Nobel Peace Prize Winner Leymah Gbowee Talks @Google

in Books, Google | October 12th, 2011

Last Wednes­day, Liber­ian peace activist Leymah Gbowee paid a vis­it to Google to talk about her mem­oir, Mighty Be Our Pow­ers: How Sis­ter­hood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War. Two days lat­er, she was award­ed the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize along with Ellen John­son Sir­leaf and Tawakkol Kar­man. The Googlers pro­vide a quick intro­duc­tion to her activism before the con­ver­sa­tion begins.…

via Google Book Blog

The Power of Conformity

in Psychology | October 12th, 2011

This vin­tage stunt from a 1962 episode of Can­did Cam­era makes for a good laugh. But it also cap­tures some­thing impor­tant about human psy­chol­o­gy — some­thing that social psy­chol­o­gist Philip Zim­bar­do, famous for his Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment, describes on a web­site relat­ed to his 2007 book The Lucifer Effect: Under­stand­ing How Good Peo­ple Turn Evil. He writes:

One of the most pop­u­lar sce­nar­ios in the long his­to­ry of Alan Fun­t’s inge­nious Can­did Cam­era pro­grams is “Face The Rear.” An ele­va­tor is rigged so that after an unsus­pect­ing per­son enters, four Can­did Cam­era staff enter, and one by one they all face the rear. The doors close and then reopen; now reveal­ing that the pas­sen­ger had con­formed and is now also fac­ing the rear. Doors close and reopen, and every­one is fac­ing side­ways, and then face the oth­er way. We laugh that these peo­ple are manip­u­lat­ed like pup­pets on invis­i­ble strings, but this sce­nario makes us aware of the num­ber of sit­u­a­tions in which we mind­less­ly fol­low the dic­tates of group norms and sit­u­a­tion­al forces.

Often times, the mind­less sub­mis­sion to group norms has entire­ly innocu­ous results. But, in oth­er cas­es, it can lead to “good peo­ple engag­ing in evil actions.” Wit­ness what hap­pened with­in the con­trolled envi­ron­ment of the Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment. Or, worse, the dev­as­tat­ing abus­es at Abu Ghraib, which brought oth­er­wise aver­age peo­ple to com­mit atro­cious acts. For more read The Lucifer Effect.

H/T Sci­ence Dump

A Minimal Glimpse of Philip Glass

in Music | October 11th, 2011

When direc­tor David Hill­man Cur­tis and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Ben Wolf paid a vis­it recent­ly to com­pos­er Philip Glass to film a pro­mo­tion­al piece for the Brook­lyn Acad­e­my of Music, they were grant­ed just 30 min­utes. “He was booked sol­id the day we vis­it­ed his offices and actu­al­ly was being fol­lowed by a min­der who sat on the couch just out of the frame check­ing his watch,” said Cur­tis. “I’ve become a pret­ty good inter­view­er and was able to loosen Mr. Glass up a bit and he took it from there, giv­ing a great inter­view, and we were done in 30 min­utes.” In the result­ing two-minute film, Glass express­es amuse­ment over his recent fas­ci­na­tion with clas­si­cal music. “Where are my fron­tiers,” asks the com­pos­er, whose work is fre­quent­ly described as avant-garde? “My fron­tiers are actu­al­ly not in front of me. They’re behind me.”

You can learn more about Philip Glass and hear free sam­ples of his music at PhilipGlass.com.

Steve Jobs Narrates the First “Think Different” Ad (Never Aired)

in Apple, Media, Television | October 10th, 2011

One last Steve Jobs’ remem­brance seems com­plete­ly fit­ting for our site. You’re prob­a­bly famil­iar with Apple’s famous “Think Dif­fer­ent” adver­tis­ing cam­paign from the late 1990s, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the leg­endary TV com­mer­cial that fea­tured 17 icon­ic fig­ures: Albert Ein­stein, Bob Dylan, Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., Richard Bran­son, John Lennon, Buck­min­ster Fuller, Thomas Edi­son, Muham­mad Ali, Ted Turn­er, Maria Callas, Mahat­ma Gand­hi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitch­cock, Martha Gra­ham, Jim Hen­son, Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picas­so.

Most of these “crazy ones, mis­fits, rebels and rule break­ers” have been fea­tured on Open Cul­ture through­out the years (click the links above), and what make this ad spe­cial is that Steve Jobs nar­rates it him­self. The orig­i­nal TV ad — the one that made it on air — had Richard Drey­fuss doing the voiceover…

Find more Crazy Ones in our col­lec­tion of 275 Cul­tur­al Icons.

The Rolling Stone Interview with John Lennon (1970)

in Music | October 9th, 2011

Today is John Lennon’s would-be 71st birth­day, and it jogged my mem­o­ry, remind­ing me of this lengthy 1970 inter­view. Con­duct­ed by Jann Wen­ner, the founder of Rolling Stone Mag­a­zine, this impor­tant con­ver­sa­tion (lis­ten via iTunes) was record­ed short­ly after The Bea­t­les’ bit­ter breakup, and the emo­tions were still run­ning high. Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more. It’s not always flat­ter­ing, but it gives you a good feel for the man and the great artist.

The Rolling Stone inter­view is now added to our Cul­tur­al Icons media col­lec­tion. For anoth­er inter­view from the same peri­od, don’t miss John and Yoko’s appear­ance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. And note that Rolling Stone has a lengthy 7 part inter­view with Bono of U2: iTunes.

