Tina Fey Has Sarah Palin Down

in Comedy, Video - Politics/Society | September 14th, 2008

File this under comedy/satire, Tina Fey has her Sarah Palin impres­sion nailed. If the video below ceas­es to work, you can always watch the clip (in bet­ter res­o­lu­tion, I might add) right here.

Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates Connect with Everyday People (Long Version)

in Television | September 12th, 2008

From the new series of Microsoft ads…

New Yorker Fiction Podcast: Wolff Reads Dog Heaven

in Books | September 11th, 2008

In the lat­est install­ment of The New York­er Fic­tion pod­cast (iTunes Feed Web Site), Tobias Wolff (author of Old School) reads Stephanie Vaughn’s short sto­ry “Dog Heav­en.”  If you’ve nev­er heard him before, Wolff gives his own work and oth­ers a very good read (see our ear­li­er piece.).

Though the pod­cast is not yet avail­able on iTunes, you can lis­ten to the mp3 right here. Also, I’d encour­age you to check out the var­i­ous New York­er pod­casts found in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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Download Cory Doctorow’s Technology Writings (Free New Book)

in Books, Business, Technology | September 10th, 2008

A quick fyi: Boing­Bo­ing blog­ger Cory Doc­torow has released a new col­lec­tion of essays called Con­tent: Select­ed Essays on Tech­nol­o­gy, Cre­ativ­i­ty, Copy­right, and the Future of the Future. As he sum­ma­rizes it, the book fea­tures “28 essays about every­thing from copy­right and DRM to the lay­out of phone-key­pads, the fal­la­cy of the seman­tic web, the nature of futur­ism, the neces­si­ty of pri­va­cy in a dig­i­tal world, the rea­son to love Wikipedia, the mir­a­cle of fan­f­ic, and many oth­er sub­jects.” You can down­load a free PDF ver­sion here, or pur­chase a hard copy here. Also don’t miss the free tech/copyright writ­ings by Lar­ry Lessig below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load a Free Copy of Cory Doctorow’s Best­seller, Lit­tle Broth­er

Free Down­load of Cory Doctorow’s Graph­ic Nov­els

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Cul­ture: Avail­able in Text or Audio (For Free)

The Future of Ideas: Down­load Your Free Copy (and More)

Download Michael Moore’s New Film For Free

in Current Affairs, Film, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | September 5th, 2008

Michael Moore is get­ting wise to the virtues of free/open cul­ture. Start­ing Sep­tem­ber 23, you can down­load his new film — Slack­er Upris­ing — via the web for free. The unfor­tu­nate rub is that this down­load will only be avail­able to US and Cana­di­an res­i­dents, and it will remain free via the web for three weeks. You can get more info and sign up to down­load the film here. Below, you can also pre­view the film, which (sur­prise, sur­prise) ties into the Amer­i­can elec­tion.

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When Comedy Keeps American Politics Honest

in Comedy, Politics | September 4th, 2008

A rather sad com­men­tary on the integri­ty, depth and sin­cer­i­ty of the Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. But, it’s fun­ny and it’s Fri­day, so here it goes. Take it away John Stew­art (and thanks for the tip Lar­ry):

PS Check out this WSJ arti­cle, The Biol­o­gy of Ide­ol­o­gy, which sug­gests that our polit­i­cal choic­es may be shaped by genet­ics.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jon Stewart’s “Dai­ly Show” Now Online: 1999 — Present

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Color Photos From 1909

in Art | September 3rd, 2008

“Col­or film was non-exis­tent in 1909 Rus­sia, yet in that year a pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii embarked on a pho­to­graph­ic sur­vey of his home­land and cap­tured hun­dreds of pho­tos in full, vivid col­or. His pho­to­graph­ic plates were black and white, but he had devel­oped an inge­nious pho­to­graph­ic tech­nique which allowed him to use them to pro­duce accu­rate col­or images.”

To view the pho­tos click here, and learn how he accom­plished this, click here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Learn the Art of Pho­tog­ra­phy: The Nikon Way
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America Needs More Palin … Michael Palin, That Is

in Comedy, Video - Arts & Culture | September 3rd, 2008

Below, some vin­tage Mon­ty Python footage… (And see our relat­ed piece: 150 Mon­ty Python Sketch­es.

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500 KM Asteroid Hits Earth

in Science, Video - Science | September 3rd, 2008

The Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel has pro­duced a rather impres­sive (though cer­tain­ly bleak) sim­u­la­tion of what would hap­pen:

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iPods in Iraq

in Apple, Language Lessons | September 1st, 2008

There’s a curi­ous lit­tle piece over at TUAW.com. Appar­ent­ly Amer­i­can sol­diers in Iraq and Afghanistan are being sup­plied (on a lim­it­ed basis) with iPods equipped with spe­cial soft­ware that will help them com­mu­ni­cate in Iraqi Ara­bic, Kur­dish, Dari and Push­to. The soft­ware will hand­i­ly “dis­play a pho­net­ic trans­la­tion, speak a phrase through an attached speak­er, dis­play the phrase in local writ­ing, or demon­strate hand ges­tures that are com­mon in Ara­bic.” Sure­ly this is a can­di­date for our once pop­u­lar piece: 10 Unex­pect­ed Uses of the iPhone.

If you want to learn a good 40 lan­guages with your iPod, see our For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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