Arduino Documentary: Open Source Hardware is Here

in Film, Technology | January 10th, 2011

Open Source, it’s not just for soft­ware. It’s for hard­ware too. The new film, Arduino: The Doc­u­men­tary, revis­its a project launched in the Ital­ian town of Ivrea back in 2005. The chal­lenge? To devel­op cheap, easy-to-use elec­tron­ics com­po­nents for design stu­dents. (You can get into the tech­ni­cal side of things here.) The mes­sage? Geek.com sum­ma­rizes it well: “we are about to see an explo­sion of hard­ware devices that come from bed­room tin­ker­ers and stu­dent projects.” Note: A Span­ish ver­sion of the film is avail­able here, and they’re all released under a Cre­ative Com­mons license.

Arduino: The Doc­u­men­tary will be added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

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!

17-Year-Old Joan Baez Performs at Famous “Club 47” in Cambridge, MA (1958)

in Music | January 9th, 2011

The video above brings you way back (we think) to 1958, when Joan Baez was only 17, to a con­cert she played at the leg­endary Club 47 in Cam­bridge, Mass. While the teenage ingénue broke onto the folk scene, Bob Dylan was still a stu­dent back in Hib­bing, Min­neso­ta. Five years lat­er, Baez intro­duced Dylan to the music world; the two dat­ed for a while; and then, even while going their sep­a­rate ways, they put their stamp on the 60s folk scene – a sto­ry that gets well doc­u­ment­ed in the book, Pos­i­tive­ly 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fari­na and Richard Fari­na. If you click here, you can watch Baez, now in her prime, per­form a com­plete con­cert in 1965. The show runs 65 min­utes and fea­tures 18 songs.

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:

Woody Guthrie’s Fan Let­ter To John Cage and Alan Hov­haness (1947)

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Fea­tures 17,000 Record­ings

The Greatest Composers: According to You & The New York Times

in Music | January 8th, 2011

Antho­ny Tom­masi­ni, the chief music crit­ic for the New York Times, has start­ed the year with a play­ful way of find­ing out “what makes great music great?” To answer the ques­tion, he has invit­ed read­ers to make a list of the Top 10 com­posers in his­to­ry. And that invites answers to a series of sec­ondary ques­tions: “Should influ­ence mat­ter, or just the works them­selves? What about pop­u­lar­i­ty? Are there any objec­tive cri­te­ria?” The Times will actu­al­ly post a bal­lot next week. (Keep an eye on the Arts­Beat blog.) But, in the mean­time, Tom­masi­ni has kicked off the project by post­ing a video (above) focus­ing on the tow­er­ing Baroque com­pos­er, J.S. Bach. And, speak­ing of Bach, don’t miss our pre­vi­ous post show­ing where you can down­load the com­plete organ works of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach for free.  Thanks to Joshua and Robin for the tip on the NYTimes project!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How a Bach Canon Works

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

Disney’s Oscar-Winning Adventures in Music

in Film, Music | January 6th, 2011

Back in 1953, Walt Dis­ney Pro­duc­tions released two short and cut­ting-edge music edu­ca­tion films. The ini­tial film, Melody, was the first car­toon ever filmed in 3D. (Unfor­tu­nate­ly, cur­rent ver­sions only appear in 2D). Then came the sequel, Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom, which proved inno­v­a­tive in its own way. The short film, trac­ing the evo­lu­tion of the horn, flute, gui­tar and drum, was the first car­toon filmed and shown in widescreen Cin­e­maS­cope. It won the 1954 Acad­e­my Award for Best Short Sub­ject (Car­toons) and was lat­er vot­ed #29 of the 50 Great­est Car­toons of all time. Giv­en these creds, you will find Toot, Whis­tle, Plunk and Boom in our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

130 Free eBooks from Kaplan Publishing

in e-books | January 6th, 2011

A quick fyi for any­one try­ing to get into col­lege or grad­u­ate school: Through Jan­u­ary 17th, Kaplan Pub­lish­ing will let you down­load 130 eBooks to your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Nook and Sony eRead­er – all for free. (You can find a spe­cial page for down­load­ing titles via the Kin­dle here.) Some select titles include: Get Into Grad­u­ate School, Get Into Law School, Kaplan Portable SAT, and Kaplan AP Sta­tis­tics. The full list of titles appears here, and you can start down­load­ing the books right here. Note that you will need to ini­ti­ate the down­load from a device list­ed above, and not your com­put­er. Remem­ber: this free offer will only last for the next few days …

Note: This offer pre­vi­ous­ly expired on Jan­u­ary 10th. Now it has been extend­ed to Jan­u­ary 17th.

via Gal­l­ey­cat

Existentialism with Hubert Dreyfus: Five Free Philosophy Courses

in Online Courses, Philosophy | January 5th, 2011

Image by  Jörg Noller, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

All Things Shin­ing: Read­ing the West­ern Clas­sics to Find Mean­ing in a Sec­u­lar Age – This new book by Hubert Drey­fus (UC Berke­ley) and Sean Dor­rance Kel­ly (Har­vard) hit the book­shelves this week, and it cur­rent­ly ranks #56 on Ama­zon’s Top 100 List. Quite a coup for seri­ous think­ing.

