Five Free Philosophy Courses from Notre Dame

in Philosophy | December 16th, 2010

Last week, we added three phi­los­o­phy cours­es by John Sear­le to our big list of Free Online Cours­es (now 300+ cours­es). This week, we’re bring­ing you five phi­los­o­phy cours­es from Amer­i­ca’s elite Catholic uni­ver­si­ty, Notre Dame. You can access two cours­es in audio, and three in video via iTunes and the web. Here you go:

• Ancient and Medieval Phi­los­o­phy — iTunes Video — Web Video — Prof. David O’Con­nor
• Ancient Wis­dom and Mod­ern Love - iTunes Video — Web Video — Prof. David O’Con­nor
• Envi­ron­men­tal Phi­los­o­phy - iTunes Video — Web Video — Prof. Ken­neth Sayre
• Med­ical Ethics — Web Audio — Prof. David Solomon
• Moral­i­ty and Moder­ni­ty — Web Video — Prof. David Solomon

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Famous Authors Read Other Famous Authors

in Audio Books, Literature | December 14th, 2010

Through Decem­ber 22, the Guardian’s new Short Sto­ries pod­cast (iTunes — RSS — Web Site) will present 12 well-known authors read­ing sto­ries by oth­er famous writ­ers. So far, we have Philip Pull­man read­ing Chekhov, Anne Enright pre­sent­ing Ray­mond Carver’s sto­ry “Fat,” and William Boyd read­ing JG Bal­lard’s “My Dream of Fly­ing to Wake Island.” The sched­ule for the nine remain­ing sto­ries is right here.

If this pod­cast feels vague­ly famil­iar, it’s per­haps because you have already encoun­tered The New York­er Fic­tion pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). Here again, lead­ing authors read short works by oth­er great writ­ers – Paul Ther­oux reads “The Gospel Accord­ing to Mark” by Jorge Luis Borges, Joyce Car­ol Oates reads Eudo­ra Wel­ty’s “Where Is the Voice Com­ing From?,” Orhan Pamuk reads Vladimir Nabokov’s “My Russ­ian Edu­ca­tion,” the parade of great read­ings goes on.

All of these read­ings, plus many more, are cat­a­logued in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books. And there they will remain. Thanks to Stephen for the heads up on the new Guardian pod­cast…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

20 Great Authors (and Actors) Read Famous Lit­er­a­ture Out Loud

Google Teaches Your Parents Tech

in Education, Google, Technology | December 14th, 2010

Yes­ter­day, Google launched TeachParentsTech.org, a lit­tle spin-off web site that fea­tures 50 how-to videos, all designed to answer your par­ents’ basic tech ques­tions. Your father wants to know how to share a big file? Your moth­er is try­ing to fig­ure out how to book­mark a web page? Sim­ply head to TeachParentsTech.org, find the appro­pri­ate how-to video, send it via email, then free up time to teach your­self more heavy-duty tech.

Many of these videos show­case Google soft­ware. A coin­ci­dence? Hard­ly. Think of this as soft Google mar­ket­ing to the Boomers.

via The Offi­cial Google Blog

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

in Astronomy, Science | December 13th, 2010

Next year, NASA plans to put an end to its 30 year old space shut­tle pro­gram. Since 1981, the pro­gram has launched five space shut­tles (Colum­bia, Chal­lenger, Dis­cov­ery, Atlantis, Endeav­or) into orbit, or 132 flights in total. Here, Matt Melis, a NASA engi­neer, has com­piled what he calls the “best of the best, state of the art” video pro­duced by the space shut­tle pro­gram. And he has stitched it into a 45 minute trib­ute video, called Ascent, that nar­rates the anato­my of a space launch, from start to fin­ish. A great visu­al way to com­mem­o­rate the space shut­tle pro­gram, and the peo­ple who filmed it… NOTE: The video remains dark for the first nine sec­onds.

