Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos (Including Boomerang in Zero Gravity)

in Physics, Science, Video - Science | September 8th, 2008

Wired Sci­ence gives you their favorites here. Below, we’ve post­ed a sam­ple: It’s called “Boomerang in Zero Grav­i­ty” and shows that, even in out­er space, a boomerang will always return to the per­son who threw it.

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Knol: Ok, It’s Not Wikipedia. But What Is It?

in Google, Wikipedia | September 7th, 2008

The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion is run­ning a new piece (where I hap­pen to get a small blurb) on Google’s Knol, ask­ing what it will mean for stu­dents and pro­fes­sors. But it also deals, at least indi­rect­ly, with anoth­er ques­tion: Is Knol real­ly intend­ed to com­pete with Wikipedia?

When the con­tent ini­tia­tive was first announced, many assumed that this was Google’s way of try­ing to dis­place Wikipedia, whose links appear first in Google search results 25% of the time. But the com­pa­ny has since made it clear that they’re not try­ing to offer anoth­er ency­clo­pe­dia. Rather, they’re sim­ply offer­ing a plat­form for experts to write about what­ev­er they know. That could include entries on Ratio­nal­ism, the stuff you’d expect to find in a tra­di­tion­al ency­clo­pe­dia. But it also includes entries on how to orga­nize your home in 15 min­utes or less, or thoughts on whether peo­ple real­ly go to heav­en when they die. You can browse the range of entries here.

This approach makes Knol at once more expan­sive than Wikipedia and more dif­fi­cult to get your arms around. By lack­ing a focus, Knol is a lit­tle slip­pery. As a read­er, you’re not sure what you’ll get at Knol (aca­d­e­m­ic con­tent? recipes? how-to arti­cles? med­ical infor­ma­tion?). And, as a poten­tial writer, you’re not sure what kind of larg­er body of infor­ma­tion you’re con­tribut­ing to — some­thing that seems impor­tant for inspir­ing mass col­lab­o­ra­tion. This is not to say that Knol won’t yield a good amount of use­ful con­tent. It prob­a­bly will. But will it all hang togeth­er, and will it all con­tribute to anoth­er jug­ger­naut Google prod­uct? Well, I’m less sure about that. If you dis­agree, feel free to make your case in the com­ments below.

The iPhone: Your Foreign Travel Companion

in Apple | September 7th, 2008

How can the iPhone become your handy trav­el com­pan­ion? The NYTimes explains. Also, as a bonus, trav­el­ers should see our ear­li­er piece. Turn Your iPod into a Trav­el Guide: 20 Trav­el Pod­casts.

PS One of our read­ers raised a good point that deserves some high­light­ing (Thanks Sebastien):

“Turn­ing your iphone into a for­eign trav­el com­pan­ion could cost you a lit­tle for­tune because most of these iphone appli­ca­tions need and Inter­net con­nec­tion to work. Unless you have wifi in your hotel room, you would have to roam on 3G or Edge which would prob­a­bly make it the most expen­sive trip ever…”

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Darius Goes West: Film For Good

in Film | September 4th, 2008

Though not a mass media film, Dar­ius Goes West won 28 film fes­ti­val awards dur­ing 2007. The movie tracks Dar­ius Weems, who has Duchenne Mus­cu­lar Dys­tro­phy, as he trav­els across the US to get his wheel­chair worked over by MTV’s “Pimp My Ride.” And now it has been released on DVD. The film­mak­ers are look­ing to sell one mil­lion DVDs and raise $17 mil­lion for Duchenne mus­cu­lar dys­tro­phy, all in order to find a treat­ment or cure. You can learn more about the film and buy a DVD here. Also watch a video clip about the movie and the fund rais­ing dri­ve below. The cause is good. Have a look. Thanks Collin for the heads up on this…

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Stanford Online Writing Courses (Fall)

in Stanford | September 2nd, 2008

A quick fyi: Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies opened up reg­is­tra­tion for its fall line­up of online writ­ing cours­es. Offered in part­ner­ship with the Stan­ford Cre­ative Writ­ing Pro­gram (one of the most dis­tin­guished writ­ing pro­grams in the coun­try), these online cours­es give begin­ning and advanced writ­ers, no mat­ter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gift­ed writ­ing instruc­tors.

Class­es will start dur­ing the lat­er this month. Unfor­tu­nate­ly some of the class­es are full. And a few only have a few spots left. For more infor­ma­tion, click here, or sep­a­rate­ly check out the FAQ.

Caveat emp­tor: These class­es are not free, and I helped set them up. So while I whole­heart­ed­ly believe in these cours­es, you can take my views with a grain of salt.

