Awe-Inspiring Interactive 3D Model of the Solar System

in Astronomy, Science | April 7th, 2011

We turned off the lights and switched to the biggest mon­i­tor in the house, to get the full plan­e­tar­i­um effect of this won­der­ful web­site. It’s called the Solar Sys­tem Scope, and gives you a chance to observe space from with­in it, rather than duti­ful­ly study­ing it in a text­book or on a screen.

Click­ing on the tele­scope icon to the left lets you tog­gle between three dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives:  The helio­cen­tric view, with the plan­ets and stars spin­ning around you; the panoram­ic view, which repli­cates the feel­ing of watch­ing the skies from the Green­wich obser­va­to­ry; and, since after all we are the cen­ter of the uni­verse, the geo­cen­tric view, which puts the rest of the cos­mos firm­ly in their place, orbit­ing the earth.

In a sec­tion called “What’s Next” the site’s cre­ators (who are you, mys­tery design­ers?) tell us that they are work­ing on a kid-friend­ly ver­sion of the site as well, but  we’re not sure that’s even nec­es­sary.  When we let a curi­ous 8‑year-old try it out ear­li­er today, it took us about an hour to get our com­put­er back.

via Metafil­ter

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Soviet Scifi Cinema: The Other Tolstoy in the Movies

in Film, Literature, Sci Fi | April 6th, 2011

Seen by over 20 mil­lion Rus­sians when it came out in 1965, The Hyper­boloid of Engi­neer Garin was a film based on a 1927 nov­el by Alek­sey Niko­layevich Tol­stoy, who is not to be con­fused with his famous rel­a­tive Leo Tol­stoy. This Tol­stoy is gen­er­al­ly thought of as the father of Russ­ian sci­ence fic­tion, and The Garin Death Ray was one of his most famous books (Vladimir Nabokov con­sid­ered it his best).

Hyper­boloid was writ­ten and direct­ed by Alek­san­dr Gintzburg, a high­ly gift­ed cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er who nev­er quite reached the career heights his tal­ent might have war­rant­ed, in part because of his Jew­ish ori­gins, and in part because of the nar­row range of artis­tic free­dom allowed direc­tors work­ing for the State-run cin­e­ma. Gintzburg stayed well with­in that range for this film, which leaves us with an odd­ly com­pelling mix of Sovi­et pro­pa­gan­da and 60’s pop-sci­fi.

As for the plot… we’d rather not give any­thing away. Just think of it as a beau­ti­ful­ly-lit pro­to-1984, with sub­ti­tles and laser beams, star­ring Big Broth­er as the good guy.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Everything Is Rhythm

in Film, Life, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 6th, 2011

“Foli” is the word used for rhythm by the Malinke tribe in West Africa. But Foli is not only found in Malinke music, but in all parts of their dai­ly lives. Direct­ed by Thomas Roe­bers, this short film por­trays the peo­ple of Baro, a small town in east­ern-cen­tral Guinea, and gives you a glimpse inside their cul­ture of rhythm. As the Malinke man says, “Tous les choses, c’est du rythme.” (“Every­thing is rhythm.”) What makes this film even more beau­ti­ful is the fact that it was edit­ed so as to reflect Malinke rhythms.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Night Photography: Painting Darkness with Light

in Art | April 6th, 2011

Ter­lin­gua was once a min­ing vil­lage in Texas. Now, it’s an old ghost town where Scott Mar­tin and Lance Keimig host The Full Moon Night Pho­tog­ra­phy Work­shop, a field sem­i­nar that teach­es pho­tog­ra­phers to “see” in the dark. Need­less to say, there is an entire­ly dif­fer­ent art to cap­tur­ing images at night, a bun­dle of dif­fer­ent tech­niques and approach­es to mas­ter, includ­ing know­ing how to paint the dark­ness with light. This video runs 6:30 and gets par­tic­u­lar­ly good around the 2:50 mark…

