ty-relat­ed fea­tures of the Mobile Soft­ware, fea­tures that pre­vent or restrict use or copy­ing of any con­tent acces­si­ble through the Mobile Soft­ware, or fea­tures that enforce lim­i­ta­tions on use of the Mobile Soft­ware; or (v) delete the copy­right and oth­er pro­pri­etary rights notices on the Mobile Soft­ware. You acknowl­edge that Open Cul­ture may from time to time issue upgrad­ed ver­sions of the Mobile Soft­ware, and may auto­mat­i­cal­ly elec­tron­i­cal­ly upgrade the ver­sion of the Mobile Soft­ware that you are using on your mobile device. You con­sent to such auto­mat­ic upgrad­ing on your mobile device, and agree that the terms and con­di­tions of this Agree­ment will apply to all such upgrades.  Any third-par­ty code that may be incor­po­rat­ed in the Mobile Soft­ware is cov­ered by the applic­a­ble open source or third-par­ty license End User License Agree­ment (“EULA”), if any, autho­riz­ing use of such code. The fore­go­ing license grant is not a sale of the Mobile Soft­ware or any copy there­of, and Open Cul­ture or its third par­ty part­ners or sup­pli­ers retain all right, title, and inter­est in the Mobile Soft­ware (and any copy there­of). Any attempt by you to trans­fer any of the rights, duties or oblig­a­tions here­un­der, except as express­ly pro­vid­ed for in this Agree­ment, is void.  Open Cul­ture reserves all rights not express­ly grant­ed under this Agree­ment.  If the Mobile Soft­ware is being acquired on behalf of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment, then the fol­low­ing pro­vi­sion applies:  Use, dupli­ca­tion, or dis­clo­sure of the Mobile Soft­ware by the U.S. Gov­ern­ment is sub­ject to restric­tions set forth in this Agree­ment and as pro­vid­ed in DFARS 227.7202–1(a) and 227.7202–3(a) (1995), DFARS 252.227‑7013©(1)(ii) (OCT 1988), FAR 12.212(a) (1995), FAR 52.227–19, or FAR 52.227–14 (ALT III), as applic­a­ble.  The Mobile Soft­ware orig­i­nates in the Unit­ed States, and is sub­ject to Unit­ed States export laws and reg­u­la­tions. The Mobile Soft­ware may not be export­ed or re-export­ed to cer­tain coun­tries or those per­sons or enti­ties pro­hib­it­ed from receiv­ing exports from the Unit­ed States.  In addi­tion, the Mobile Soft­ware may be sub­ject to the import and export laws of oth­er coun­tries.  You agree to com­ply with all Unit­ed States and for­eign laws relat­ed to use of the Mobile Soft­ware and the Open Cul­ture Ser­vice.

5.) Our Pro­pri­etary Rights

Except for your User Con­tent, the Ser­vice and all mate­ri­als there­in or trans­ferred there­by, includ­ing, with­out lim­i­ta­tion, soft­ware, images, text, graph­ics, illus­tra­tions, logos, patents, trade­marks, ser­vice marks, copy­rights, pho­tographs, audio, videos, music, and User Con­tent belong­ing to oth­er Users (the “Open Cul­ture Con­tent”), and all Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Rights relat­ed there­to, are the exclu­sive prop­er­ty of Open Cul­ture and its licen­sors (includ­ing oth­er Users who post User Con­tent to the Ser­vice).  Except as explic­it­ly pro­vid­ed here­in, noth­ing in this Agree­ment shall be deemed to cre­ate a license in or under any such Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Rights, and you agree not to sell, license, rent, mod­i­fy, dis­trib­ute, copy, repro­duce, trans­mit, pub­licly dis­play, pub­licly per­form, pub­lish, adapt, edit or cre­ate deriv­a­tive works from any Open Cul­ture Con­tent.  Use of the Open Cul­ture Con­tent for any pur­pose not express­ly per­mit­ted by this Agree­ment is strict­ly pro­hib­it­ed.

You may choose to or we may invite you to sub­mit com­ments or ideas about the Ser­vice, includ­ing with­out lim­i­ta­tion about how to improve the Ser­vice or our prod­ucts (“Ideas”).  By sub­mit­ting any Idea, you agree that your dis­clo­sure is gra­tu­itous, unso­licit­ed and with­out restric­tion and will not place Open Cul­ture under any fidu­cia­ry or oth­er oblig­a­tion, and that we are free to use the Idea with­out any addi­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion to you, and/or to dis­close the Idea on a non-con­fi­den­tial basis or oth­er­wise to any­one.  You fur­ther acknowl­edge that, by accep­tance of your sub­mis­sion, Open Cul­ture does not waive any rights to use sim­i­lar or relat­ed ideas pre­vi­ous­ly known to Open Cul­ture, or devel­oped by its employ­ees, or obtained from sources oth­er than you.