Pro­fes­sor Drey­fus has taught many pop­u­lar exis­ten­tial­ism and phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy cours­es at UC Berke­ley, some of which laid the foun­da­tion for this book. Hap­pi­ly, you can find Drey­fus’ phi­los­o­phy cours­es online. And, even bet­ter, you can down­load them for free. The cours­es are list­ed below, and also in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

• Exis­ten­tial­ism in Lit­er­a­ture & Film - Stream – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Hei­deg­ger – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Heidegger’s Being & Time – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Hei­deg­ger’s Being and Time, Divi­sion II — Free Online Audio — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
• Man, God, and Soci­ety in West­ern Lit­er­a­ture — Free Online Audio – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Michael Sandel’s Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online

A Journey Back in Time: Vintage Travelogues

in History, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society | January 4th, 2011

The Trav­el Film Archive lets you “see the world the way it was.” Fea­tur­ing dozens of videos shot between 1900 and 1970, these short trav­el­ogues take you across the globe, to farflung places that many Amer­i­cans con­sid­ered “exot­ic” at the time. Above, we have a 1940s clip that revis­its the glo­ries of Ancient Greece, tak­ing you through the ruins of Athens. But you will also find count­less oth­er des­ti­na­tions — Asia (aka The Far East), India, Hawaii and the South Seas, the Mid­dle East, South Amer­i­ca, and Egypt and North Africa. Paris, Venice, and a sam­pling of Euro­pean loca­tions get cov­er­age too, as do the ear­ly days of com­mer­cial air trav­el. You can dig through the full list right here. Thanks @KirstinButler

The Joy of Stats: Hans Rosling’s Rollercoaster Ride Through the Wonderful World of Statistics

in Math | January 3rd, 2011

Last month, we post­ed a daz­zling clip – Hans Rosling trac­ing health trends with­in 200 coun­tries over 200 years, using 120,000 data points, all in 4 min­utes. Pret­ty quick­ly you saw why Rosling has earned a rep­u­ta­tion for pre­sent­ing data in extreme­ly imag­i­na­tive ways. The video was an out­take from a BBC doc­u­men­tary called “The Joy of Stats,” which is now ful­ly avail­able online. It runs 59 min­utes and takes you on a “roller­coast­er ride through the won­der­ful world of sta­tis­tics.” When it’s all over, you’ll nev­er doubt that stats can change how you under­stand our world.

The Joy of Stats will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Doc­u­men­taries Online, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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!

The Best of Open Culture 2010

in Most Popular, Random | December 29th, 2010

That’s it. We’re putting a wrap on 2010. We’ll hit the ground run­ning again on Mon­day. But, until then, we leave you with a handy list of our favorite and most pop­u­lar posts from 2010, all ordered in a rather ran­dom way. If you crave a lit­tle more Open Cul­ture good­ies, you can always browse through our com­plete archive here, and fol­low us on Twit­ter, Face­book, and RSS. Hope you have a safe, hap­py and pros­per­ous New Year!

• 45 Great Cul­tur­al Icons Revis­it­ed
• Richard Dawkins on the Awe of Life & Sci­ence
• The Illus­trat­ed Guide to a Ph.D.
• A Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel
• 3 Year Old Kid & Her­bert von Kara­jan Con­duct Beethoven’s 5th: Duel­ing Videos
• Mark Twain Cap­tured on Film by Thomas Edi­son (1909)
• Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es (added to col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es)
• Down­load Brave New World for Free: Read by Aldous Hux­ley
• The Last Days of Leo Tol­stoy: 100 Years Ago
• My Black­ber­ry is Not Work­ing!
• Rod Ser­ling: Where Do Ideas Come From?
• John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son
• The Paris Review Inter­views Now Online
• William Faulkn­er Reads from As I Lay Dying
• What Leonar­do da Vin­ci Real­ly Looked Like
• Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive
• Net Pos­i­tive: A Con­ver­sa­tion with Clay Shirky
• Mod­ern Physics: A Com­plete Intro­duc­tion
• 20 Great Authors (and Actors) Read Famous Lit­er­a­ture Out Loud (many in Free Audio Books col­lec­tion)
• Alice In Open­land
• Mar­shall McLuhan: The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage
• Franken­stein Hits the Sil­ver Screen (1910) (added to col­lec­tion of Free Movies)
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling­wa­ter Ani­mat­ed
• Where to Find Free Text­books
• Water Drop Filmed in 10,000 Frames Per Sec­ond
• Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion: The Vedic Way
• Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18
• Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online
• The Best of Ken Loach on YouTube
• George Orwell’s Ani­mal Farm: The Movie
• Books Savored in Stop Motion Film
• Auro­ra Bore­alis over Nor­way in HD
• Plato’s Repub­lic … in Clay
• Dark Side of the Lens
• Don­ald Duck Dis­cov­ers Glenn Beck: A Remix
• Elvis Costel­lo Sings “Pen­ny Lane” for Sir Paul
• BBC Launch­es World Music Archive
• Pup­pet Mak­ing with Jim Hen­son: A Primer

More to come Mon­day…

The Beauty of Pixar

in Film | December 29th, 2010

Ear­li­er this year, Lean­dro Cop­per­field spent days re-watch­ing the films of Quentin Taran­ti­no and the Coen broth­ers. Then, using 500+ scenes from 17 movies, he devel­oped a mon­tage trib­ute called Taran­ti­no vs Coen Broth­ers, which nice­ly com­ple­ments his oth­er short trib­ute, Kubrick vs Scors­ese. Now comes some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent – a mon­tage cel­e­brat­ing the films of Pixar Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios. This mashup brings togeth­er moments from 11 Pixar films made between 1995 and 2010, start­ing with Toy Sto­ry, mov­ing to Find­ing Nemo, Mon­sters, Inc and The Incred­i­bles, and end­ing with Toy Sto­ry 3. The Young Turks, Louis Arm­strong, Randy New­man and Peter Gar­briel pow­er the sound­track…