via @MatthiasRascher

How Venice Works: 124 Islands, 183 Canals & 438 Bridges

in Current Affairs, History | April 5th, 2011

3,000,000 tourists move through Venice each year. But when the tourists leave the city, 60,000 year-round res­i­dents stay behind, con­tin­u­ing their dai­ly lives, which requires nav­i­gat­ing an arch­i­pel­ago made up of 124 islands, 183 canals and 438 bridges. How this com­pli­cat­ed city works – how the build­ings are defend­ed from water, how the build­ings stand on unsteady ground, how the Vene­tians nav­i­gate this maze of a city – is a pret­ty fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry. These tech­niques have been worked out over Venice’s 1500 year his­to­ry, and now they’re explored in a cap­ti­vat­ing 17 minute video pro­duced by a Venet­ian gov­ern­ment agency. You can learn more about the inner life of this great city at Venice Back­stage.

via Metafil­ter

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!

More than 20 Years Before “Lost” — “The New People”

in Television, Video - Arts & Culture | April 1st, 2011

There was a good deal of time-trav­el in the ABC hit series Lost, one of the more ambi­tious and pop­u­lar shows of the past decade. But nei­ther Jack, Sawyer, Hur­ley, nor any of our oth­er beloved 21st cen­tu­ry cast­aways ever went back to the year 1969. If they had, and if they’d had access to a TV, they might have found them­selves watch­ing a show about — them­selves.

Well, sort of. The New Peo­ple ran on Fri­day nights on ABC from Sep­tem­ber 1969 through Jan­u­ary 1970 (It last­ed only 17 episodes). We’ll take a shot at sum­ma­riz­ing the gen­er­al premise, which might ring a cou­ple of bells:

A plane crash­es on a remote island in the Pacif­ic, leav­ing its mot­ley group of sur­vivors strand­ed and fight­ing about what to do next.… As they explore their new home, they find an entire town, ful­ly stocked with pro­vi­sions and weapons, but creep­i­ly emp­ty. Soon the sur­vivors dis­cov­er that this island was once set up .…to be an Atom­ic Ener­gy Com­mis­sion test­ing site!

No Lost fan can live with­out a con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry, but we’re pret­ty sure there was noth­ing fishy in the com­mon­al­i­ties, and in the end, are we not all chil­dren of Gilli­gan? Fur­ther­more, there’s a good deal more to the plot, which includes racial con­flict, ado­les­cent angst (the sur­vivors are all col­lege stu­dents), and a healthy dose of Lord of the Flies-style chaos. Full episodes are not online, but at TVob­scu­ri­ties you can find a wealth of relat­ed con­tent, clips, links to reviews, and even the theme song, with lyrics.

Also, be sure to check out the episode guide, which real­ly does intrigue. Num­ber 12, for exam­ple:

The Pied Piper of Pot. Step­pen­wolf  thinks his fel­low islanders are too uptight, so he grows potent mar­i­jua­na that threat­ens to send the stu­dents into a har­row­ing, one-way trip.

The New Peo­ple was pro­duced by Aaron Spelling, who went on to bring us Char­lie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, and Bev­er­ly Hills 90210, among many, many oth­ers. But we’re not sure if he ever did come up with anoth­er char­ac­ter as com­pelling as Step­pen­wolf.

(Thanks to Bryan Thomas)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Kinetic Strandbeests on the Beach: Alchemy of Art & Engineering

in Art | March 30th, 2011

Since 1990, Dutch artist Theo Jansen has giv­en life to Strand­beests. They’re made of noth­ing more than a mass of yel­low plas­tic tubes. But these kinet­ic sculp­tures feed off of the wind. They roam the beach­es on their own. And they evolve. Soon enough, Jansen says, you will see Strand­beests liv­ing in herds, and who knows what the alche­my of art and engi­neer­ing will bring next.

This clip comes from a BBC pro­duc­tion, Nature Knows Best, that aired late last year. You can also catch Jansen intro­duc­ing his self-pro­pelling beach ani­mals at TED.

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!

Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Film

in Film, Literature | March 28th, 2011

Due to its styl­is­tic and lin­guis­tic com­plex­i­ty, James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake ranks among the most dif­fi­cult works of fic­tion. And that is why vir­tu­al­ly no film­mak­er has ever tried to adapt Joyce’s final work for the screen. But after Mary Man­ning Howe adapt­ed pas­sages from the book for the stage (lis­ten to her read­ing from Finnegans Wake here), Amer­i­can ani­ma­tor Mary Ellen Bute accept­ed the chal­lenge and turned Man­ning’s play into a film.

Sad­ly, Mary Ellen Bute’s short films are almost for­got­ten today, but from the 1930s to 1950s her abstract musi­cal shorts were known to a wide audi­ence. Don’t miss her first col­or film from 1938.

Between 1965 and 1967, Bute cre­at­ed her last film, and only fea­ture film, Pas­sages from Finnegans Wake. The movie was screened at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and named Best Debut of the Year (1965). The video above shows only the open­ing sequence, but the whole film can be enjoyed online cour­tesy of UbuWeb.

Bonus: You can read Roger Ebert’s 1968 review of Bute’s film here. He admits that he did­n’t enjoy it too much, but con­cedes this may have been because he had­n’t actu­al­ly read the book.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

The Wire as Great Victorian Novel

in Books, Literature, Television | March 25th, 2011

A while back, W. Daniel Hillis made the case that The Wire may rise to the lev­el of – if not sur­pass – Tol­stoy’s War & Peace. Writ­ing for the Edge.org, Hillis went so far as to say:

As much as I liked War and Peace, I prob­a­bly got more out of The Wire. And why should that be sur­pris­ing? More human effort can be put into a tele­vi­sion series than a nov­el and more time is spent con­sum­ing it. If both are exe­cut­ed to their high­est stan­dards, with equal care, skill and insight, we might well expect less from the book.

If we can men­tion The Wire in the same breath as Tol­stoy, then why not anoth­er giant of nine­teenth cen­tu­ry lit­er­a­ture, Charles Dick­ens? Yes, The Wire has been called “Dick­en­sian” too, and this week the Hood­ed Util­i­tar­i­an has re-imag­ined The Wire as a seri­al­ized Vic­to­ri­an nov­el. The premise? Imag­ine The Wire writ­ten in 60 install­ments over the course of six years, start­ing in 1846, by Hor­a­tio Buck­les­by Ogden, a Dick­ens con­tem­po­rary who wrote with a “nuance and atten­tion to detail that Dick­ens nev­er achieved.” Each install­ment ran 30 pages and sold for one shilling apiece.

The Hood­ed Util­i­tar­i­an has­n’t actu­al­ly print­ed these 60 install­ments (because they don’t actu­al­ly exist). But they have pro­duced a few won­der­ful mock pages, and writ­ten a faux piece of lit­er­ary crit­i­cism to accom­pa­ny them. A great job by Joy Delyr­ia and Sean Michael Robin­son.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Evgeny Morozov Animated: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

in Current Affairs, Politics, Technology | March 24th, 2011

RSA has released its lat­est ani­mat­ed video, and this time it fea­tures Evge­ny Moro­zov, the Belarus-born researcher, who takes the con­trar­i­an posi­tion that the inter­net can often inhib­it (rather than pro­mote) democ­ra­cy, espe­cial­ly with­in author­i­tar­i­an con­texts like Chi­na and Iran. And what fol­lows (above) is a more sober­ing talk about how author­i­tar­i­an regimes use the web to sup­press civic engage­ment and fledg­ling democ­ra­cy move­ments. This clip is part of a longer 27 minute lec­ture (see full ver­sion here) that peers into “the dark side of inter­net free­dom,” a phrase that hap­pens to be the sub­ti­tle of Moro­zov’s new book.

Moro­zov is cur­rent­ly a vis­it­ing schol­ar in the Lib­er­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram at Stan­ford, and if you’re won­der­ing how he looks at tech­nol­o­gy and the role it played in Egyp­t’s rev­o­lu­tion, you can watch a quick clip here.