Visionaries Imagine 2011 in 1931

in Life | December 14th, 2010

Back in 1931, dur­ing anoth­er peri­od of eco­nom­ic malaise, The New York Times asked some big thinkers what the world will look in anoth­er 80 years. (That is, in 2011.) Some proved to be fair­ly pre­scient. Take, for exam­ple, William James Mayo (a founder of the Mayo Clin­ic) who said:

Con­ta­gious and infec­tious dis­eases have been large­ly over­come, and the aver­age length of life of man has increased to fifty-eight years. The great caus­es of death in mid­dle and lat­er life are dis­eases of heart, blood ves­sels and kid­neys, dis­eases of the ner­vous sys­tem, and can­cer. The progress that is being made would sug­gest that with­in the mea­sure of time for this fore­cast the aver­age life time of civ­i­lized man would be raised to the bib­li­cal term of three-score and ten [read: 70 years of age].

That’s not a bad guess, see­ing that most West­ern­ers now have a life expectan­cy some­where in the high 70s. But then, writ­ing in the midst of the Great Depres­sion, the indus­tri­al­ist Hen­ry Ford made this pre­dic­tion:

We shall go over our eco­nom­ic machine and redesign it, not for the pur­pose of mak­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent than what we have, but to make the present machine do what we have said it could do. After all, the only prof­it of life is life itself, and I believe that the com­ing eighty years will see us more suc­cess­ful in pass­ing around the real prof­it of life. The newest thing in the world is the human being. And the great­est changes are to be looked for in him.

Has our eco­nom­ic machine real­ly been redesigned? And has our eco­nom­ic sys­tem “passed around the real prof­it of life?” It’s hard to say an emphat­ic yes as we stum­ble into 2011. And I would­n’t be sur­prised if Ford’s vision seems even more remote in 2012.

For more prophe­cies from 1931, please vis­it the Abnor­mal Use blog that unearthed this fine trea­sure…

via @eugenephoto

The Bill of Rights: Birthday Webcast Today

in History, Law | December 14th, 2010

To com­mem­o­rate the 219th birth­day of the Bill of Rights, the Nation­al Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter will host today (Wednes­day) a free web­cast explor­ing the his­to­ry of the U.S. Constitution’s first ten amend­ments. It will start with James Madison’s ini­tial work on this list of essen­tial free­doms, then cov­er the years when these pro­vi­sions were sel­dom applied, and final­ly explore their rebirth in the 20th cen­tu­ry and some con­tem­po­rary debates. The 20 minute pro­gram will be viewed by six mil­lion stu­dents across the Unit­ed States, and you can tune in as well for free. To take part, sim­ply vis­it this site between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. EST. And please note that the web­cast will be sup­ple­ment­ed with a live blog host­ed by con­sti­tu­tion­al experts. (Pho­to by G. Wid­man for GPTMC)

Streaming Great Movies on Netflix

in Film | December 13th, 2010

Net­flix jolt­ed its com­peti­tors last month when it announced a new plan. Instead of receiv­ing DVDs by mail, cus­tomers can now opt for a $7.99 plan that lets them watch an unlim­it­ed num­ber of movies online, using their tele­vi­sion, com­put­er, iPad, or smart­phone. Not so long ago, Net­flix’s cat­a­logue of stream­able films was rather thin. But nowa­days it runs deep­er, and you can watch online a bevy of impor­tant cin­e­mat­ic works. Hav­ing struck a deal with Cri­te­ri­on (among oth­ers), Net­flix now streams many land­mark films, includ­ing clas­sic films by Felli­ni, Kuro­sawa, Truf­faut, and Bergman, and more con­tem­po­rary films by Steven Soder­bergh, Bri­an De Pal­ma, and Wim Wen­ders. You can see a full list of stream­able Cri­te­ri­on films right here. Sort through the films, find the ones you like, click the cor­re­spond­ing Net­flix link, and then add them to your queue.

If you don’t have a Net­flix sub­scrip­tion, you can always sign up for Net­flix’s one month Free Tri­al.

And don’t for­get the 250+ qual­i­ty films now list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Abbey Road: Then and Now

in Music | December 9th, 2010

This was too good to pass up. This week’s cel­e­bra­tion of John Lennon’s life unearthed a price­less pic­ture of The Bea­t­les prepar­ing to take their icon­ic walk across Abbey Road. One detail worth point­ing out: Sir Paul has yet to kick off his shoes.

Although tak­en back in 1969, tourists still flock to the same cross­walk today, hop­ing to snap a quick imi­ta­tive pho­to before a car races by. You can watch the some­times hair-rais­ing action on this great live web­cam pro­vid­ed by Abbey Road Stu­dios. There’s obvi­ous­ly more to see dur­ing day­light hours in the UK. Thanks to Kot­tke for flag­ging this…

Bea­t­les Box Sale: Just a heads up. We noticed that Amazon.com has deeply dis­count­ed the remas­tered Bea­t­les Box Sets. The Stereo Box Set now goes for $126.32 for 14 discs, and the Mono Box Set runs $129.99 for 12 discs. Respec­tive­ly, that’s 51% and 57% off list price, and it’s right in time for the hol­i­day sea­son…