6.) Pri­va­cy

We care about the pri­va­cy of our Users.  You under­stand that by using the Ser­vice you con­sent to the col­lec­tion, use and dis­clo­sure of your per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion and aggre­gate data as set forth in our Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy, and to have your per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion col­lect­ed, used, trans­ferred to and processed in the Unit­ed States.

7.) Secu­ri­ty

Open Cul­ture cares about the integri­ty and secu­ri­ty of your per­son­al infor­ma­tion.  How­ev­er, we can­not guar­an­tee that unau­tho­rized third par­ties will nev­er be able to defeat our secu­ri­ty mea­sures or use any per­son­al infor­ma­tion you pro­vide to us for improp­er pur­pos­es. You acknowl­edge that you pro­vide your per­son­al infor­ma­tion at your own risk.

8.) DMCA Notice

Since we respect artist and con­tent own­er rights, it is Open Culture’s pol­i­cy to respond to alleged infringe­ment notices that com­ply with the Dig­i­tal Mil­len­ni­um Copy­right Act of 1998 (“DMCA”).

If you believe that your copy­right­ed work has been copied in a way that con­sti­tutes copy­right infringe­ment and is acces­si­ble via the Ser­vice, please noti­fy Open Culture’s copy­right agent as set forth in the DMCA.  For your com­plaint to be valid under the DMCA, you must pro­vide the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion in writ­ing:

1.  An elec­tron­ic or phys­i­cal sig­na­ture of a per­son autho­rized to act on behalf of the copy­right own­er;

2.  Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the spe­cif­ic copy­right­ed work that you claim has been infringed;

3.  Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the spe­cif­ic mate­r­i­al that is claimed to be infring­ing and where it is locat­ed on the Ser­vice;

4.  Infor­ma­tion rea­son­ably suf­fi­cient to per­mit Open Cul­ture to con­tact you, such as your address, tele­phone num­ber, and, e‑mail address;

5.  A state­ment that you have a good faith belief that use of the mate­r­i­al in the man­ner com­plained of is not autho­rized by the copy­right own­er, its agent, or law; and

6.  A state­ment, made under penal­ty of per­jury, that the above infor­ma­tion is accu­rate, and that you are the copy­right own­er or are autho­rized to act on behalf of the own­er.

The above infor­ma­tion must be sub­mit­ted to the fol­low­ing DMCA Agent:

Open Cul­ture, LLC
1259 El Camino Real
Unit #1039
Men­lo Park, CA 94025

The agent can also be con­tact­ed via email at ma**@*********re.com

NOTE: Please put “DMCA” in the sub­ject line of the email.

UNDER FEDERAL LAW, IF YOU KNOWINGLY MISREPRESENT THAT ONLINE MATERIAL IS INFRINGING, YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR PERJURY AND CIVIL PENALTIES, INCLUDING MONETARY DAMAGES, COURT COSTS, AND ATTORNEYS’ FEES.

Please note that this pro­ce­dure is exclu­sive­ly for noti­fy­ing Open Cul­ture and its affil­i­ates that your copy­right­ed mate­r­i­al has been infringed.  The pre­ced­ing require­ments are intend­ed to com­ply with Open Culture’s rights and oblig­a­tions under the DMCA, includ­ing 17 U.S.C. §512©, but do not con­sti­tute legal advice.  It may be advis­able to con­tact an attor­ney regard­ing your rights and oblig­a­tions under the DMCA and oth­er applic­a­ble laws.

In accor­dance with the DMCA and oth­er applic­a­ble law, Open Cul­ture has adopt­ed a pol­i­cy of ter­mi­nat­ing, in appro­pri­ate cir­cum­stances, Users who are deemed to be repeat infringers. Open Cul­ture may also at its sole dis­cre­tion lim­it access to the Ser­vice and/or ter­mi­nate the accounts of any Users who infringe any intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights of oth­ers, whether or not there is any repeat infringe­ment.

