A Digital Reconstruction of Washington D.C. in 1814

in Animation, History | May 31st, 2011

What did the U.S. cap­i­tal look like 200 years ago? Find­ing a sat­is­fac­to­ry answer to this ques­tion is very dif­fi­cult since there are very few reli­able images, maps and writ­ten accounts from Wash­ing­ton’s ear­ly days. This is why Dan Bai­ley, direc­tor of the Imag­ing Research Cen­ter (IRC) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Bal­ti­more, has approached archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ri­ans, car­tog­ra­phers, engi­neers, and ecol­o­gists to “recre­ate a ‘best guess’ glimpse of the ear­ly city.” The video above is the result of the IRC’s work, show­ing a city that was, they say, “a rough work in progress.”

Noth­ing was pol­ished. The scale of the fed­er­al city was that of a per­son, not of immense mar­ble bureau­cra­cy. There were cab­ins and barns on the Cap­i­tal Lawn. The first fence around the Capi­tol was to keep the cows out. Con­gress­men came to town for the leg­isla­tive ses­sions, many times sleep­ing 3 to a room in a board­ing house, and work­ing in unfin­ished build­ings.

An in-depth arti­cle about the ongo­ing project was pub­lished in The Wash­ing­ton Post.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Chemistry on YouTube: “Periodic Table of Videos” Wins SPORE Prize

in Chemistry, Science, Video - Science | May 31st, 2011

A few years ago, we post­ed about an ambi­tious project out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham called The Peri­od­ic Table of Videos. The project is pret­ty much exact­ly what it sounds like – an online peri­od­ic table in which each and every ele­ment gets its own brief intro­duc­to­ry video, “star­ring” the researchers and fac­ul­ty of the uni­ver­si­ty’s chem­istry depart­ment. Video jour­nal­ist Brady Haran has kept each episode loose and unscript­ed, and the sci­en­tists’ enthu­si­asm for their sub­ject is infec­tious, even — or per­haps espe­cial­ly — when their exper­i­ments go awry (Keep an eye out espe­cial­ly for the won­der­ful­ly wooly Pro­fes­sor Poli­akoff, whose hair alone should earn him first billing).

We were delight­ed to learn that the PTOV has just been award­ed a very well-deserved Sci­ence Prize for Online Resources by the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ence. In fact, the project has proven so suc­cess­ful over­all that Haran has embarked on a sim­i­lar col­lab­o­ra­tion with the uni­ver­si­ty’s physics depart­ment, and he’s also brought the chemists back for a new series about mol­e­cules. The most pop­u­lar video from that series, which we’ve post­ed above, address­es a ques­tion that has kept us all up till dawn at least once in our lives: What hap­pens when a cheese­burg­er is dunked in hydrochlo­ric acid?

Don’t miss the free chem­istry cours­es list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 380 Free Online Cours­es.

via ArsTech­ni­ca

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

City of Eight Million Soundtracks

in Life, Music | May 30th, 2011

“Soli­tude,” wrote Hen­ry David Thore­au in Walden, “is not mea­sured by the miles of space that inter­vene between a man and his fel­lows. The real­ly dili­gent stu­dent in one of the crowd­ed hives of Cam­bridge Col­lege is as soli­tary as a dervish in the desert.” If you’re search­ing for soli­tude these days, even in Times Square, you won’t need much diligence–just an iPod and a pair of ear­buds. But watch out! Your soli­tude might be shat­tered by Tyler Cullen, a stu­dent film­mak­er at the School of Visu­al Arts, who recent­ly had the audac­i­ty to say to his fel­low New York­ers: Hey You! What Song Are You Lis­ten­ing To?

