William Shatner Narrates Space Shuttle Documentary

in Astronomy, History, Science, Television, Video - Science | July 4th, 2011

After 30 years and 134 flights, Amer­i­ca’s space shut­tle pro­gram draws to a close. And it feels pitch per­fect to wind things down with a doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by William Shat­ner. Of course, you know him as Cap­tain Kirk from Star Trek, the icon­ic sci-fi TV show that ran from 1966 to 1969, smack in the mid­dle of NASA’s hey­day. (Note: Star Trek has just been added to Net­flix’s stream­ing cat­a­logue.)

The 80 minute doc­u­men­tary takes you through the his­to­ry of the Space Shut­tle pro­gram, which first got under­way dur­ing the Nixon admin­is­tra­tion. The film spends ample time look­ing at the design chal­lenges NASA engi­neers faced in try­ing to cre­ate a reusable shut­tle, while also show­ing ear­ly pro­to­types. Once the design phase was com­plete, con­struc­tion began on the first orbiter in June, 1974 and wrapped up two years lat­er. NASA called its first craft Space Shut­tle Enter­prise, pay­ing homage to the fic­tion­al Star­ship Enter­prise. Next, it was time to bold­ly go where no one had gone before.

The doc is now added to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

Endeavour’s Launch Viewed from Boost­er Cam­eras

Stephen Fry on Philosophy and Unbelief

in Comedy, Philosophy, Religion | July 4th, 2011

Come­di­an Stephen Fry has the clas­sic British intel­lec­tu­al voice, much like philoso­pher Bryan McGee. It turns out that he knows some­thing about phi­los­o­phy, and this clip is a short­ened ver­sion of a longer video called “The Impor­tance of Unbe­lief.”

A more gen­tle ver­sion of George Car­lin, Fry’s views appear heart­felt while par­tak­ing of seri­ous irony. He claims that in order to prop­er­ly appre­ci­ate our present lives, “even if it isn’t true, you must absolute­ly assume that there is no after­life.” Choos­ing his posi­tions to argue as much for their rhetor­i­cal audac­i­ty as any­thing else, he argues for poly­the­ism in favor of monothe­ism, and he treats the issue of the divine pres­ence in nature by ref­er­enc­ing the life cycle of a par­a­sitic worm. He seems an apt voice to add to the new athe­ist debates, at least as amus­ing as Dawkins and much more­so than Sam Har­ris. This clip is added to our col­lec­tion of 250 Cul­tur­al Icons.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Stephen Fry Gets Ani­mat­ed about Lan­guage

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

Gertie the Dinosaur: The Mother of all Cartoon Characters (1914)

in Animation, History | July 1st, 2011

The artist and car­toon pio­neer Win­sor McCay (1869?-1934) did not make the world’s first ani­mat­ed film. That dis­tinc­tion goes to Emile Cohl and his 76-sec­ond long Fan­tas­magorie (1908). But McK­ay, who was also the author of the pop­u­lar week­ly Lit­tle Nemo com­ic strips, made a con­tri­bu­tion to car­toons that is arguably even more impor­tant.

Sweet, mis­chie­vous Ger­tie, with her ready tears, excitable nature, and com­plete inabil­i­ty to miss a chance to get her­self in trou­ble, is wide­ly cred­it­ed as the first char­ac­ter cre­at­ed specif­i­cal­ly for ani­ma­tion, and the first to demon­strate a per­son­al­i­ty all of her own. Mick­ey Mouse, Bugs Bun­ny, Bam­bi, even Wall‑e… they all owe a debt to Ger­tie, the first of the line. One sus­pects the artist knew exact­ly what he was doing when he chose to draw her as an ani­mal that is also our com­mon ances­tor.

The fetch­ing bron­tosaurus may have been one of McCay’s most famous cre­ations, but there was mag­ic in every film he made. Be sure to check out How a Mos­qui­to Oper­ates (1912), The Sink­ing of the Lusi­ta­nia (1921), and his brief but mag­nif­i­cent The Cen­taurs (1921). You can find them all in our Free Movie col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ear­ly Exper­i­ments in Col­or Film (1895–1935)

