Jonah Lehrer on the Brain (Video)

in Science | May 21st, 2009

Inter­viewed over at Edge.org, Jon­ah Lehrer (Con­tribut­ing Edi­tor at Wired and the author of the new book How We Decide) begins:

How do you take [the brain], this piece of meat that runs on 10 watts of elec­tric­i­ty, and how do you study it in its actu­al con­text, which is that it’s not a brain in a vat. It’s a brain inter­act­ing with oth­er brains. How do you study things like social net­works and human inter­ac­tions?

Just think, for instance, about what’s now the hottest method in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science: The fMRI machine, the brain scan. Think about the fun­da­men­tal lim­i­ta­tion of this machine, which is that it’s one per­son by him­self in what’s essen­tial­ly a noisy cof­fin. So you give him the stim­u­lus. He’s going through the exper­i­men­tal task, what­ev­er it is. Choos­ing whether or not to buy some­thing, doing a visu­al mem­o­ry task. What­ev­er the pro­to­col is, you’re in essence look­ing at a brain in a vac­u­um. You’re look­ing at a brain by itself, and we don’t think enough about how pro­found­ly abstract that is, and what an abstrac­tion that is on the real­i­ty we actu­al­ly inhab­it, the real­i­ty of being a human and what human nature is all about.

The ques­tion now, and this is a fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tion to think about, is how can we take this research, which is so rig­or­ous, and how can we make it more real­is­tic.

Neu­ro­science has con­tributed so much in just a few decades to how we think about human nature and how we know our­selves. But how can we take that same rig­or, which has made this research so valu­able and, at the same time, make it a more real­is­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what it’s actu­al­ly like to be a human. After all, we’re a brain embed­ded in this larg­er set of struc­tures.

You can watch the rest of the inter­view here. But make sure you scroll down a lit­tle.

Wolfram on Wolfram|Alpha

in Web/Tech | May 20th, 2009

There has been a lot of buzz around Wolfram|Alpha, the “com­pu­ta­tion­al knowl­edge engine” that was unveiled ear­li­er this week. To under­stand what this new engine is all about, you can watch this short­er intro­duc­to­ry video, or watch the lengthy talk above by Stephen Wol­fram at Har­vard’s Berk­man Cen­ter for Inter­net & Soci­ety. As you’ll see, Wolfram|Alpha isn’t real­ly about search­ing the web. It’s more about about answer­ing ques­tions, mak­ing com­pu­ta­tions, or pro­vid­ing “facts about things,” as Wol­fram says. When it pro­vides answers, it’s cer­tain­ly impres­sive. When it does­n’t (which hap­pens not infre­quent­ly), it’s less so. If you’ve played with it, let us know your thoughts.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Lego Set

in Random | May 20th, 2009

A nice cre­ative use of Legos. For $55, you can build The Guggen­heim Muse­um and Falling­wa­ter, two Frank Lloyd Wright cre­ations, with Legos. That’s right up there with Clas­sic Pho­tographs Remade Lego Style.

via Boing­Bo­ing

The New Digital Book Marketplace at Scribd

in Amazon Kindle, Books, e-books | May 19th, 2009

The ground under­neath tra­di­tion­al pub­lish­ing has shift­ed once again. Scribd, the “YouTube of doc­u­ments,” has opened up a new store where authors can upload and sell their books. And here’s the clinch­er. You don’t need a cost­ly gad­get (like the Kin­dle) to read these dig­i­tal books. Any com­put­er with an inter­net con­nec­tion will do. And appar­ent­ly, you can use smart phones as well.

As not­ed in the LA Times, Kem­ble Scott, a best­selling author from San Fran­cis­co, has pub­lished his sec­ond book — The Sow­er — on Scribd, and it goes for $2 per copy. Of that, Scott will get to keep $1.60, which beats the cut he received for his first tra­di­tion­al­ly-pub­lished book. You can watch a video intro­duc­ing the new dig­i­tal book mar­ket­place above. You can also read more about it in The New York Times. If you have some thoughts about Scrib­d’s new move, let us know in the com­ments below.

Obama at Notre Dame

in Current Affairs | May 18th, 2009

The media want­ed to turn this into a bit­ter con­tro­ver­sy. But it turned out to be far less than that. Aside from a few heck­lers, the crowd at Notre Dame’s grad­u­a­tion gave Barack Oba­ma, the com­mence­ment speak­er, a gen­uine­ly warm recep­tion. And what the pres­i­dent gave back is a speech whose moral con­tent is hard to take issue with, no mat­ter where you sit on the polit­i­cal spec­trum. A uniter, not a divider. Part 1 above. And then Part 2 and  Part 3.

As a quick aside, while Notre Dame had the tact to give Oba­ma the per­func­to­ry hon­orary degree, Ari­zona State did­n’t, and here’s what Jon Stew­art’s Dai­ly Show had to say about that.