Via Kottke.org

The Musalman: The Last Handwritten Newspaper in the World

in Video - Arts & Culture | May 30th, 2011

Tucked away in the crowd­ed south­ern Indi­an city of Chen­nai, in the shad­ow of the Wal­la­jah Mosque, is an unflat­ter­ing build­ing. But what hap­pens inside the build­ing is remark­able. Every day since 1927, a ded­i­cat­ed team has worked tire­less­ly to cre­ate a hand­writ­ten news­pa­per, The Musalman (in Urdu: مسلمان). Today, there’s a team of six work­ers who work on the news­pa­per dai­ly. Four of the work­ers are known as kat­i­bs, writ­ers ded­i­cat­ed to the ancient art of Urdu cal­lig­ra­phy. They have the most mod­est of facil­i­ties: two wall fans, three light bulbs, and one tube light in an 800-square-foot build­ing. But watch­ing the video, you learn how this news­pa­per has sur­vived for three gen­er­a­tions — every­one who works there is absolute­ly devot­ed to the task. In fact, they are pre­pared to work on The Musalman until their “last breath,” an unde­ni­able pas­sion.

In the mod­ern era where almost every pub­lished work is cre­at­ed dig­i­tal­ly, it is refresh­ing to see the tra­di­tion of cal­lig­ra­phy endure with The Musalman. We can only hope the rest of us can appre­ci­ate The Musalman’s his­to­ry and its efforts to sur­vive as much as its ded­i­cat­ed read­ers do.

To learn more about The Musalman, read this Times of India sto­ry. For more about the world’s hand­writ­ten news­pa­pers, please see this post on Brain­Pick­ings.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

The Guitar Prodigy from Karachi

in Music | May 29th, 2011

Usman Riaz began play­ing clas­si­cal piano at 6, then took up the gui­tar at 16. Fast for­ward four years, and you have this — the 20-year old Riaz play­ing his song “Fire­fly” in a music video that’s more like a mini indie arts film than any­thing else. At times, Riaz plays his Mar­tin XC1t like a piano key­board, but, all along, you can hear his acknowl­edged influ­ences — Kaki King, Michael Hedges, Don Ross and, of course, Jim­my Page. (Don’t miss these relat­ed videos.) You can learn more about the Karachi musi­cian in this two-part inter­view here and here, and also find his short album, Flash­es and Sparks, on Ama­zon here.

via 3 Quarks Dai­ly

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!

Don’t Dance at the Jefferson Memorial: A Quick PSA

in Current Affairs, Law | May 29th, 2011

Any­one know what law these dancers were vio­lat­ing, since the arrest­ing offi­cer appar­ent­ly does­n’t know (or won’t say)?

Update: This article/post gives you the back­sto­ry. It explains that the dancers were “there protest­ing a … court deci­sion [hand­ed down] ear­li­er this month that upheld a ban on danc­ing with­in the memo­r­i­al.” The mem­bers of the “civ­il danceobe­di­ence” were charged with demon­strat­ing with­out a per­mit, and then released a short time after. That’s the answer to the ques­tion, in short…

via Boing­Bo­ing

Paulo Coelho on How to Handle the Fear of Failure

in Life | May 26th, 2011

The road to suc­cess runs right through fail­ure. It’s an idea that’s get­ting a lot of atten­tion late­ly. Ear­li­er this month, the Berghs School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in Stock­holm orga­nized an exhi­bi­tion around the whole premise that “suc­cess nev­er hap­pens with­out tak­ing risks. And risks are what you’re capa­ble of tak­ing when you over­come the fear of fail­ing.” But how to do that? How to take that leap? The exhi­bi­tion put that ques­tion to artists and thinkers who know suc­cess in a very inti­mate way. (See full list on Brain­Pick­ings here.) That includes Paulo Coel­ho, the author of The Alchemist, a book that has sold 65 mil­lion copies across 150 coun­tries, and he had this to say:

I’m nev­er par­a­lyzed by my fear of fail­ure… I say “Ok, I’m doing my best… ” And, from the moment that I can say that I’m doing my best … I sit down, I breathe, and I say “I put all of my love into it, I did it with all my heart.” … And whether they like [the book] or not is irrel­e­vant, because I like it. I’m com­mit­ted to the thing that I did. And so far nobody has crit­i­cized or refused it. When you put love and enthu­si­asm into your work, even if peo­ple don’t see it, they know it’s there, that you did this with all of your body and soul, so that is what I encour­age you to do.