via @eugenephoto

Glenn Gould and Leonard Bernstein Play Bach

in Music | December 10th, 2010

They had a big falling out in 1962. But that was all over Brahms. When it came to Bach, things were more har­mo­nious. So let’s rewind the video­tape to 1960. Glenn Gould per­forms with Leonard Bern­stein and the New York Phil­har­mon­ic, play­ing (if I have this right) J. S. Bach’s Key­board Con­cer­to in d minor BWV 1052. Enjoy…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

Bern­stein Breaks Down Beethoven

The U.S. Ranks 29th in Science Education?

in Science | December 9th, 2010

Lance Lund, a pro­fes­sor at Anoka-Ram­sey Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, pre­pared this pro­mo­tion­al video for cable TV. It nev­er aired.

via @courosa

Philosophy with John Searle: Three Free Courses

in Philosophy, UC Berkeley | December 8th, 2010

You can’t dab­ble in the world of phi­los­o­phy very long with­out encoun­ter­ing John Sear­le. One of Amer­i­ca’s most respect­ed philoso­phers, Sear­le did impor­tant work on “speech act” the­o­ry dur­ing the 1960s, then lat­er turned to con­scious­ness and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, out of which came his famous “Chi­nese room” thought exper­i­ment. Sear­le has taught phi­los­o­phy at UC-Berke­ley since 1959, and, until recent­ly, his cours­es were only avail­able to matric­u­lat­ed stu­dents. But this fall semes­ter, the good folks at Berke­ley record­ed three cours­es taught by Sear­le, and made them avail­able online. We have added them to the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es. Or, you can sim­ply access the cours­es below, using your com­put­er or your smart phone.

• Phi­los­o­phy of Lan­guage — iTunes — John Sear­le, UC Berke­ley
• Phi­los­o­phy of Mind - iTunes — John Sear­le, UC Berke­ley
• Phi­los­o­phy of Soci­ety — iTunes — John Sear­le, UC Berke­ley

Note: All of these cours­es can also be accessed on YouTube (in audio for­mat) using this big playlist.

Thought of You: The Film & Behind the Scenes

in Art, Film | December 7th, 2010

Ryan Wood­ward has worked on the art direc­tion of many big name Hol­ly­wood films – Iron­man 2, Spi­der­man 2 & 3, The Iron Giant, the list goes on. But he had an idea for a short ani­mat­ed film, a love sto­ry expressed through dance, and it led to a fruit­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion with dance chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Kori Waka­mat­su. This short, behind-the-scenes film doc­u­ments their artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion, reveal­ing every­thing that went into mak­ing Thought of You, the 2D ani­mat­ed film fea­tured above.

Saul Bellow Reads from Humboldt’s Gift (1988)

in Literature | December 7th, 2010

The 92nd Street Y, a cul­tur­al pil­lar of New York City, has released from its audio archive anoth­er lit­tle gem – Saul Bel­low read­ing from his 1975 nov­el Hum­boldt’s Gift, which won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fic­tion and con­tributed to Bel­low’s Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture.

Bel­low’s read­ing (access it via iTunes, RSS, or the mp3 play­er below) runs 11 min­utes, and it sits nice­ly along­side two oth­er 92nd Street Y record­ings – Tru­man Capote read­ing from Break­fast at Tiffany’s (1963) and William Car­los Williams read­ing select­ed poems in 1954. We fea­tured both items in our pop­u­lar post, 45 Great Cul­tur­al Icons Revis­it­ed.

Aurora Borealis over Norway in HD

in Art, Science | December 6th, 2010

Tor Even Mathisen shot these three min­utes of time­lapse beau­ty with a Canon EOS 5D mark II. Equal­ly beau­ti­ful is this still-frame shot. Many thanks to @Eugenephoto for send­ing this our way…

Bea­t­les Box Sale: Just a heads up. We noticed that Amazon.com has deeply dis­count­ed the remas­tered Bea­t­les Box Sets. The Stereo Box Set now goes for $126.32 for 14 discs, and the Mono Box Set runs $129.99 for 12 discs. Respec­tive­ly, that’s 51% and 57% off list price, and it’s right in time for the hol­i­day sea­son…