The War of the Worlds: Orson Welles’ 1938 Radio Drama That Petrified a Nation

in Radio, Sci Fi, Theatre | December 15th, 2009

Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air, a radio pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing dra­mat­ic, the­atri­cal pro­duc­tions to the Amer­i­can air­waves. The show had a fair­ly short run. It last­ed from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark. Dur­ing these few years, The Mer­cury The­atre aired The War of the Worlds, an episode nar­rat­ed by Welles him­self that led many Amer­i­cans to believe their coun­try was under Mar­t­ian attack. The leg­endary pro­duc­tion was based on H.G. Wells’ ear­ly sci-fi nov­el, also called The War of the Worlds, and you can lis­ten to the clas­sic radio pro­duc­tion here, or above.

The Mer­cury The­atre also adapt­ed a series of oth­er major nov­els, includ­ing Drac­u­la, Trea­sure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo. And then there’s Dick­ens. In 1938 and 1939, The Mer­cury The­atre pro­duced two ver­sions of Charles Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol. In the 1938 ver­sion (get mp3), Welles played the role of Scrooge. The 1939 ver­sion (mp3) fea­tures Lionel Bar­ry­more (yup, the grandun­cle of Drew Bar­ry­more) play­ing the same role. You can lis­ten to these shows and oth­ers at this web site ded­i­cat­ed to The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells in 1940: The Leg­ends Dis­cuss War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and WWII

The Dead Authors Pod­cast: H.G. Wells Com­i­cal­ly Revives Lit­er­ary Greats with His Time Machine

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was the Genius Behind Cit­i­zen Kane

Var­i­ous films direct­ed by (or star­ring) Orson Welles can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Physics in the Tiger Woods Scandal

in Physics | December 13th, 2009

Here’s the intel­lec­tu­al upside of the Tiger Woods ker­fuf­fle: A copy of John Grib­bin’s Get a Grip on Physics was spot­ted in Woods’ wrecked Cadil­lac. (Pho­to here.) And, ever since, the book has been in high demand. The Wall Street Jour­nal reports that the book’s Ama­zon sales rank has jumped from 396,224 to 2,268. But, from what I can tell, the book actu­al­ly seems to be out of print, and you’ll need to pay a min­i­mum of $42 to buy a used copy online. (Here’s an instance where Google’s book dig­i­ti­za­tion ini­tia­tive would ben­e­fit an author.) If you’re look­ing to bone up on your physics, let me save you a few bucks. With Learn­ing Physics Through Free Online Cours­es, we have pulled togeth­er free cours­es from MIT, Stan­ford, UC Berke­ley, and Yale, plus a series of famous lec­tures by Richard Feyn­man that Bill Gates has put online. These and many oth­er physics cours­es can also be found in our larg­er col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es Online and on our Free iPhone App. Enjoy and remem­ber to wear your seat­belt.

Why Open Video?

in Media, Technology | December 11th, 2009

What is open video? And how does it pro­mote free speech, par­tic­i­pa­tion, diver­si­ty and a more engaged media sphere? Get the answers from Amy Good­man (Democ­ra­cy Now), Xeni Jardin (Boing Boing), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Yochai Ben­kler & Jonathan Zit­train (Har­vard Berk­man Cen­ter), among oth­ers. This is a mis­sion to get behind. Excel­lent work by Peter Kauf­man and Intel­li­gent Tele­vi­sion. Note: You can down­load this video in OGG and MP4 for­mats.

Kindle Competitor Gets Off to a Shaky Start

in Amazon Kindle, e-books | December 10th, 2009

Look­ing to take back some of the e‑book mar­ket from Ama­zon’s Kin­dle, Barnes & Noble has released its new read­er, the Nook. This week, Walt Moss­berg, the influ­en­tial tech review­er, gave his thoughts on the new gad­get. Need­less to say, it’s not a good PR day when he says that it feels like a prod­uct “rushed to mar­ket.”  Watch the video review here.

New David Foster Wallace in The New Yorker

in Literature | December 8th, 2009

Appear­ing in The New York­er this week is an excerpt from David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s unfin­ished nov­el, The Pale King. It begins:

Once when I was a lit­tle boy I received as a gift a toy cement mix­er. It was made of wood except for its wheels—axles—which, as I remem­ber, were thin met­al rods. I’m nine­ty per cent sure it was a Christ­mas gift. I liked it the same way a boy that age likes toy dump trucks, ambu­lances, trac­tor-trail­ers, and what­not. There are lit­tle boys who like trains and lit­tle boys who like vehicles—I liked the lat­ter.