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons are Made

The Beau­ty of Pixar

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

The “Ask Sam Harris Anything” Hour

in Philosophy, Religion | June 30th, 2011

Sam Har­ris — he wrote the best­sellers The End of Faith and Let­ter to a Chris­t­ian Nation. He’s also one-fourth of the New Athe­ist quar­tet infor­mal­ly called The Four Horse­men (where you’ll also find Richard Dawkins, Christo­pher Hitchens and Daniel Den­nett.) And he has most recent­ly argued that neu­ro­science can even­tu­al­ly answer all moral ques­tions. Sam Har­ris is very much a pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. He’s out there and in the mix. And he’s now answer­ing ques­tions from Reddit.com users. Give Har­ris 54 min­utes and he’ll tell you how to pro­mote pub­lic ratio­nal­i­ty, why med­i­ta­tion can change your life, and much, much more …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Hitchens Answers Red­dit User Ques­tions

Richard Dawkins Plays the Piano: “Earth His­to­ry in C Major”

Gone With the Wind Turns 75, and Shows its Age

in Film, History, Literature | June 30th, 2011

It’s with some dis­com­fort that the author names Gone with the Wind, pub­lished exact­ly 75 years ago today, her favorite child­hood book: It was thick, it was roman­tic — and per­haps most cru­cial­ly for any awk­ward, bespec­ta­cled pre­teen girl — it fea­tured a head­strong hero­ine whose appeal to the oppo­site sex derived more from her charm than her phys­i­cal beau­ty.

Nonethe­less, there’s no way around the pro­found fail­ings of both the book and the MGM epic film based on it: Nov­el and film treat­ed slav­ery as an inci­den­tal back­drop to the war; they glo­ri­fied and mis­rep­re­sent­ed the actions of the Ku Klux Klan; and most egre­gious­ly, they por­trayed the mas­ter-slave rela­tion­ship as one which nei­ther mas­ter nor slave should ever dream of alter­ing. In the words of his­to­ri­an and soci­ol­o­gist Jim Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Every­thing Your High School His­to­ry Text­book Got Wrong:

[Gone With The Wind] laments the pass­ing of the slave era as “gone with the wind.” In the nov­el, Mitchell states open­ly that African Amer­i­cans are “crea­tures of small intel­li­gence.” And this book is by far the most pop­u­lar book in the U.S. and has been for 60 years. The book is also pro­found­ly wrong in its his­to­ry. What it tells us about slav­ery, and espe­cial­ly recon­struc­tion, did not happen…it is pro­found­ly racist and pro­found­ly wrong. Should we teach it? Of course. Should we teach against it? Of course.

Mean­while, Hat­tie McDaniel took home a best sup­port­ing actress Oscar for her role as Scar­lett O’Hara’s loy­al house slave, Mam­my. She was the first African-Amer­i­can woman to win an Acad­e­my Award. The fact that she was not allowed to attend the film’s pre­miere in Atlanta makes her accep­tance speech (1940) even more poignant. It appears above.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

The Perils of the Bike Lane: Pratfalls with a Purpose

in Random | June 29th, 2011

Com­plete­ly ran­dom. Can’t believe this guy (who hap­pens to be an HBO film­mak­er) did­n’t wear a hel­met. The best scene is saved for last.

via New York Times

Springsteen’s Eulogy for Clarence Clemons‎

in Music | June 29th, 2011

Today, Bruce Spring­steen pub­lished on his web site a revised ver­sion of the eulo­gy he deliv­ered last week for Clarence Clemons, his friend and band mate. It’s equal parts hon­est and mov­ing. The talk builds momen­tum as it goes along, kind of like a Spring­steen song, with the rhythm real­ly pick­ing up here:

I think per­haps “C” pro­tect­ed me from a world where it was­n’t always so easy to be an inse­cure, weird and skin­ny white boy either. But, stand­ing togeth­er we were badass, on any giv­en night, on our turf, some of the bad­dest ass­es on the plan­et. We were unit­ed, we were strong, we were right­eous, we were unmov­able, we were fun­ny, we were corny as hell and as seri­ous as death itself. And we were com­ing to your town to shake you and to wake you up. Togeth­er, we told an old­er, rich­er sto­ry about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of friend­ship that tran­scend­ed those I’d writ­ten in my songs and in my music. Clarence car­ried it in his heart. It was a sto­ry where the Scoot­er and the Big Man not only bust­ed the city in half, but we kicked ass and remadethe city, shap­ing it into the kind of place where our friend­ship would not be such an anom­aly. And that… that’s what I’m gonna miss. The chance to renew that vow and dou­ble down on that sto­ry on a night­ly basis, because that is some­thing, that is the thing that we did togeth­er… the two of us. Clarence was big, and he made me feel, and think, and love, and dream big. How big was the Big Man? Too fuck­ing big to die. And that’s just the facts. You can put it on his grave stone, you can tat­too it over your heart. Accept it… it’s the New World.

