The Secret Powers of Time

in Psychology | June 3rd, 2010

Philip Zim­bar­do, a long­time Stan­ford psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor, is per­haps most well known for the famous Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment con­duct­ed in 1971. But, more recent­ly, he pub­lished a book called The Time Para­dox (2008) that makes some pret­ty intrigu­ing argu­ments about how our atti­tudes toward time, often uncon­scious ones, can strong­ly shape our per­son­al­i­ties and the kind of lives we lead. The video above takes one of Zim­bar­do’s lec­tures about the Time Para­dox and syncs it with some ani­mat­ed draw­ings. Great find by Yann. Feel free to send tips our way. Just click here.

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Birds in the Oil

in Current Affairs, Life | June 3rd, 2010

So far, the BP oil spill has remained fair­ly abstract. We’ve seen it depict­ed in graphs and satel­lite images. Now we get to see it right up close. These pho­tos show in bru­tal detail exact­ly what’s hap­pen­ing to the wildlife in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Con­sid­er the pho­tos a very quick glimpse into the larg­er envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter caused by this spill. Spread these pic­tures far and wide. BP does­n’t deserve to keep this mess a dis­tant idea.

Traveling Denim: The Global Fade

in Film | June 2nd, 2010

A four minute film, fea­tur­ing an Amer­i­can pair of Levis trav­el­ing the globe for two years, all shot by a Japan­ese direc­tor Takayu­ki Akachi. Nice find by Ian in El Sal­vador or … is it now Brazil?

Einztein

in Online Courses | June 1st, 2010

If you blink, you might miss the lat­est new ven­ture look­ing to cen­tral­ize the dizzy­ing num­ber of free online cours­es. Here’s the lat­est: The Einztein Knowl­edge Net­work. The more the mer­ri­er, I say…

Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider: A Look Back

in Film | May 29th, 2010

The actor Den­nis Hop­per died this morn­ing. You know him from Apoc­a­lypse Now and Blue Vel­vet. But, more than any oth­er film, his lega­cy is tied to Easy Rid­er. Hop­per direct­ed, co-wrote, and co-starred in the coun­ter­cul­ture clas­sic, which won the top prize at the 1969 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. Drugs, motor­cy­cles, hip­pies, com­mu­nal liv­ing – Easy Rid­er cap­tured the spir­it of the coun­ter­cul­ture move­ment, and now, 40 years lat­er, it serves as some­thing of a memo­r­i­al to the Wood­stock gen­er­a­tion. Above, we fea­ture the 1999 doc­u­men­tary Easy Rid­er: Shak­ing the Cage, which looks back at the mak­ing of the cult film. It includes inter­views with Den­nis Hop­per and his co-star Peter Fon­da. Part 1 appears above. You can access the remain­ing parts here: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7

Martin Gardner: A Video Remembrance

in Math, Science | May 27th, 2010

This past week­end, Mar­tin Gard­ner, a gift­ed and pro­lif­ic pop­u­lar­iz­er of math­e­mat­ics and sci­ence, passed away at 95. Dur­ing his life, Gard­ner pub­lished more than 70 books and wrote the pop­u­lar “Math­e­mat­i­cal Games” col­umn for Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can mag­a­zine for 25 years. As The New York Times obit notes, his math­e­mat­i­cal writ­ings “intrigued a gen­er­a­tion of math­e­mati­cians,” and he earned the admi­ra­tion of many lead­ing intel­lec­tu­als, includ­ing W. H. Auden, Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Jay Gould, Vladimir Nabokov, and Carl Sagan. Not bad for a man who nev­er took a col­lege-lev­el math course. Above, you will find a 46-minute video pro­file of Gard­ner from David Suzuk­i’s CBC tele­vi­sion series “The Nature of Things.” It’s a great intro­duc­tion to Gard­ner and his unique approach to math and sci­ence.

Thanks goes to Mike for send­ing the video our way.

Letters with Literary Character

in Literature | May 27th, 2010

Ben Green­man, a fic­tion writer and edi­tor at the New York­er, has a short sto­ry col­lec­tion com­ing out this June. What He’s Poised To Do makes let­ters and let­ter-writ­ing a the­mat­ic focus, and even before its offi­cial pub­li­ca­tion, Green­man’s col­lec­tion has inspired a blog that encour­ages every­day peo­ple to write let­ters to great lit­er­ary char­ac­ters. The sam­ple below gives you the gist of the project … and then some. If so inspired, send your own let­ter to: Le******************@***il.com.

Ernest Hem­ing­way | The Sun Also Ris­es | 1926

Dear Brett,

I find myself in the hor­ri­ble posi­tion of telling you what a tru­ly ter­ri­ble human being you are. I know what you’re doing with Jake and Robert when you’re very much engaged to Michael. Now, don’t give me any sob sto­ry about how you lost your “only true love” at such a young age. This gives you NO right to be a tramp. Also, half the women in Paris would agree that you are NOT charm­ing when you are drunk like you think you are. In fact I would go as far as to say you are repul­sive in all forms of the word. Occa­sion­al­ly, I cringe when you speak because it is always to use some­one. You’re despi­ca­ble. Dis­gust­ing. You’re a pedan­tic wee­nie.

Sin­cere­ly,
Alexan­dria Smith

The Greek Crisis Explained

in Current Affairs | May 26th, 2010

On a lighter note, and while we’re on the sub­ject of eco­nom­ic cri­sis, we offer you an ani­mat­ed (and not so seri­ous) expla­na­tion of the finan­cial cri­sis in Greece. The saga con­tin­ues with Episode 2.

Thanks Eren, aka @Gulfi

Economic Crisis and Globalization

in Current Affairs, Economics | May 25th, 2010

The news isn’t good. The Euro is los­ing val­ue dai­ly. Coun­tries are slip­ping into “sov­er­eign debt crises” – mean­ing they’re going broke. And the mar­kets are swoon­ing once again. We’re watch­ing the prover­bial oth­er shoe drop.

Through­out this cri­sis, many Amer­i­cans have direct­ed their anger at Wall Street (and deserved­ly so). But few have won­dered whether there’s any­thing basi­cal­ly wrong with Amer­i­can-style cap­i­tal­ism. And, if any­thing, the only orga­nized protest move­ment (The Tea Par­ty) has assert­ed that we need more cap­i­tal­ism in our lives, not less.

In some rare quar­ters of acad­eme, cap­i­tal­ism still does­n’t get off so easy. And that brings us to three new online cours­es taught by the econ­o­mist Richard D. Wolff at The New School in NYC. Above, we fea­ture the first lec­ture from Eco­nom­ic Cri­sis and Glob­al­iza­tion, a course that takes a less ortho­dox view of how we’re man­ag­ing the Great Reces­sion. (Find the oth­er sev­en lec­tures here.) His oth­er cours­es, both on Marx­i­an eco­nom­ics, appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es under Eco­nom­ics.

Can Monkeys Talk?

in Science | May 25th, 2010

If we believe that Homo sapi­ens (a.k.a. peo­ple) and mon­keys evolved from a com­mon ances­tor, then it makes sense to ask: Can mon­keys use lan­guage like we do? Do they make mere sounds? Or do they use spe­cif­ic sounds to com­mu­ni­cate a range of dif­fer­ent intend­ed things? Robert Sey­far­th, a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, uses the case of the Vervet Mon­keys to answer these ques­tions. You can read more about his work in The New York Times.

via RichardDawkins.net