Con­tin­ue read­ing the rest here. Also see this oth­er  pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished excerpt and some pages from DWF’s actu­al man­u­script.

via Kottke.org

PS Is any­one hav­ing prob­lems post­ing com­ments? If so, please shoot me a note at the email address above. I appre­ci­ate your help.

Learning, Memory and the Brain: A Primer

in Science | December 6th, 2009

The Teach­ing Com­pa­ny has post­ed online a free video lec­ture that focus­es on what hap­pens in our brain when we learn — some­thing that should pique the inter­est of pret­ty much any read­er here. (Just what hap­pens with those synaps­es when you come here every day?) The lec­ture (watch here) comes from a larg­er course called Under­stand­ing the Brain and is pre­sent­ed by Jeanette Nor­den, a pro­fes­sor in Cell and Devel­op­men­tal Biol­o­gy at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty.

Side Note: The Teach­ing Com­pa­ny is also offer­ing free access to anoth­er lec­ture (this one in audio) that sur­veys the “Mas­ter­pieces of Clas­si­cal Hol­i­day Music,” includ­ing Bach’s Christ­mas Ora­to­rio of 1734, Handel’s Mes­si­ah of 1741; and Tchaikovsky’s Nut­crack­er Suite of 1892. Lis­ten or down­load here.

Visit Pompeii (also Stonehenge & Versailles) with Google Street View

in Google, History | December 4th, 2009

The sto­ry of Pom­peii is well known. Back in 79 AD, Mount Vesu­vius erupt­ed and cov­ered the neigh­bor­ing Roman city with 60 feet of ash over the course of two days. The city was wiped out and then entombed for cen­turies, until archae­ol­o­gists start­ed unearthing the ruins in the 18th and 19th cen­turies, offer­ing the mod­ern world an amaz­ing win­dow into the fin­er details of ancient Roman life. (Just for the record, dig­ging con­tin­ues there today, and I even got to do some this past sum­mer.) Today, Google is help­ing deep­en the mod­ern con­nec­tion to the ancient world. Using Google Street view, you can tour Pom­peii in 3D from the com­fort of your own home. To begin walk­ing through the ancient city, just click here.

As a side note, this isn’t the first time Google has used Street View in such a way. You can also find tours of Stone­henge and Louis XIV’s Ver­sailles. Plus, you can also use Google Earth, anoth­er Google pro­gram, to tour the ancient city of Rome.

Final­ly, to dig deep­er into ancient his­to­ry, I’d rec­om­mend look­ing through our pre­vi­ous post, Learn­ing Ancient His­to­ry for Free. This will point you to some of the best free cours­es avail­able on the web.

via Mash­able and the Nation­al Post

Magnetic Fields Made Visible

in Science | December 3rd, 2009

What do nat­ur­al mag­net­ic fields look like? This extra­or­di­nary footage from NASA’s Space Sci­ences Lab­o­ra­to­ry (UC Berke­ley) gives you a glimpse and reveals their “chaot­ic, ever-chang­ing geome­tries.”

10 Power Tools for Lifelong Learners

in Most Popular | December 2nd, 2009

The Best of TED: A Stroke of Insight?

in Life, TED Talks | December 1st, 2009

Last week, we wad­ed into the best of TED debate. What’s the best TED Talk out there? It’s hard to say. Pure­ly sub­jec­tive. But we can say one thing. Jill Bolte Taylor’s “Stroke of Insight” talk reach­es the top of many lists. What hap­pens when a neu­roanatomist expe­ri­ences a mas­sive stroke and feels all the brain func­tions she has stud­ied (speech, move­ment, under­stand­ing, etc) sud­den­ly start to slip away? And how do these loss­es fun­da­men­tal­ly change who we are? You’ll find out in a crisp (and at times emo­tion­al) 18 min­utes and 40 sec­onds. You can also read her book that elab­o­rates on her life-alter­ing expe­ri­ence. See My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Sci­en­tist’s Per­son­al Jour­ney.