• Writ­ing Fic­tion with the New York Times Book Review (A few spots left)
• Writ­ing for the Movies: Begin­ning Screen­writ­ing
• Mem­oir Writ­ing: Truth, Lies, & Paper (One spot left)
• Fic­tion Writ­ing: Writ­ing Short Fic­tion for Pub­li­ca­tion
• The Craft of Poet­ry: Let’s Begin
• Writ­ing Fic­tion with the New York Times Book Review (Closed)
• Cre­ative Non­fic­tion (Closed)
• Nov­el Writ­ing: The Pow­er­ful Begin­ning (Closed)
• Get­ting Start­ed in Cre­ative Writ­ing (Closed)

The Comic Book Introduces Google’s New Web Browser

in Google | September 2nd, 2008

Here’s a heads up from Altaf, one of our read­ers…

The tech world is buzzing today about Google Chrome, the new web brows­er com­ing out of Moun­tain View. If you’re won­der­ing what it’s all about, you can read a com­ic book (pro­duced by Google) that intro­duces the new ini­tia­tive. (Win­dows users can down­load the brows­er here; Mac users, includ­ing yours tru­ly, seem to be out of luck for now.) The experts, who have looked under the hood, are enthu­si­as­tic so far. Walt Moss­berg, the tech review­er for the Wall Street Jour­nal, ren­ders his ver­dict: “Chrome is a smart, inno­v­a­tive brows­er that, in many com­mon sce­nar­ios, will make using the Web faster, eas­i­er and less frus­trat­ing. But this first version—which is just a beta, or test, release—is rough around the edges and lacks some com­mon brows­er fea­tures Google plans to add lat­er. These omis­sions include a way to man­age book­marks, a com­mand for email­ing links and pages direct­ly from the brows­er, and even a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded.” You can read the full review here. Now, let the brows­er wars begin again.

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The 50 Greatest Arts Videos on YouTube

in Art, Literature, Music, Video - Arts & Culture, YouTube | September 1st, 2008

One of our British read­ers turned us on to this post by the Guardian, not­ing that they took a page from our gen­er­al play­book. The post fea­tures 50 of the best YouTube clips from across the arts, some of which we’ve fea­tured here in the past. Among the videos, you’ll find vin­tage per­for­mances by John Coltrane and Bil­lie Hol­i­day, read­ings by Jack Ker­ouac, an inter­view with Eugène Ionesco, clips of Nir­vana rehears­ing in a garage, Vladimir Nabokov talk­ing about Loli­ta, Jack­son Pol­lock drip­ping paint out­side his home, and Mar­lon Bran­do doing a screen test for Rebel With­out a Cause. We have post­ed the Bran­do clip below. There are some def­i­nite gems here. Now dive in. And don’t for­get to work through our YouTube playlist and our piece 70 Signs of Intel­li­gent Life at YouTube, where you’ll find enrich­ing video col­lec­tions.

Thanks Stephen for the tip. And read­ers, keep the good rec­om­men­da­tions com­ing!

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What a Hurricane Looks Like From Outer Space

in Uncategorized | August 31st, 2008

In antic­i­pa­tion of Gus­tav.… Here’s what Hur­ri­cane Dean looked like for the crew fly­ing in a NASA space shut­tle last August. You can check out more NASA videos on YouTube here. It’s also added to our YouTube playlist. Thanks to Bill for point­ing this out. (Read­ers: If you see good pieces of cul­tur­al media, feel free to send them our way.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Genius Looks Like at Zero Grav­i­ty

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Teach Your Children Mandarin … They’re Going to Need It

in Language Lessons | August 27th, 2008

Thomas Fried­man’s lat­est opin­ion piece in the New York Times starts like this:

After attend­ing the spec­tac­u­lar clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Bei­jing Olympics and feel­ing the vibra­tions from hun­dreds of Chi­nese drum­mers pul­sat­ing in my own chest, I was tempt­ed to con­clude two things: “Holy mack­er­el, the ener­gy com­ing out of this coun­try is unri­valed.” And, two: “We are so cooked. Start teach­ing your kids Man­darin.”

There’s prob­a­bly a good deal of truth to his last point. So to keep your kids (or your­self) com­pet­i­tive in the glob­al mar­ket­place, we’re high­light­ing a series of free Man­darin pod­casts, all of which can be per­ma­nent­ly found in our For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. And, as a quick aside, I should note that Roset­ta Stone is cur­rent­ly run­ning a sale (through the end of August) that will let you get 10% off their audio prod­ucts, which includes instruc­tion in Man­darin and many oth­er lan­guages. (Click here for more info)

• Chi­nese Lessons with Serge Mel­nyk iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Week­ly lessons in Man­darin that get very strong reviews from iTunes users..
• Chinesepod.com iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Man­darin on your own terms.
• Sur­vival Chi­nese iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Learn the phras­es you need to get by while trav­el­ing in Chi­na.
• Chi­nese Learn Online iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A dia­logue-based intro­duc­tion to Man­darin Chi­nese. Load them on your iPod and get up the Chi­nese curve.
• iMandarinPod.com iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A more advanced pod­cast, this series of lessons teach­es Chi­nese by talk­ing about Chi­nese cul­ture or what is hap­pen­ing today in Chi­na.
• Man­darin Chi­nese Con­ver­sa­tion iTunes Web Site
  • A lan­guage series put togeth­er by TimesOn­line.
• Man­darin Chi­nese Feed Web Site
  • 10 Lessons by the US Peace Corps. Make sure you vis­it the site and down­load the PDF that accom­pa­nies the lessons.
• World Learn­er Chi­nese iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Anoth­er in the mix of pos­si­bil­i­ties.