Where Horror Film Began: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

in Film | December 9th, 2010

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In ear­ly 1920, Robert Wiene pre­miered in Berlin his silent film The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari. Ever since, crit­ics have lav­ished praise upon Cali­gari, call­ing it a mod­el of Ger­man expres­sion­ist film, the great­est hor­ror film of ear­ly cin­e­ma, and an impor­tant influ­ence on direc­tors lat­er work­ing in the film noir tra­di­tion. And, what’s more (spoil­er alert), Wiene’s film intro­duced the ‘twist end­ing’ to cin­e­ma. Today, you can watch this ground­break­ing film in its entire­ty above, down­load it from the Inter­net Archive, or find it per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in our ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies. Thanks to Melis­sa for the good find…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Franken­stein Hits the Sil­ver Screen (1910)

How The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari Invent­ed Psy­cho­log­i­cal Hor­ror Film & Brought Expres­sion­ism to the Screen (1920)

From Cali­gari to Hitler: A Look at How Cin­e­ma Laid the Foun­da­tion for Tyran­ny in Weimar Ger­many

Howard Cosell Breaks the News: John Lennon is Dead (1980)

in History, Media, Music | December 8th, 2010

On Decem­ber 8, 1980, the New Eng­land Patri­ots-Mia­mi Dol­phins game was wind­ing down, the end of anoth­er Mon­day Night Foot­ball game. Then, Howard Cosell, Amer­i­ca’s leg­endary sports­cast­er, broke the news to unsus­pect­ing view­ers: “An unspeak­able tragedy con­firmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, out­side of his apart­ment build­ing on the West Side of New York City, the most famous, per­haps, of all of The Bea­t­les, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roo­sevelt Hos­pi­tal, dead on arrival.” Soon enough, more for­mal news reports fol­lowed on the BBC and ABC’s Night­line, and you can still hear what New York­ers heard on the radio the night the music died. Howard Cosell inter­viewed John Lennon on Mon­day Night Foot­ball back in 1974. Revis­it the short con­ver­sa­tion right here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Lennon Sings Bud­dy Hol­ly

John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) on the Dick Cavett Show

I Met the Wal­rus: An Ani­mat­ed Short Film with John Lennon

The Titanic: Rare Footage of the Ship Before Disaster Strikes (1911–1912)

in History | December 1st, 2010

These days, it’s eas­i­er to come across footage of the Titan­ic below water rather than above. But here you have it. The Titan­ic under con­struc­tion in Belfast in 1911 — a year before it became the stuff of leg­end. Thanks Lau­ren for send­ing this our way. Always appre­ci­ate read­ers join­ing in on the fun…

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!

Early Experiments in Color Film (1895–1935)

in Art, Film | November 30th, 2010

Hol­ly­wood did­n’t start pro­duc­ing col­or fea­ture films until the mid 1930s. (Becky Sharp, the first Tech­ni­col­or film from 1935, appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.) But exper­i­ments with col­or film­mak­ing start­ed long before that. Ear­li­er this year, Kodak unearthed a test of Kodachrome col­or film from 1922 (above). But then you can trav­el back to 1912, when a film­mak­er test­ed out a Chronochrome process on the beach­es of Nor­mandy. Or how about mov­ing all the way back to 1895? Here we have footage from Thomas Edis­on’s hand-paint­ed film Anabelle’s Dance, which was made for his Kine­to­scope view­ers. For more on the his­to­ry of col­or film, vis­it 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:

How Tech­ni­col­or Rev­o­lu­tion­ized Cin­e­ma with Sur­re­al, Elec­tric Col­ors & Changed How We See Our World

Col­or Film Was Designed to Take Pic­tures of White Peo­ple, Not Peo­ple of Col­or: The Unfor­tu­nate His­to­ry of Racial Bias in Pho­tog­ra­phy (1940–1990)

Tsarist Rus­sia Comes to Life in Vivid Col­or Pho­tographs Tak­en Cir­ca 1905–1915

H.G. Wells’ 1930s Radio Broadcasts

in Literature, Radio, Science | November 29th, 2010

H.G. Wells (1866–1946) gave us The Time Machine, The Invis­i­ble Man, and The War of the Worlds and prac­ti­cal­ly invent­ed sci­ence fic­tion as we know it. (Find his clas­sic texts in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.) Now, thanks to the BBC, you can trav­el back in time and get a glimpse into Wells’ cre­ative mind. Dur­ing the 1930s and 1940s, Wells made reg­u­lar radio broad­casts for the BBC, where he had the free­dom to range wide­ly, to talk about “world pol­i­tics, the his­to­ry of the print­ing press, the pos­si­bil­i­ties of tech­nol­o­gy and the shape of things to come…” Nine record­ings now appear online. You can start lis­ten­ing here, or dip into an archive of Wells’ per­son­al let­ters.

Final­ly, don’t miss one of my per­son­al favorites. Orson Welles read­ing a dra­ma­tized ver­sion of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in 1938. It’s per­haps the most famous radio broad­cast in Amer­i­can his­to­ry and it drove Amer­i­ca into a bout of mass hys­te­ria, at least for a night …

H/T to @fionaatzler for flag­ging these BBC audio record­ings.

Why Can’t We Walk Straight?

in Random, Science | November 28th, 2010

When we’re blind­fold­ed, we’re doomed to walk in cir­cles. The same thing hap­pens when we dri­ve and swim with­out the ben­e­fit of sight. Around and around we go. Robert Krul­wich, the cohost of the excel­lent Radi­o­lab show (iTunes — Feed — Site), breaks this all down with some intrigu­ing ani­ma­tion. But let me add this lit­tle spoil­er alert. What makes us spin in cir­cles still defies sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tion. H/T to Mike in Cam­bridge.

via berto-meis­ter