9.) Third-Par­ty Links

The Ser­vice may con­tain links to third-par­ty web­sites, adver­tis­ers, ser­vices, spe­cial offers, or oth­er events or activ­i­ties that are not owned or con­trolled by Open Cul­ture.  Open Cul­ture does not endorse or assume any respon­si­bil­i­ty for any such third-par­ty sites, infor­ma­tion, mate­ri­als, prod­ucts, or ser­vices.  If you access a third par­ty web­site from the Ser­vice, you do so at your own risk, and you under­stand that this Agree­ment and Open Culture’s Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy do not apply to your use of such sites.  You express­ly relieve Open Cul­ture from any and all lia­bil­i­ty aris­ing from your use of any third-par­ty web­site, ser­vice, or con­tent.  Addi­tion­al­ly, your deal­ings with or par­tic­i­pa­tion in pro­mo­tions of adver­tis­ers found on the Ser­vice, includ­ing pay­ment and deliv­ery of goods, and any oth­er terms (such as war­ranties) are sole­ly between you and such adver­tis­ers. You agree that Open Cul­ture shall not be respon­si­ble for any loss or dam­age of any sort relat­ing to your deal­ings with such adver­tis­ers.

10.) Indem­ni­ty

You agree to defend, indem­ni­fy and hold harm­less Open Cul­ture and its sub­sidiaries, agents, licen­sors, man­agers, and oth­er affil­i­at­ed com­pa­nies, and their employ­ees, con­trac­tors, agents, offi­cers and direc­tors, from and against any and all claims, dam­ages, oblig­a­tions, loss­es, lia­bil­i­ties, costs or debt, and expens­es (includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to attorney’s fees) aris­ing from: (i) your use of and access to the Ser­vice, includ­ing any data or con­tent trans­mit­ted or received by you; (ii) your vio­la­tion of any term of this Agree­ment, includ­ing with­out lim­i­ta­tion your breach of any of the rep­re­sen­ta­tions and war­ranties above; (iii) your vio­la­tion of any third-par­ty right, includ­ing with­out lim­i­ta­tion any right of pri­va­cy or Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Rights; (iv) your vio­la­tion of any applic­a­ble law, rule or reg­u­la­tion; (v) any claim or dam­ages that arise as a result of any of your User Con­tent or any that is sub­mit­ted via your account; or (vi) any oth­er party’s access and use of the Ser­vice with your unique user­name, pass­word or oth­er appro­pri­ate secu­ri­ty code.

11.) No War­ran­ty

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS.  USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.  TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.  NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM OPEN CULTURE OR THROUGH THE SERVICE WILL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED HEREIN.  WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, OPEN CULTURE, ITS SUBSIDIARIES, AND ITS LICENSORS DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE CONTENT IS ACCURATE, RELIABLE OR CORRECT; THAT THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE AVAILABLE AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME OR LOCATION, UNINTERRUPTED OR SECURE; THAT ANY DEFECTS OR ERRORS WILL BE CORRECTED; OR THAT THE SERVICE IS FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS.  ANY CONTENT DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE IS DOWNLOADED AT YOUR OWN RISK AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR MOBILE DEVICE OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM SUCH DOWNLOAD OR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE.

OPEN CULTURE DOES NOT WARRANT, ENDORSE, GUARANTEE, OR ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY PRODUCT OR SERVICE ADVERTISED OR OFFERED BY A THIRD PARTY THROUGH THE OPEN CULTURE SERVICE OR ANY HYPERLINKED WEBSITE OR SERVICE, AND OPEN CULTURE WILL NOT BE A PARTY TO OR IN ANY WAY MONITOR ANY TRANSACTION BETWEEN YOU AND THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS OF PRODUCTS OR SERVICES.

12.) Lim­i­ta­tion of Lia­bil­i­ty

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL OPEN CULTURE, ITS AFFILIATES, AGENTS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, SUPPLIERS OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, THAT RESULT FROM THE USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THIS SERVICE.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL OPEN CULTURE BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE, LOSS OR INJURY RESULTING FROM HACKING, TAMPERING OR OTHER UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS OR USE OF THE SERVICE OR YOUR ACCOUNT OR THE INFORMATION CONTAINED THEREIN.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, OPEN CULTURE ASSUMES NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY (I) ERRORS, MISTAKES, OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT; (II) PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, RESULTING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF OUR SERVICE; (III) ANY UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR USE OF OUR SECURE SERVERS AND/OR ANY AND ALL PERSONAL INFORMATION STORED THEREIN; (IV) ANY INTERRUPTION OR CESSATION OF TRANSMISSION TO OR FROM THE SERVICE; (V) ANY BUGS, VIRUSES, TROJAN HORSES, OR THE LIKE THAT MAY BE TRANSMITTED TO OR THROUGH OUR SERVICE BY ANY THIRD PARTY; (VI) ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY CONTENT OR FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE INCURRED AS A RESULT OF THE USE OF ANY CONTENT POSTED, EMAILED, TRANSMITTED, OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SERVICE; AND/OR (VII) USER CONTENT OR THE DEFAMATORY, OFFENSIVE, OR ILLEGAL CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY.  IN NO EVENT SHALL OPEN CULTURE, ITS AFFILIATES, AGENTS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, SUPPLIERS, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY CLAIMS, PROCEEDINGS, LIABILITIES, OBLIGATIONS, DAMAGES, LOSSES OR COSTS IN AN AMOUNT EXCEEDING THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO OPEN CULTURE HEREUNDER.

THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SECTION APPLIES WHETHER THE ALLEGED LIABILITY IS BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER BASIS, EVEN IF OPEN CULTURE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.  THE FOREGOING LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW IN THE APPLICABLE JURISDICTION.

SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS OR EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.  THIS AGREEMENT GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS, AND YOU MAY ALSO HAVE OTHER RIGHTS WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE.  THE DISCLAIMERS, EXCLUSIONS, AND LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT APPLY TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

The Ser­vice is con­trolled and oper­at­ed from its facil­i­ties in the Unit­ed States.  Open Cul­ture makes no rep­re­sen­ta­tions that the Ser­vice is appro­pri­ate or avail­able for use in oth­er loca­tions. Those who access or use the Ser­vice from oth­er juris­dic­tions do so at their own voli­tion and are entire­ly respon­si­ble for com­pli­ance with all applic­a­ble Unit­ed States and local laws and reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to export and import reg­u­la­tions.  You may not use the Ser­vice if you are a res­i­dent of a coun­try embar­goed by the Unit­ed States, or are a for­eign per­son or enti­ty blocked or denied by the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment.  Unless oth­er­wise explic­it­ly stat­ed, all mate­ri­als found on the Ser­vice are sole­ly direct­ed to indi­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies, or oth­er enti­ties locat­ed in the Unit­ed States.

13.) Assign­ment

This Agree­ment, and any rights and licens­es grant­ed here­un­der, may not be trans­ferred or assigned by you, but may be assigned by Open Cul­ture with­out restric­tion. Any attempt­ed trans­fer or assign­ment in vio­la­tion here­of shall be null and void.

14.) Gen­er­al

A.      Gov­ern­ing Law.  You agree that: (i) the Ser­vice shall be deemed sole­ly based in Cal­i­for­nia; and (ii) the Ser­vice shall be deemed a pas­sive one that does not give rise to per­son­al juris­dic­tion over Open Cul­ture, either spe­cif­ic or gen­er­al, in juris­dic­tions oth­er than Cal­i­for­nia.  This Agree­ment shall be gov­erned by the inter­nal sub­stan­tive laws of the State of Cal­i­for­nia, with­out respect to its con­flict of laws prin­ci­ples. The appli­ca­tion of the Unit­ed Nations Con­ven­tion on Con­tracts for the Inter­na­tion­al Sale of Goods is express­ly exclud­ed.  Except as oth­er­wise agreed between the par­ties or as described in Sec­tion 17.B. below, any claim or dis­pute between you and Open Cul­ture that aris­es in whole or in part from the Ser­vice shall be decid­ed exclu­sive­ly by a court of com­pe­tent juris­dic­tion locat­ed in San­ta Clara Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, unless sub­mit­ted to arbi­tra­tion as set forth in the fol­low­ing para­graph.

B.        Arbi­tra­tion.  For any claim (exclud­ing claims for injunc­tive or oth­er equi­table relief) under this Agree­ment where the total amount of the award sought is less than $10,000, the par­ty request­ing relief may elect to resolve the dis­pute through bind­ing non-appear­ance-based arbi­tra­tion. The par­ty elect­ing such arbi­tra­tion shall ini­ti­ate the arbi­tra­tion through an estab­lished alter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion (“ADR”) provider mutu­al­ly agreed upon by the par­ties. The ADR provider and the par­ties must com­ply with the fol­low­ing rules: a) the arbi­tra­tion shall be con­duct­ed by tele­phone, online and/or be sole­ly based on writ­ten sub­mis­sions, as select­ed by the par­ty ini­ti­at­ing the arbi­tra­tion; b) the arbi­tra­tion shall not involve any per­son­al appear­ance by the par­ties or wit­ness­es unless oth­er­wise mutu­al­ly agreed by the par­ties; and c) any judg­ment on the award ren­dered by the arbi­tra­tor may be entered in any court of com­pe­tent juris­dic­tion.