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Learning Spanish with Free Audio Lessons: The Lay of the Land

in Language Lessons | August 26th, 2008

Today we have the plea­sure of wel­com­ing a guest con­tri­bu­tion by Eleena de Liss­er, who runs Voic­es en Español, a bilin­gual blog and con­ver­sa­tion­al Span­ish pod­cast (iTunes — RSS Feed). In this post, Eleena draws on her expe­ri­ence and offers an overview of the best free audio lessons that will teach you Span­ish (which hap­pens to be the num­ber one sec­ond lan­guage stud­ied in the Unit­ed States). Oth­er Span­ish lessons can be found in our larg­er col­lec­tion How to Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & 37 Oth­er Lan­guages. Many thanks Eleena, and take it away…

Learn­ing Span­ish today is as easy as sit­ting in front of your com­put­er and down­load­ing online audio to your MP3 play­er. If you’re moti­vat­ed, you can learn a great deal of Span­ish at lit­tle to no cost with­out ever leav­ing the com­fort of home. A tremen­dous range of instruc­tion­al Span­ish lan­guage pod­casts, from the begin­ner lev­el to advanced, are wide­ly avail­able on the inter­net and many of them are free. (Some charge for accom­pa­ny­ing tran­scripts and writ­ten prac­tice exer­cis­es.)  So whether you are a raw begin­ner or a sea­soned lan­guage study vet­er­an, there is a pod­cast out there to suit you. Here are the details on a hand­ful of edu­ca­tion­al Span­ish lan­guage pod­casts that are worth a clos­er look:

Cof­fee Break Span­ish (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), whose slo­gan is “lan­guage learn­ing with your lat­te,” is undoubt­ed­ly king of the instruc­tion­al pod­cast hill, with a large and loy­al fan­base. It is ide­al­ly suit­ed for begin­ners and oth­er stu­dents seek­ing a review of basic Span­ish gram­mar and phras­es. Mark Pentle­ton, the pro­duc­er and instruc­tor, and Kara, his stu­dent, are Scot­tish, so while you won’t be hear­ing a native Span­ish speaker’s pro­nun­ci­a­tion in the ini­tial episodes, that seems to add to the charm of the pro­gram for some lis­ten­ers.

Anoth­er pop­u­lar instruc­tion­al series is Notes in Span­ish (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), pro­duced by Ben Cur­tis and Mari­na Diez, a hus­band-and-wife team out of Madrid, Spain. Ben is British and Mari­na is Span­ish, and they too have built quite a large fol­low­ing for their con­ver­sa­tion­al Span­ish pod­casts (for begin­ners, inter­me­di­ates and advanced stu­dents), which promise to teach lis­ten­ers “real Span­ish” the way it is actu­al­ly spo­ken every day in Spain.

Lin­gusTV (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) is a unique entry into the instruc­tion­al lan­guage pod­casts are­na. It’s an edu­ca­tion­al video pod­cast done in the form of a tele­vi­sion sit-com (sit­u­a­tion com­e­dy), laugh track includ­ed. While the actors speak sole­ly in Span­ish, sub­ti­tles are pro­vid­ed and expla­na­tions of vocab­u­lary and gram­mar points are pro­vid­ed on the web site.

SpanishPod101 (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) dis­tin­guish­es itself from oth­er cur­rent­ly avail­able instruc­tion­al pod­casts by pro­vid­ing lessons that fea­ture dif­fer­ent accents from around the Span­ish-speak­ing world. Dia­logues are repeat­ed mul­ti­ple times and an Eng­lish trans­la­tion is pro­vid­ed, to fur­ther aid learn­ing.

For advanced lan­guage stu­dents seek­ing a change of pace and a break from gram­mar drills, there are my two pod­casts: Voic­es en Español (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), which con­tains inter­views and lit­er­a­ture read­ings with native Span­ish speak­ers from all walks of life, and Cody’s Cuen­tos (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a Span­ish-lan­guage pod­cast of clas­sic fairy tales and leg­ends. While Cody’s Cuen­tos isn’t a con­ven­tion­al instruc­tion­al pod­cast, the fact that you prob­a­bly already know the sto­ry in Eng­lish will aid your com­pre­hen­sion of under­stand­ing the tale in Span­ish. Tran­scripts for the sto­ries are avail­able on the Cody’s Cuen­tos blog so that you can read and fol­low along in the text while lis­ten­ing to the audio.

This is just a small sam­ple of the kind of  Span­ish lan­guage pro­gram­ming cur­rent­ly avail­able online. Sev­er­al more Span­ish learn­ing pod­casts are list­ed here in our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

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