Drawing Obama, Thinking Lincoln

in Uncategorized | February 1st, 2008

Watch the work of a satir­i­cal illus­tra­tor in action over at The New York­er.

How Camera Lenses are Made

in Art | January 29th, 2008

On a relat­ed note, also see Learn the Art of Pho­tog­ra­phy: The Nikon Way

Cha-Cha-Changes: Politicians Sing Bowie

in Current Affairs | January 29th, 2008

You need to give it a minute:

via The Dai­ly Dish

Earthrise & Earthset in HD

in Science, Video - Science | January 23rd, 2008

In Novem­ber, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon with a high-def cam­era onboard. You can see the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set” by check­ing out these still images (Earth­rise and Earth­set) or watch­ing the video footage below, which has also been added to our YouTube playlist.

Sub­scribe to Our Feed

Comments We Love to Hear

in Uncategorized | January 22nd, 2008

In one of our recent pieces, we high­light­ed a video that fea­tured law pro­fes­sor Cass Sun­stein inter­pret­ing the sec­ond amend­ment and ques­tion­ing whether it con­ferred the right to bear arms. In response, one of our read­ers offered this com­ment:

“Reeeeeal­ly good talk. My friend and I sat down to watch it, and before we start­ed, we laid out our posi­tions, basi­cal­ly one on each side of the debate. Sun­stein pro­ceeds to explain how we’re both wrong. Awe­some.”

I men­tion this sim­ply because it’s great to see the media (videos/podcasts) fea­tured here being used in this way. It’s great to see read­ers real­ly engag­ing with the mate­r­i­al and allow­ing it to shape their views. It’s the ulti­mate com­pli­ment in some ways. Thanks Ben.

Sub­scribe to Our Feed

Jimi Hendrix Vintage Footage

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | January 17th, 2008

Astound­ing­ly good footage of Hen­drix play­ing Voodoo Chile live. The date is 1969, in Lon­don. (Video is added to our YouTube Playlist.)

Resolving the Omnivore’s Dilemma: Pollan’s New Book

in Books | January 17th, 2008

Com­ing off of the run­away suc­cess of Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma, Michael Pol­lan has just pub­lished a log­i­cal sequel — In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Man­i­festo. His new book tells us what to eat, what not to eat, and how to stay healthy. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, his advice can be boiled down to a few words: “Eat food. Not too much. Most­ly plants.” But there is obvi­ous­ly much more to it than that. To fill in the gaps, you can buy the book or lis­ten to two recent inter­views with Pol­lan:

1.) The Leonard Lopate Show (Jan­u­ary 9) : MP3 — iTunes — Feed — Web Site 

2.) Sci­ence Fri­day (Jan­u­ary 4): MP3 — iTunes — Feed — Web Site

Sub­scribe to Our Feed

Library of Congress Adds 3,000 Photos to Flickr

in Uncategorized | January 16th, 2008

Check them out here.

via Life­hack­er

Central Intelligence: From Ants to the Web

in Science, Video - Science | January 16th, 2008

Some­times order seem­ing­ly comes out of nowhere. It just mate­ri­al­izes. It hap­pens in ant colonies, in cities, on the web, in the brain. This episode of Radio Lab (MP3 — iTunes — Feed) takes a fas­ci­nat­ing look at how groups orga­nize and direct them­selves with­out the help of a leader, or some kind of cen­tral com­mand. The show includes con­ver­sa­tions with biol­o­gist E.O. Wil­son, econ­o­mist James Surowiec­ki, and neu­rol­o­gists Oliv­er Sacks and Christof Koch. Also includ­ed in the mix is Deb­o­rah Gor­don, a Stan­ford pro­fes­sor who has spent years study­ing ants, which are indi­vid­u­al­ly incom­pe­tent but do remark­ably com­plex things as colonies. There’s more to ants than you’d first think, so we’ve also includ­ed below Deb­o­rah Gor­don’s pre­sen­ta­tion at the TED Talks con­fer­ence. It’s called “How Do Ants Know What to Do?” And it’s added to our YouTube Playlist.

The Long Shadow of Henry Kissinger

in History, Politics | January 16th, 2008

Although he has­n’t served in gov­ern­ment for more than 30 years, Hen­ry Kissinger still exer­cis­es more pow­er inter­na­tion­al­ly than Jim­my Carter, George HW Bush and Bill Clin­ton com­bined. That’s a strong claim, and it comes from Pro­fes­sor Jere­mi Suri, who has a new book out on the for­mer Sec­re­tary of State. In a wide-rang­ing and fast mov­ing con­ver­sa­tion (MP3 — iTunes — Feed), Suri talks about Kissinger’s lega­cy and how his realpoli­tik for­eign pol­i­cy shapes Amer­i­can deci­sion mak­ing down to this very day.

Sub­scribe to Our Feed