The Internet Imagined in 1969

in Life, Technology | February 11th, 2012

The gen­der stereo­types might be back­ward-look­ing (we’ll make up for it lat­er in the day), but the tech­no­log­i­cal vision is on the mark, right down to email, e‑commerce and online bank­ing. Of course, these weren’t the only peo­ple imag­in­ing an elec­tron­ic, con­nect­ed world dur­ing the 1960s.

In 1964, the futur­ist Arthur C. Clarke peered into the future and saw our con­nect­ed­ness com­ing. By 2000, he pre­dict­ed, “We could be in instant con­tact with each oth­er, wher­ev­er we may be,” and “it will be pos­si­ble in that age … for a man to con­duct his busi­ness from Tahi­ti or Bali just as well as he could from Lon­don.”

And then Mar­shall McLuhan under­stood the trend too. He saw elec­tron­ic media turn­ing our world into a social one, a world where ser­vices like Face­book and Twit­ter would make com­plete sense. You can watch the pre­scient Mar­shall McLuhan right 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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Arthur C. Clarke Pre­dicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

The Inter­net Imag­ined in 1969

Mar­shall McLuhan: The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage

1930s Fash­ion Design­ers Imag­ine How Peo­ple Would Dress in the Year 2000

The Far Side of Moon: A Rare Glimpse from NASA

in Astronomy, Education, Science, Video - Science | February 9th, 2012

Here’s some­thing you don’t see every night: the far side of the Moon, pho­tographed by one of NASA’s Grav­i­ty Recov­ery and Inte­ri­or Lab­o­ra­to­ry (GRAIL) space­craft.

The Moon is “tidal­ly locked” in its orbit around the Earth, mean­ing its rota­tion­al and orbital peri­ods are exact­ly syn­chro­nized. As a result, we always see the same view of the Moon no mat­ter when or where (on Earth) we look at it. In this inter­est­ing video, released last week by NASA, we get a rare glimpse of the Moon’s oth­er side, start­ing with the north pole and mov­ing toward the heav­i­ly cratered south.

The video was cap­tured on Jan­u­ary 19 by the “MoonKAM” aboard one of a pair of GRAIL space­craft that were launched last Fall and began orbit­ing the Moon on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The pri­ma­ry mis­sion of GRAIL is to study the Moon’s inte­ri­or struc­ture and to learn more about its ther­mal evo­lu­tion.

GRAIL is also the first plan­e­tary mis­sion by NASA to car­ry instru­ments ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to edu­ca­tion and pub­lic out­reach. The “KAM” in “MoonKAM” stands for Knowl­edge Acquired by Mid­dle school stu­dents. The pro­gram, led by for­mer astro­naut Sal­ly Ride, will engage fifth- to eighth-graders from across the coun­try in select­ing tar­get areas on the lunar sur­face to pho­to­graph and study. Edu­ca­tors inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing can reg­is­ter at the MoonKAM web­site. To learn more about the video and GRAIL, see the NASA news release.

Disneyland 1957: A Little Stroll Down Memory Lane

in History | February 9th, 2012

It’s more than a theme park. It’s an icon­ic Amer­i­can insti­tu­tion, a sym­bol of an imag­ined Gold­en Age in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, and a site of many good child­hood mem­o­ries. We’re talk­ing about Dis­ney­land. Con­struc­tion began in July 1954 in rur­al Ana­heim, Cal­i­for­nia, and the park opened but a year lat­er in July 1955. And, thanks to this new­ly-cleaned up piece of footage, you can see Walt’s “mag­i­cal park” just a short two years lat­er. The babies in the strollers are like­ly grand­par­ents today. But the park still looks much the same. Dis­ney His­to­ry Insti­tute offers more com­men­tary on the clip 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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Walt Dis­ney Presents the Super Car­toon Cam­era

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

Don­ald Duck Wants You to Pay Your Tax­es (1943)

Werner Herzog Has a Beef With Chickens

in Comedy, Film, Random | February 8th, 2012

It’s part of the beau­ty of Wern­er Her­zog. His films engross us, and the direc­tor pro­vides the enter­tain­ment on the side. You have seen him take a bul­let dur­ing an inter­view in LA. You’ve heard him read “Go the F**k to Sleep” in New York City. And, of course, you’ve watched him eat his shoe (lit­er­al­ly!) after loos­ing a bet to fel­low film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris. Well, today we give you the lat­est, great­est Her­zog moment — his 40 sec­ond dis­course on why he has a beef with chick­ens. h/t Coudal.com