And final­ly the crescen­do:

SO LADIES AND GENTLEMAN… ALWAYS LAST, BUT NEVER LEAST. LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE MASTER OF DISASTER, the BIG KAHUNA, the MAN WITH A PHD IN SAXUAL HEALING, the DUKE OF PADUCAH, the KING OF THE WORLD, LOOK OUT OBAMA! THE NEXT BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES EVEN THOUGH HE’S DEAD… YOU WISH YOU COULD BE LIKE HIM BUT YOU CAN’T! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE BIGGEST MAN YOU’VE EVER SEEN!… GIVE ME A C‑L-A-R-E-N-C‑E. WHAT’S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT’S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! WHAT’S THAT SPELL? CLARENCE! … amen.

Get the full text here.

H/T to @opedr

iPhone Magic by Techno-Illusionist Marco Tempest

in Apple, iPhone, Technology | June 29th, 2011

No more top hat and hand­ker­chief. Mar­co Tem­pest uses iPods and iPhones to cre­ate mag­ic for the 21st cen­tu­ry. He calls him­self a tech­no-illu­sion­ist. “I explore the bor­ders between tech­nol­o­gy and mag­ic,” says Tem­pest, “between what’s incred­i­bly real and incred­i­bly not.” Orig­i­nal­ly from Switzer­land, Tem­pest now lives in New York City. He was fea­tured in the inter­na­tion­al­ly syn­di­cat­ed tele­vi­sion series, The Vir­tu­al Magi­cian, and his work can be viewed on a YouTube chan­nel of the same name. His newest release, “iPod Magic–Deceptions,” fea­tures an appli­ca­tion he devel­oped to syn­chro­nize video play­back on mul­ti­ple screens. The App is called “Mul­ti­Vid.” You can down­load it for free here, and learn how to use it here.

via Dar­ren Brown

The History of the English Language in Ten Animated Minutes

in Animation, English Language | June 29th, 2011

Yes­ter­day, the Open Uni­ver­si­ty released ‘The His­to­ry of Eng­lish in 10 Min­utes,’ a wit­ty ani­mat­ed sequence that takes you through 1600 years of lin­guis­tic his­to­ry. The Vikings gave us “give” and “take.” Shake­speare added anoth­er 2,000 words and expres­sions to the mix. The British Empire (see video above) then brought the evolv­ing Eng­lish lan­guage to new lands, cre­at­ing new vari­eties of Eng­lish world­wide. And so the sto­ry con­tin­ues. You can find this series fea­tur­ing the voice of Clive Ander­son on iTunes or YouTube. We’ve includ­ed links to each YouTube chap­ter right below. Many thanks to Cather­ine for the heads up…

• Anglo-Sax­on
• The Nor­man Con­quest
• Shake­speare
• The King James Bible
• The Eng­lish of Sci­ence
• Eng­lish and Empire
• The Age of the Dic­tio­nary
• Amer­i­can Eng­lish
• Inter­net Eng­lish
• Glob­al Eng­lish

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What’s Your Eng­lish? British v. Cana­di­an Rap Bat­tle

Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & 37 Oth­er Lan­guages

Google App Enhances Museum Visits; Launched at the Getty

in Art, Google | June 28th, 2011

Ear­li­er this year, Google rolled out “Art Project,” a tool that lets you access 1,000 works of art appear­ing in 17 great muse­ums across the world, from the Met in New York City to the Uffizi Gallery in Flo­rence. (More on that here.) Now, as part of a broad­er effort to put art in your hands, the com­pa­ny has pro­duced a new smart­phone app (avail­able in Android and iPhone) that enrich­es the muse­um-going expe­ri­ence, and it’s being demoed at the Get­ty Muse­um in Los Ange­les.

The con­cept is pret­ty sim­ple. You’re wan­der­ing through the Get­ty. You spot a paint­ing that deeply touch­es you. To find out more about it, you open the Google Gog­gles app on your phone, snap a pho­to, and instant­ly down­load com­men­tary from artists, cura­tors, and con­ser­va­tors, or even a small image of the work itself. Sam­ple this, and you’ll see what we mean. And, for more on the sto­ry, turn to Jori Finkel, the ace arts reporter for the LA Times.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Art in “Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty” at The Get­ty Muse­um

A Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad