Steve Jobs Demos the First Macintosh in 1984

in Apple | February 5th, 2009

We orig­i­nal­ly post­ed this video back in 2009, and it seems like the right time to bring it back. It cap­tures the first of many times that Steve Jobs thrilled audi­ences with the promise of what tech­nol­o­gy could deliv­er. The video takes you back to Jan­u­ary 1984, when Jobs demoed the first Mac­in­tosh. A young Jobs, sport­ing a bow tie and a fuller head of hair, could bare­ly hold back his smile and some tears, and the crowd sim­ply could­n’t con­tain its enthu­si­asm, giv­ing Jobs a five-minute stand­ing ova­tion. That’s where the video ends, fad­ing hap­pi­ly and suit­ably to black. We’ll miss you Steve.

For anoth­er great Steve Jobs moment, don’t miss his inspir­ing Stan­ford 2005 grad­u­a­tion talk where he dis­cussed his approach to liv­ing and urged the young grad­u­ates to “Stay Hun­gry, Stay Fool­ish.” So far as com­mence­ment speech­es go, it’s hard to beat this one.

Google Maps the Oceans, Mars and Time

in Google | February 3rd, 2009

Giv­en that water cov­ers rough­ly 70% of our plan­et, it makes sense that Google Earth should take the oceans into account. Thanks to a part­ner­ship with the Cal­i­for­nia Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, Google Earth now offers, accord­ing to the com­pa­ny blog, detailed maps of the ocean floor “so you can actu­al­ly drop below the sur­face and explore the nooks and cran­nies of the seafloor in 3D.” You’ll also get “thou­sands of data points includ­ing videos and images of ocean life, details on the best surf spots, logs of real ocean expe­di­tions, and much more.”

In this lat­est release of Google Earth, you’ll also find detailed maps of the plan­et Mars, plus (rather amaz­ing­ly) some func­tion­al­i­ty that lets you see how land­scapes have changed over time. How does San Fran­cis­co look today as com­pared to 50 years ago? You should now be able to find out.

You can get more infor­ma­tion on these new addi­tions here on Google’s Blog. Also, you can see a video report from The Wall Street Jour­nal that gives you a visu­al taste of Google Earth 5.0.

Also, as a quick reminder, you can now fol­low us on Twit­ter!

Jon Stewart on the Bizarro World of Wall Street

in Comedy, Current Affairs | February 2nd, 2009

As usu­al, Stew­art cuts to the chase and says what has to be said. And gets a good laugh along the way…

Gopnik on Darwin & Lincoln: Read the First Chapter

in Books | February 1st, 2009

We not­ed last week that New York­er writer Adam Gop­nik has just released a new book, Angels and Ages, which exam­ines the unique stamp that Dar­win and Lin­coln placed on our mod­ern times. Thanks to The New York Times, you can now read the first chap­ter of Gop­nik’s book for free. It will give you a feel for his writ­ing, which nev­er dis­ap­points. As a quick aside, I should men­tion that the Times has a sec­tion called First Chap­ters. It gives you free access to the first pages of many new and impor­tant books. A good resource to keep your eye on.

The Lincoln Revival

in History | January 30th, 2009

Abra­ham Lin­coln has nev­er exact­ly gone out of fash­ion. More books have been writ­ten about him than any oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dent. But even so, he has recent­ly dom­i­nat­ed our thoughts, our pub­lic dis­course, in a way that we haven’t seen in some time. And that’s because he start­ed some­thing in Amer­i­can his­to­ry that end­ed with the inau­gu­ra­tion of Barack Oba­ma last week.

To mark the occa­sion, I want­ed to high­light an excel­lent series of pod­casts that focus­es on Lin­coln and the Civ­il War. Cre­at­ed by the Gilder Lehrman Insti­tute of Amer­i­can His­to­ry, this series fea­tures talks by some of Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing schol­ars of the Civ­il War peri­od, and at least two Pulitzer Prize win­ners. Among the lec­tures, you’ll find the fol­low­ing:

• Team of Rivals: The Polit­i­cal Genius of Abra­ham Lin­coln (iTune­sU) — Doris Kearns Good­win
• Cross­roads of Free­dom: Anti­etam (iTune­sU) — James McPher­son
• No Par­ty Now: Pol­i­tics in The Civ­il War North (iTune­sU) — Adam I.P. Smith
• Lin­col­n’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion (iTune­sU) — Allen Guel­zo
• Abra­ham Lin­coln: A Biog­ra­pher’s Notes (iTune­sU) — Richard Car­war­dine
• Race and Reunion: The Civ­il War in Amer­i­can Mem­o­ry (iTune­sU) — David Blight

For those of you who don’t want to work with iTunes, you can access these pre­sen­ta­tions and more at the Gilder Lehrman web­site here. You can also find here a page entire­ly ded­i­cat­ed Abra­ham Lin­coln and relat­ed con­tent.

P.S. Yet more proof that Lin­coln is now every­where. New York­er writer Adam Gop­nik has just released a new book, Angels and Ages, which exam­ines the unique stamp that Dar­win and Lin­coln placed on our mod­ern times. (Both men, by the way, were born on the same day 200 years ago next month.) You can lis­ten here to an inter­view with Gop­nik that was record­ed yes­ter­day.

Talking with Steven Soderbergh

in Film | January 29th, 2009

Here’s a piece from one of my col­leagues, Scott Hutchins. Take it away Scott…

Steven Soder­bergh was in San Fran­cis­co as part of the roll out for his four-and-a-half-hour, two-part epic Che, about the Argen­tin­ian doc­tor turned rev­o­lu­tion­ary Che Gue­vara.  Gue­vara is no stranger to Amer­i­can screens, espe­cial­ly after the pop­u­lar film, The Motor­cy­cle Diaries. So we won­dered why Soder­bergh want­ed to make anoth­er movie about him.  Soder­bergh is wide­ly con­sid­ered one of the most tal­ent­ed direc­tors at work in Hol­ly­wood today, but even some of his fans are scratch­ing their heads over this most recent film.  In the New York­er, film review­er Antho­ny Lane says, ‘I still have no idea what tru­ly quick­ens his heart.’  In this inter­view, we cer­tain­ly dis­cov­ered what gets his blood pump­ing.  Soder­bergh (who also direct­ed Traf­fic, Erin Brokovich, and Sex, Lies and Video­tape) dis­cuss­es his shak­en faith in the pow­er of film, what he has in com­mon with Fidel Cas­tro, and how noth­ing will ever be solved in the Mid­dle East as long as monothe­ists are involved. You can read the full inter­view at therumpus.net.

Bob Dylan Goes a Little Commercial

in Music | January 29th, 2009

Stephen in the UK high­light­ed a piece in Guardian that will inter­est Bob Dylan fans. It begins:

Bob Dylan has giv­en rare per­mis­sion for his music to be used in a TV com­mer­cial.

Protest song Blowin’ in the Wind will be used to rein­force a mes­sage of change in a TV cam­paign for eth­i­cal bank­ing and retail firm the Co-oper­a­tive Group.

The song, a 1960s anthem for those dis­af­fect­ed with the estab­lish­ment, is thought to be the first track Dylan has allowed to appear in a UK TV ad.

Blowin’ in the Wind is being used to under­pin a mul­ti­mil­lion-pound relaunch of the Co-oper­a­tive Group’s image.

The TV cam­paign, which breaks next month, aims to show­case the com­pa­ny’s diverse inter­ests from food, funer­als and trav­el to phar­ma­cies and finan­cial ser­vices.

In response to all of this, Stephen adds: “The Co-op is eth­i­cal; The Co-op sup­ports Fair­Trade; The Co-op is still a co-oper­a­tive; They sure ain’t Vic­to­ri­a’s Secret.” Thanks Stephen.