Solve For X: Google Presents Moonshot Thinking in Short, TED-Style Talks

in Google, Science, Technology | February 8th, 2012

Last week, Google host­ed a gath­er­ing called “Solve for X,” which brought togeth­er entre­pre­neurs, inno­va­tors and sci­en­tists inter­est­ed in find­ing tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions to the world’s great­est prob­lems. These solu­tions weren’t small in scope. No, they were all “moon­shots,” ideas that live in the “gray area between auda­cious projects and pure sci­ence fic­tion; they are 10x improve­ment, not 10%.” And these moon­shot ideas were all pre­sent­ed in TED-style talks that now live on the WeSolve­ForX web­site and the WeSolve­forX YouTube Chan­nel.

Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin kicked off the event and framed the project, paving the way for Nicholas Negro­ponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab and One Lap­top Per Child, to dream big and ask: Can emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies empow­er chil­dren to learn to read on their own? Imag­ine how that would change the edu­ca­tion­al prob­lems beset­ting the devel­op­ing world? (Watch above.) Or how about this big thought from Adrien Treuille, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Carnegie Mel­lon, who imag­ines a day when knowl­edge cre­ation won’t be dri­ven by uni­ver­si­ties and cor­po­ra­tions, but rather by loose groups of indi­vid­u­als tak­ing advan­tage of the inter­net and big data. That talk appears right below.

Koyaanisqatsi at 1552% Speed

in Film, Technology | February 7th, 2012

Koy­aanisqat­si: Life Out of Bal­ance — God­frey Reg­gio direct­ed the 1982 film, and Philip Glass com­posed the music. Lat­er, Reg­gio said that the film is wide open to inter­pre­ta­tion, that “the view­er can take for her­self what the film means.” “For some peo­ple it’s an envi­ron­men­tal film, for some peo­ple it’s an ode to tech­nol­o­gy, for some peo­ple it’s a piece of shit, for oth­er peo­ple it moves them deeply.” And for Wyatt Hodg­son, it’s a film worth watch­ing in a com­pressed, five-minute for­mat, maybe because (as one view­er sug­gest­ed) it high­lights “one of the main dimen­sions of the film: the break­neck speed of our (crazy) world.”

Hodg­son’s ver­sion strips out Glass’ orig­i­nal sound­track, replac­ing it with music by the Art of Noise. But some crafty indi­vid­ual found a way to repro­duce Glass’ com­po­si­tion at 1552% speed. You can lis­ten below.

h/t Kot­tke

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!

Thomas Edison’s 1889 Recording of Otto von Bismarck‎ Discovered

in History | February 6th, 2012

Otto von Bis­mar­ck (1815 – 1898) — he was a tow­er­ing 19th cen­tu­ry polit­i­cal fig­ure, the Iron Chan­cel­lor who uni­fied Ger­many under Prus­si­a’s lead­er­ship, and the man who invent­ed Realpoli­tik. And now, thanks to Thomas Edis­on’s wax cylin­der, you can hear the voice of this dis­tant his­tor­i­cal fig­ure. The recent­ly-dis­cov­ered record­ing was made back in 1889, when Edis­on’s assis­tant, Theo Wange­mann, head­ed to Europe to attend the World’s Fair in Paris, then trav­eled to Bis­mar­ck­’s cas­tle in Friedrich­sruh (near Ham­burg). Bis­mar­ck­’s wife urged the Chan­cel­lor to make the record­ing, and he went along with it, record­ing lines from the songs In Good Old Colony Times and Gaudea­mus igi­tur; the poem Als Kaiser Rot­bart lobe­sam; and France’s nation­al anthem, the Mar­seil­laise. (The last pick was kind of odd.) It con­cludes with the Chan­cel­lor offer­ing some words to his son Her­bert.

You can lis­ten to the audio above or here (be sure to crank up the vol­ume!) and read the full tran­script below the jump. Also don’t miss some vin­tage record­ings of oth­er 19th cen­tu­ry leg­ends: William Glad­stone, Walt Whit­man, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Alfred Lord Ten­nyson. Plus find Euro­pean his­to­ry cours­es in our big col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es Online.

In good old colony times,
When we lived under the King,
Three rogu­ish chaps fell into mishaps
Because they could not sing.

Als Kaiser Rot­bart lobe­sam
Zum heil’­gen Land gezo­gen kam,
Da mußt er mit dem from­men Heer
Durch ein Gebirge wüst und leer.

Gaudea­mus igi­tur,
juvenes dum sumus.
Post jucun­dam juven­tutem,
post molestam senec­tutem
nos habebit humus.

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé
Con­tre nous de la tyran­nie
L’é­ten­dard sanglant est levé.

Treibe alles in Maßen und Sit­tlichkeit, namentlich das Arbeit­en, dann aber auch das Essen, und im Übri­gen ger­ade auch das Trinken.
Rat eines Vaters an seinen Sohn.

When good Emper­or Red­beard
Was jour­ney­ing to the Holy Land,
He had to go with his pious army
Through moun­tains des­o­late and emp­ty.

Let us rejoice, there­fore,
While we are young.
After a pleas­ant youth
After a trou­bling old age
The earth will have us.

Arise, chil­dren of the Father­land,
The day of glo­ry has arrived! Against us of tyran­ny
The bloody ban­ner is raised.

Do every­thing in mod­er­a­tion and moral­i­ty, name­ly work, but then also eat­ing, and apart from that espe­cial­ly drink­ing.
Advice of a father to his son.

An Animated History Of Aviation: From da Vinci’s Sketches to Apollo 11

in Animation, Technology | February 6th, 2012

It starts with Leonar­do da Vin­ci’s famous sketch­es of fly­ing machines, then moves to the first hot air bal­loon launched by the Mont­golfi­er broth­ers in 1783, the glid­ers cre­at­ed by Sir George Cay­ley (1804), and the Wright broth­ers’ first flight at Kit­ty Hawk in 1903. These great moments and oth­ers all get cov­ered in this Ani­mat­ed His­to­ry of Avi­a­tion, an ele­gant lit­tle film pro­duced by Utah Val­ley Uni­ver­si­ty, a col­lege with a large avi­a­tion pro­gram of its own. We’ll add it to our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

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 Instant Mongolian Home

in Life | February 4th, 2012

The nomadic peo­ple of Mon­go­lia don’t stay put very long. They’re always on the move. They trav­el light. And they build a yurt, their home away from home, wher­ev­er they go. The yurt (or “ger” as they call it) takes but an hour to build — some­thing that Daniel Gross­man (Nation­al Geo­graph­ic) and Julia Kumari Drap­kin (The Nature Con­ser­van­cy) cap­ture won­der­ful­ly in a two-minute time lapse video. The sound­track was record­ed at the Choi­jin Lama Tem­ple Muse­um in Ulaan­ba­tor, the Mon­go­lian cap­i­tal.

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Harold Bloom Recites ‘Tea at the Palaz of Hoon’ by Wallace Stevens

in Literature, Poetry | February 3rd, 2012

Lit­er­ary crit­ic Harold Bloom once called Wal­lace Stevens (1879–1955) “the best and most rep­re­sen­ta­tive Amer­i­can poet of our time.” In this video from Boston Col­lege’s Guest­book Project, Bloom recites a poem from Steven­s’s first book, Har­mo­ni­um, which was pub­lished in 1923:

Tea at the Palaz of Hoon

Not less because in pur­ple I descend­ed
The west­ern day through what you called
The loneli­est air, not less was I myself.

What was the oint­ment sprin­kled on my beard?
What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

Out of my mind the gold­en oint­ment rained,
And my ears made the blow­ing hymns they heard.
I was myself the com­pass of that sea:

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more tru­ly and more strange.

“The palaz of Hoon is sky and space seen as a gaudy and ornate dwelling,” writes Bloom in Wal­lace Stevens: The Poems of Our Cli­mate; “to have tea at the palaz is to watch the twi­light while con­vers­ing with the set­ting sun, who is hard­ly lone­ly since all the air is his and since all direc­tions are at home in him. He is him­self when most impe­r­i­al, in pur­ple and gold, and his set­ting is a coro­na­tion.”

The video con­cludes with Bloom recit­ing the open­ing stan­za from a lat­er poem by Stevens that echoes the ear­li­er one, a poem regret­tably titled “Like Dec­o­ra­tions in a Nig­ger Ceme­tery”:

In the far South the sun of autumn is pass­ing
Like Walt Whit­man walk­ing along a rud­dy shore.
He is singing and chant­i­ng the things that are part of him,
The worlds that were and will be, death and day.
Noth­ing is final, he chants. No man shall see the end.
His beard is of fire and his staff is a leap­ing flame.

“Whit­man, like Hoon,” writes Bloom, “both con­tains every­thing else and is an idea of the sun, not as a god but as a god might be. Hoon is him­self the com­pass of the sea whose tides sweep through him; Walt encom­pass­es worlds but him­self is not to be encom­passed.”