C.        Noti­fi­ca­tion Pro­ce­dures.  Open Cul­ture may pro­vide noti­fi­ca­tions, whether such noti­fi­ca­tions are required by law or are for mar­ket­ing or oth­er busi­ness relat­ed pur­pos­es, to you via email notice, writ­ten or hard copy notice, or through post­ing of such notice on our web­site, as deter­mined by Open Cul­ture in our sole dis­cre­tion. Open Cul­ture reserves the right to deter­mine the form and means of pro­vid­ing noti­fi­ca­tions to our Users, pro­vid­ed that you may opt out of cer­tain means of noti­fi­ca­tion as described in this Agree­ment.  Open Cul­ture is not respon­si­ble for any auto­mat­ic fil­ter­ing you or your net­work provider may apply to email noti­fi­ca­tions we send to the email address you pro­vide us.  We rec­om­mend that you add ma**@*********re.com to your email address book to help ensure you receive email noti­fi­ca­tions from us.

D.        Entire Agreement/Severability.  This Agree­ment, togeth­er with any amend­ments and any addi­tion­al agree­ments you may enter into with Open Cul­ture in con­nec­tion with the Ser­vice, shall con­sti­tute the entire agree­ment between you and Open Cul­ture con­cern­ing the Ser­vice.  If any pro­vi­sion of this Agree­ment is deemed invalid by a court of com­pe­tent juris­dic­tion, the inva­lid­i­ty of such pro­vi­sion shall not affect the valid­i­ty of the remain­ing pro­vi­sions of this Agree­ment, which shall remain in full force and effect.

E.         No Waiv­er.  No waiv­er of any term of this Agree­ment shall be deemed a fur­ther or con­tin­u­ing waiv­er of such term or any oth­er term, and Open Culture’s fail­ure to assert any right or pro­vi­sion under this Agree­ment shall not con­sti­tute a waiv­er of such right or pro­vi­sion.

15.) Affil­i­a­tions

Open Cul­ture, LLC is a par­tic­i­pant in the Ama­zon Ser­vices LLC Asso­ciates Pro­gram, an affil­i­ate adver­tis­ing pro­gram designed to pro­vide a means for sites to earn adver­tis­ing fees by adver­tis­ing and link­ing to amazon.com.

Open Cul­ture, LLC is also a par­tic­i­pant in the Audible.com affil­i­ate pro­gram.

Please con­tact us at ma**@*********re.com with any ques­tions regard­ing this Agree­ment.

Recent Updates

See sec­tion 15.)

Johnny Depp Reads Letters from Hunter S. Thompson (NSFW)

in Books, Film, Literature | January 14th, 2012

Back in 1998, Hunter S. Thomp­son’s most famous piece of Gonzo jour­nal­ism, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, was brought to the sil­ver screen, with John­ny Depp play­ing a lead role. From this point for­ward, Depp and Thomp­son became fast friends. Indeed, Depp would end up pay­ing for Thomp­son’s elab­o­rate funer­al, which involved shoot­ing the writer’s ash­es out of a can­non to the tune of Nor­man Green­baum’s Spir­it in the Sky and Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tam­bourine Man.

Above we fea­ture John­ny read­ing aloud some let­ters he received from Hunter. The let­ters are very Thomp­son-esque, which means, among things, they’re NOT SAFE for work! Part 2 can be found here, and Part 3 here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thomp­son Inter­views Kei­th Richards

Hunter S. Thomp­son Gets Con­front­ed by the Hell’s Angels

John­ny Depp Nar­rates New Kei­th Richards Auto­bi­og­ra­phy (and How to Snag a Free Copy)

Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary: a ‘Warped Casablan­ca’

The Page Turner: A Fabulous Rube Goldberg Machine for Readers

in Art | January 12th, 2012

Last week, The New York Times pro­filed Joseph Her­sch­er, a 26-year-old kinet­ic artist who hails from New Zealand and now devel­ops inten­tion­al­ly “absurd” and “use­less” Rube Gold­berg machines in his Brook­lyn apart­ment. His lat­est con­trap­tion, called “The Page Turn­er,” just gets bet­ter as it rolls along. Per­haps the best part comes towards the end when Her­scher’s pet ham­ster, Chester, makes a cameo appear­ance. Enjoy…

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