Relat­ed Bob Dylan Con­tent:

When Bob Dylan Went Elec­tric: New­port, 1965

Bob Dylan & John­ny Cash Togeth­er in 1969: Free MP3s

Bob Dylan — Like A Rolling Stone 1966

Academic Earth Goes Live

in Web/Tech | January 28th, 2009

The open edu­ca­tion move­ment got a lit­tle stronger this week with the launch of Aca­d­e­m­ic Earth. Run by Richard Lud­low, a new social entre­pre­neur only a cou­ple of years out of Yale, Aca­d­e­m­ic Earth brings video lec­tures from lead­ing uni­ver­si­ties into a cen­tral­ized user-friend­ly site. What you’ll see here is an impres­sive ear­ly imple­men­ta­tion of where Aca­d­e­m­ic Earth plans to go. Take con­tent-rich videos from uni­ver­si­ties, orga­nize the videos well, make the visu­al expe­ri­ence attrac­tive, add per­son­al cus­tomiza­tion func­tion­al­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to engage with the con­tent, and you have a very use­ful ser­vice to bring to the world. I first start­ed talk­ing with Richard back in the fall and am real­ly glad to see his site now ready for show time. Check it out in beta and watch it grow.

Google and the Path To Enlightenment

in Books, Google, Harvard, Web/Tech | January 26th, 2009

In the lat­est edi­tion of The New York Review of Books, Robert Darn­ton, a promi­nent French his­to­ri­an who now runs Har­vard’s Library sys­tem, puts out a tan­ta­liz­ing idea: “Google can make the Enlight­en­ment dream come true.” Hav­ing set­tled its law­suit with pub­lish­ers and authors, Google is now steam­ing ahead with its effort to dig­i­tize mil­lions of books and cre­ate a vast dig­i­tal library avail­able to indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions every­where on a sub­scrip­tion basis. (The fees apply to copy­right­ed texts only, not to those in the pub­lic domain.) This opens up the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Google can ful­fill the Enlight­en­ment promise of democ­ra­tiz­ing knowl­edge, enrich­ing the intel­lec­tu­al mar­ket­place, and dif­fus­ing the ideas that have the great­est social ben­e­fit. The ques­tion is whether Google will actu­al­ly make this hap­pen. Will Google’s pri­vate inter­ests line up with the pub­lic inter­est? Will the com­pa­ny keep the dig­i­tal library open and ful­fill the hopes of Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, and Jef­fer­son? Or will the pur­suit of prof­it grad­u­al­ly lead Google to dri­ve up prices and close off access? Giv­en the recent con­duct of the bank­ing com­mu­ni­ty, it’s hard to remain opti­mistic that mar­ket-dri­ven insti­tu­tions will act altru­is­ti­cal­ly. Yes, Darn­ton acknowl­edges, Google seems to be start­ing off with good inten­tions. But what the com­pa­ny does long-term with its near monop­oly on online infor­ma­tion is any­one’s guess, and it’s entire­ly up to Google to do the right thing. For more on the Enlight­en­ment and Google’s online book ini­tia­tive, you should dig deep­er into Darn­ton’s piece. Also you can join The New York Review of Books group on Face­book, or fol­low it on Twit­ter.

Download New Horror Stories Free

in Books | January 25th, 2009

Toron­to writer Robert Boy­czuk has released the short sto­ry col­lec­tion Hor­ror Sto­ry and Oth­er Hor­ror Sto­ries in trade paper­back. You can pur­chase it on Ama­zon, or down­load it in a free PDF for­mat here. Also now avail­able is a free audio/mp3 ver­sion of Boy­czuk’s short sto­ry, “Falling”. These finds were high­light­ed by Cory Doc­torow over at Boing­Boing. Doc­torow has else­where called Boy­czuk a “supreme­ly tal­ent­ed short-sto­ry writer.” For more infor­ma­tion on all this, browse this press release.