It’s a good thought, which gets pur­sued on a par­al­lel track by Tim Har­ford. In 2005, Har­ford wrote the best­selling book, The Under­cov­er Econ­o­mist, and now he returns with Adapt: Why Suc­cess Always Starts with Fail­ure. Speak­ing yes­ter­day on KQED in San Fran­cis­co, the writer, some­times likened to Mal­colm Glad­well, talked about the impor­tance of exper­i­men­ta­tion, tak­ing cal­cu­lat­ed risks, and cre­at­ing room for fail­ure, some­thing that mat­ters as much to indi­vid­u­als as it does to cor­po­ra­tions or nations try­ing to solve dif­fi­cult prob­lems. You can lis­ten to the full inter­view here.

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!

Endeavour’s Launch Viewed from Booster Cameras

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | May 26th, 2011

Here’s the good stuff that nerdgasms are made of. NASA has released a video that lets you hitch a ride on the May 16th launch of the Space Shut­tle Endeav­our. The video runs 37 min­utes; it’s nar­rat­ed by a NASA offi­cial; and it loops around and lets you see the launch from sev­er­al dif­fer­ent van­tage points.

You start with liftoff, trav­el­ing at 1300 miles per hour. Then, about two min­utes lat­er, the rock­et boost­ers sep­a­rate from the shut­tle, and you then twist with them. The sec­ond loop starts around the 7:20 mark, and don’t miss the splen­did view at 9:40 …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

NASA Cap­tures Giant Solar Storm

NASA Zooms into Spi­ral Galaxy

Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange: Malcolm McDowell Looks Back

in Film | May 25th, 2011

A few days ago, we linked to the recent Col­lid­er inter­view with Mal­colm McDow­ell, the star of Stan­ley Kubrick­’s 1971 clas­sic, A Clock­work Orange. One of the high­lights of the piece is a short video clip in which the now 68-year-old actor describes the ori­gins of the film’s icon­ic — and hor­rif­i­cal­ly vio­lent — “Singing in the Rain” scene.

You can catch a much younger McDow­ell dis­cussing that same scene in 1972, start­ing at minute 6:30 of the inter­view below. For kicks, slide back to minute 4:15, and watch the cocky 28-year-old give his inter­locu­tor a sharp dress­ing down for dar­ing to sug­gest that Mr. Kubrick could be “dif­fi­cult” to work with:

via @DangerMindsBlog

Relat­ed con­tent:

Stan­ley Kubrick­’s Fil­mog­ra­phy Ani­mat­ed

Killer’s Kiss: Where Stan­ley Kubrick­’s Film­mak­ing Career Real­ly Begins

Kubrick vs. Scors­ese Mon­tage

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.

Lost Films: Identify Missing Cinema Through Crowdsourcing

in Film | May 23rd, 2011

Can you iden­ti­fy the man in this pic­ture? The archivists at Lost Films hope you can. The image is tak­en from footage of a vin­tage film that no one has been able to iden­ti­fy. Accord­ing to the descrip­tion that goes with the still, all we know now is that this odd­ly-dressed  char­ac­ter is an escaped con­vict named “Hem Lock.” The movie is prob­a­bly Amer­i­can, and it was most like­ly shot some­where around 1923. If you think you can add some more infor­ma­tion, it’s time for you to sign up.

More than 80 per­cent of silent films and a high per­cent­age of old sound films have been lost or are now unac­count­ed for. Lost Films is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort among film soci­eties in Ger­many, France, Poland, New Zealand, and sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries to help iden­ti­fy and locate some 3,500 lost or miss­ing films through crowd­sourc­ing. Any­one can become a mem­ber and then upload clips and images from “mys­tery movies” to the site, and also com­ment on the as-yet-unti­tled stills and images that have already been uploaded. The site also con­tains a heart­en­ing list of films that have been recent­ly been recov­ered.

The project is fund­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Cul­tur­al Asso­ci­a­tion.

Be sure to find many silent and ear­ly sound movies (among oth­er things) in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

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.