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter and we’ll keep point­ing you to free cul­tur­al good­ies dai­ly…

Steve Jobs at Heaven’s Gate: The New Yorker Cover

in Art, Media, Technology | October 8th, 2011

One draw­ing by The New York­er car­toon­ists says it all. Bril­liant­ly done. You can find the orig­i­nal cov­er here, and watch how the car­toon­ists go about their work here.

And then from across the very big pond, we have Aus­tralian car­toon­ist Peter Nichol­son offer­ing anoth­er cre­ative take on Mr. Jobs’ meet­ing with St. Peter. Find orig­i­nal here, and thanks Geoff for send­ing…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steve Jobs Demos the First Mac in 1984, and Rid­ley Scott Cre­ates an Ad for the Event

The Whole Earth Cat­a­log Online: The “Bible” of Steve Jobs’ Gen­er­a­tion

The Whole Earth Catalog Online: Stewart Brand’s “Bible” of the 60s Generation

in Apple, Books, e-books | October 8th, 2011

Time to res­ur­rect anoth­er sud­den­ly rel­e­vant item we first men­tioned back in 2009…

Between 1968 and 1972, Stew­art Brand pub­lished The Whole Earth Cat­a­log. For Kevin Kel­ly, the Cat­a­log was essen­tial­ly “a paper-based data­base offer­ing thou­sands of hacks, tips, tools, sug­ges­tions, and pos­si­bil­i­ties for opti­miz­ing your life.” For Steve Jobs, it was a “Bible” of his gen­er­a­tion, a life ‑trans­form­ing pub­li­ca­tion. Speak­ing to Stan­ford grad­u­ates in 2005, in what Ken Aulet­ta has called the “Get­tys­burg Address of grad­u­a­tion-speechism,” Jobs explained why he drew inspi­ra­tion from this intel­lec­tu­al cre­ation of the 60s coun­ter­cul­ture:

When I was young, there was an amaz­ing pub­li­ca­tion called The Whole Earth Cat­a­log, which was one of the bibles of my gen­er­a­tion. It was cre­at­ed by a fel­low named Stew­art Brand not far from here in Men­lo Park, and he brought it to life with his poet­ic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before per­son­al com­put­ers and desk­top pub­lish­ing, so it was all made with type­writ­ers, scis­sors, and polaroid cam­eras. It was sort of like Google in paper­back form, 35 years before Google came along: it was ide­al­is­tic, and over­flow­ing with neat tools and great notions.

Stew­art and his team put out sev­er­al issues of The Whole Earth Cat­a­log, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cov­er of their final issue was a pho­to­graph of an ear­ly morn­ing coun­try road, the kind you might find your­self hitch­hik­ing on if you were so adven­tur­ous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hun­gry. Stay Fool­ish.” It was their farewell mes­sage as they signed off. Stay Hun­gry. Stay Fool­ish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you grad­u­ate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

The good news is that The Whole Earth Cat­a­log and some relat­ed pub­li­ca­tions are avail­able online. You can read them for free, or down­load them for a fee. We sug­gest div­ing in right here, in Fall 1968, where it all begins. Enjoy.…

Note: If you’re hav­ing prob­lems find your way around the site, check out the Twit­ter stream for the The Whole Earth Cat­a­logue. It includes links to var­i­ous online edi­tions. We’ve also added the text to our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Drinking Coffee at Zero Gravity

in Random, Science, Video - Science | October 7th, 2011

All we can say is bless Don Pet­tit. While work­ing on the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion in 2008, the NASA astro­naut  shot videos that are lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly out of this world: The Auro­ra Bore­alis Viewed from Orbit and What It Feels Like to Fly Over Plan­et Earth. And then we dis­cov­er that Pet­tit invent­ed a “zero‑g cof­fee cup” that lets you drink cof­fee in out­er space with­out using a straw. That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.…

The Matrix: What Went Into The Mix

in Film | October 7th, 2011

With a series of three films, direc­tor Kir­by Fer­gu­son has been grad­u­al­ly mak­ing the case that “Every­thing is a Remix.” In doing what they do, artists col­lect mate­r­i­al, com­bine and trans­form it, and even­tu­al­ly mold it into some­thing unique, though not entire­ly new. Fer­gu­son has traced this idea through lit­er­a­ture and music, film­mak­ing, and technology/computing. And while we wait for the fourth and final install­ment in the series, we get a lit­tle treat to tide us over — a six minute look at the cin­e­mat­ic ori­gins of the 1999 sci-fi action film, The Matrix. Made by Robert Wil­son and with the help of some crowd­sourc­ing, this fun video iden­ti­fies 24 films that influ­enced The Matrix. They’re are all list­ed below the jump. Con­sid­er watch­ing the clip in a wider for­mat here.

(more…)

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Comedy Classic

in Comedy, Film, Television | October 6th, 2011

Yes­ter­day was the 42nd anniver­sary of the first broad­cast of Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus. The orig­i­nal BBC show aired for only five years, but its impact on pop­u­lar cul­ture has been last­ing. To cel­e­brate, we bring you the 1982 film, Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. The image qual­i­ty isn’t the best here, but the humor shines through. The movie com­bines live sketch­es, filmed in 1980, with excerpts from a two-part 1972 Ger­man tele­vi­sion spe­cial, Mon­ty Python’s Fliegen­der Zirkus. High­lights include: “The Min­istry of Sil­ly Walks,” “Nudge Nudge,” “The Lum­ber­jack Song,” “Sil­ly Olympics” (fea­tur­ing the “100 Yards For Peo­ple With No Sense Of Direc­tion” and the “200-Meter Freestyle For Non-Swim­mers”) as well as one of our favorites, “The Philoso­phers’ Foot­ball Match.” Mon­ty Python Live at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl has been added to our grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.