Ecological Intelligence

in Current Affairs, Science | May 17th, 2009

Daniel Gole­man has fol­lowed up his pre­vi­ous best­sellers, Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Social Intel­li­gence, with a new one — Eco­log­i­cal Intel­li­gence: How Know­ing the Hid­den Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Every­thing. Eco­log­i­cal intel­li­gence is a way for us to avert envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe, and it depends on our know­ing whether prod­ucts are tru­ly envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly or not. These days many prod­ucts look “green” — or they’re mar­ket­ed that way — but when you scratch the sur­face, you real­ize that these new prod­ucts are often more dam­ag­ing than the “non-green” prod­ucts they’re meant to replace. This week, Gole­man was inter­viewed by Bill Moy­ers. With this 17 minute video, you’ll get a quick intro­duc­tion to what “eco­log­i­cal intel­li­gence” means, and how you can become a smarter con­sumer. Along the way, Gole­man rec­om­mends two handy web sites that will let you assess the envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness of prod­ucts. One is called GoodGuide (which is also avail­able as a free iPhone app). The oth­er is SkinDeep.

Relat­ed Video:

The Sto­ry of Stuff in 20 Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Timothy Leary’s Wild Ride and the Folsom Prison Interview

in History | May 15th, 2009

Tim­o­thy Leary had a wild ride. He start­ed as a Har­vard psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor, then went coun­ter­cul­ture in 1960s and advo­cat­ed the ther­a­peu­tic and spir­i­tu­al ben­e­fits of LSD. Before too long, his legal prob­lems began. In 1965 and 1968, he was arrest­ed for pos­sess­ing mar­i­jua­na (less than a half ounce) and giv­en a 10 year prison sen­tence. But he escaped from a low secu­ri­ty prison and fled to Alge­ria with the help of The Weath­er­men (any­one remem­ber Bill Ayers?). He moved then to Switzer­land, Lebanon, and even­tu­al­ly Afghanistan. But, being the “most dan­ger­ous man in Amer­i­ca” accord­ing to Richard Nixon, Leary was deport­ed back to the US. And his next stop was Fol­som State Prison, where, start­ing in 1974, he was locked in soli­tary con­fine­ment and even housed next to Charles Man­son for a time. Above, we fea­ture a clip from a Fol­som prison inter­view. The com­plete 27 minute inter­view can be watched over at the Inter­net Archive, which has cre­at­ed a big Tim­o­thy Leary Video Archive. As a quick foot­note, Leary was released from prison in 1976 by Gov­er­nor Jer­ry Brown (who is now the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Cal­i­for­nia).

Relat­ed Video:

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: BBC Video

Grate­ful Dead Free Con­cert Archive

Getting Hired and Fired by The New Yorker, As Told by Tweets

in Media, Random | May 14th, 2009

After 17 years of climb­ing the lad­der, Dan Baum final­ly land­ed his dream job at The New York­er. But things did­n’t work out quite as he planned. On Twit­ter this week, Baum tells the sto­ry of his rise and fall. You can read a con­sol­i­dat­ed Twit­ter-style tran­script here. A pret­ty intrigu­ing look at what hap­pens inside the mag­a­zine world.

PS Find us on Twit­ter. We’re @openculture

Frank Lloyd Wright and Other Vintage TV

in Television | May 14th, 2009

Above, we fea­ture Frank Lloyd Wright, who appeared on What’s My Line?, Amer­i­ca’s longest-run­ning game show, back in June 1956. Dur­ing its eigh­teen sea­sons, the show fea­tured many cul­tur­al VIPs, includ­ing Alfred Hitch­cock, Sal­vador Dali, Grou­cho Marx, Carl Sand­burg and oth­ers.

Along sim­i­lar lines, it’s worth not­ing that YouTube now hosts a series of old-time tele­vi­sion shows. With­in this archive, you’ll find the com­plete episodes of The Lone Ranger, Bonan­za, You Bet Your Life, Burns and Allen, and Star Trek.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vin­tage Radio Archive: The Lone Ranger, Abbott & Costel­lo, and Bob Hope

Remembrance of German Things Past

in Film | May 13th, 2009

From Berlin, two ini­tia­tives from the Deutsche Kinemathek/Museum for Film and Tele­vi­sion.

The first is a col­lec­tion of pri­vate pho­tos and home movies of the Berlin Wall, its even­tu­al col­lapse, and the reuni­fi­ca­tion that fol­lowed. It’s a time­ly col­lec­tion, espe­cial­ly giv­en that the 20th anniver­sary of the Wal­l’s fall is com­ing in Novem­ber. Not only do the images and films encour­age the view­er to reflect on free­dom, but the items found in the col­lec­tion are open to tag­ging, most car­ry Cre­ative Com­mons licens­es, and the online exhib­it is built on inno­v­a­tive open source soft­ware from Col­lec­tive Access. Some of the most pop­u­lar images in the col­lec­tion can be found here.

The sec­ond is a new por­tal that the Kine­math­ek has built with Aus­tri­an, Czech, and French part­ners list­ing infor­ma­tion about more than 3,500 films–including clas­sics from Char­lie Chap­lin and Frank Capra–that were pre­sumed to be lost for­ev­er. The Ger­mans have seed­ed the list with infor­ma­tion about the 37 most sought-after Ger­man films, fea­tur­ing sev­er­al from Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and F.W. Mur­nau. All that’s miss­ing is a poster with a pic­ture: “Have you seen this film?”

Peter B. Kauf­man comes to us from Intel­li­gent Tele­vi­sion.