Gehry’s Vision for Architecture

in Architecture | April 6th, 2008

Frank Gehry takes you on a 50 minute tour of his land­mark works. The talk, pre­sent­ed at TED Talks in 1990, is com­plete with slides and gives you a good look at his “messy cre­ative process.” We’ve post­ed the video below, but you can down­load a zipped ver­sion to your desk­top here, or watch it on iTunes here.

Thinking Big About John Adams

in History | April 2nd, 2008

I’m watch­ing the new HBO minis­eries “John Adams” and find­ing it fas­ci­nat­ing. The series is based on a book by Pulitzer Prize win­ning his­to­ri­an David McCul­lough (also author of 1776 and Tru­man). And below we have McCul­lough giv­ing us, if you will, the quick ele­va­tor pitch for Adams — that is, two min­utes on what made Adams a par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy found­ing father. (The video, by the way, is pro­duced by Big­Think, a fair­ly new site that posi­tions itself as the “think­ing man’s YouTube.” They’re backed by Har­vard’s ex-pres­i­dent, Lar­ry Sum­mers, and oth­er folks with deep pock­ets. Whether they’ll be able to turn a prof­it on intel­lec­tu­al media, I’m sad­ly doubt­ful. But that’s not meant to take any­thing away from what they’re doing. And if any­one wants to throw a few mil­lion dol­lars our way, we’ll con­sid­er tak­ing it.)

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80+ Free Courses from UCSD

in Podcasts | March 27th, 2008

Here’s a quick note for any­one look­ing for free online cours­es: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia — San Diego now gives you free access to more than 80 cours­es. (Access the full list here.) The cours­es, most­ly root­ed in the sci­ences, can be accessed via iTunes or rss feed. We’ve inte­grat­ed some of these cours­es into our own meta list of Free Online Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties. It now includes about 215 cours­es, and we’d encour­age you to book­mark the page and use it often.

Bush’s War

in Current Affairs | March 27th, 2008

To mark the fifth anniver­sary of the Iraq inva­sion, PBS’s Front­line is air­ing “Bush’s War,” which offers “the defin­i­tive doc­u­men­tary analy­sis of one of the most chal­leng­ing peri­ods in the nation’s his­to­ry.” Draw­ing on an exten­sive archive, the pro­gram lays out the “entire nar­ra­tive,” show­ing how “the war began and how it has been fought, both on the ground and deep inside the gov­ern­ment.” If you can’t catch it on TV, you can watch it online. Click here and then click “Watch Online.”

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The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

in Books, Web/Tech | March 26th, 2008

At The Berk­man Cen­ter for Inter­net and Soci­ety (at Har­vard Law School), Clay Shirky gave a talk on his high­ly tout­ed new book, Here Comes Every­body: The Pow­er of Orga­niz­ing With­out Orga­ni­za­tions. You can catch his talk here: video for com­put­er or portable device — high res video — mp3 audio. And sam­ple some of his oth­er writ­ing here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Grateful Dead Free Concert Archive

in Music | March 25th, 2008

A nice lit­tle find for Dead Heads: The Inter­net Archive hosts a large col­lec­tion of the Grate­ful Dead­’s live music. Some con­certs (usu­al­ly record­ed by mem­bers of the audi­ence) can be down­loaded. Oth­er audio (usu­al­ly tak­en from the sound­board) can be streamed. You can access the over­all col­lec­tion here.

A few items worth sam­pling include: Live at the Boston Gar­den (May 7, 1977); Live at the Dane Coun­ty Col­i­se­um (Feb­ru­ary 15, 1973); or Live at Madi­son Square Gar­den (Sep­tem­ber 4, 1979).

Enjoy.

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The Future of Tibet: Does It Have One?

in Current Affairs, Politics | March 20th, 2008

In response to Chi­na’s vig­or­ous crack­down on Tibet (see this pho­to­jour­nal­ism account), a group of experts were con­vened to dis­cuss Tibet and its future. The pan­elists includ­ed Robert Thur­man (famed Bud­dhism schol­ar at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty), John Ken­neth Knaus (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty), John Tkacik (Senior Research Fel­low at The Her­itage Foun­da­tion), and Amit A. Pandya (Hen­ry L. Stim­son Cen­ter). You can lis­ten in on the dis­cus­sion here — MP3 — iTunes — Web Site.

On a relat­ed note, Chi­na shut down YouTube dur­ing its Tibetan crack­down, offer­ing proof of a sim­ple point made in MIT’s Tech­nol­o­gy Review: “Web 2.0 tools can seem at times like vehi­cles for the self-absorbed, but the fear that they inspire in oppres­sive gov­ern­ments is a pow­er­ful demon­stra­tion of how use­ful and vital they can be.”

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Web 2.0 and Culture: A Debate

in Media | March 20th, 2008

This week, UC Berke­ley pro­fes­sor Paul Duguid squared off in a debate with provo­ca­teur Andrew Keen (author of the flim­sy best­seller, The Cult of Ama­teur). At issue here is the ques­tion: “Is the Web 2.0 a Threat to Our Cul­ture?” How did the well-attend­ed debate go? Have a lis­ten here and see pho­tos here.

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The Pre-Fab Four

in Music | March 19th, 2008

Below we have an out­take from one of the ear­li­est rock mock­u­men­taries, which paved the way for the ven­er­a­ble This is Spinal Tap. Co-pro­duced by Eric Idle (Mon­ty Python) and Lorne Michaels (Sat­ur­day Night Live), “All You Need is Cash” traced the career of “The Rut­les,” whose resem­blance to The Bea­t­les was “pure­ly – and satir­i­cal­ly – inten­tion­al.” The show aired in 1978 and scored low rat­ings, though some fans still defend it.

via Goings On

Relat­ed Con­tent:

• The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts From Yes­ter­day
• What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot
• The Grey Video: Mix­ing The Bea­t­les with Jay‑Z
• The Com­plete Bea­t­les in One Hour (and The Sopra­nos in Sev­en Min­utes)

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Arthur C. Clarke Retrospective

in Sci Fi | March 18th, 2008

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the futur­ist and sci­ence fic­tion writer most well known for his nov­el 2001: A Space Odyssey, has passed away. (You can read his obit here.) Below, we have post­ed a video record­ed last Decem­ber for his 90th birth­day. Touch­ing in many ways, the video offers a good reminder of how much our world changed dur­ing his 90 years.

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