Give this a minute. It gets quite good once it gets going. Thanks Philip for sending this along. (Readers always feel free to send intelligent audio & video our way.)
Talent = 10,000 Hours + Luck
Take Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers: The Story of Success. Boil it down. Make it funny. And here you have our next video produced by Kirby Ferguson. NB that there are a few words sprinkled in that won’t be safe for work (unless you work in a special kind of place).
John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things (1961)
Rewind the videotape to 1961. John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Reggie Workman, and Elvin Jones hit the stage in Baden Baden, Germany and give you a very smooth version of “My Favorite Things.” A jazz classic, no doubt. And certainly a brilliant bit of archival footage.
Find us on Twitter: twitter.com/openculture
David Sedaris Reads “Of Mice and Men”
David Sedaris fans, this is a quick one for you. Here, Sedaris reads from his newish book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. The story is called “Of Mice and Men” (his story, not Steinbeck’s), and you can listen to it here or via iTunes.
And just for good measure, I’m throwing in a pretty good Sedaris impersonation. Call it “David Sedaris Delivers a Pizza.”
How Do You Use Open Courses?
I was asked by a newspaper reporter today how people, like you, are using open university courses (such as those found in our collection of Free Courses). And the truth is, I’m not always sure. So I figured, why not put the question out there and ask you. Here it goes: How are you using these courses? Are you listening to (or watching) these courses purely for personal enrichment? Or are you spending time with these courses for professional reasons? Are you trying to boost your resume/career with these courses? Also, during this recession, are these courses suddenly more attractive? Or were they attractive to you all along? Lastly, what topics do you generally tend to focus on? History? Literature? Computer Science? Physics?
Ok, folks, give a hand and let me know your thoughts. Please feel free to write your thoughts in the comments below, or write us at mail [at] openculture.com.
Learning Physics Through Free Courses
There’s something compelling about physics. Almost every major open courseware collection features a well-crafted physics course, and these courses consistently rank high on iTunesU and YouTube Edu. Let’s give a quick overview of the favorites.
At Stanford, we’re putting together a six course sequence called Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum. Taught by Leonard Susskind, one of America’s leading physics minds, this course traces the development of modern physics, moving from Newton to Einstein to Black Holes. So far, we’ve made five of the six courses available online (get them here), which amounts to 100 hours of free classroom footage. Hard to beat. (And, in case you’re wondering, the sixth course is being taped right now, and it will be coming online during the months to come.)
Another program that has received a fair amount of attention is Walter Lewin’s series of courses at MIT. As The New York Times has noted, Lewin has long had a cult following at MIT, and now, thanks to his physics courses, he’s achieved a minor degree of fame on the internet. His lectures, delivered with panache, can be found here:
- Physics I: Classical Mechanics — iTunes — Video Download — YouTube
- Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism — iTunes — Video Download — YouTube
- Physics III: Vibrations and Waves — iTunes — Video Download — YouTube
A third course to call your attention to is Richard Muller’s Physics for Future Presidents (Feed — MP3s — YouTube). The course comes out of UC Berkeley, where it’s an undergraduate favorite. (It’s also the basis of a recent book by the same name.) And the whole point here is to give citizens the scientific knowledge they need to understand critical issues facing our society.
Finally, another course worth reviewing is Fundamentals of Physics, which is taught by Ramamurti Shankar and it’s part of Yale’s Open Course initiative.
UPDATE: Since we originally created this collection, Bill Gates has posted Richard Feynman’s great lectures online. Learn more here.
All of these physics courses, and many more, can be found in our collection of Free Courses. You can also find the courses in our section called Physics: Free Courses.
Open Culture Now at OpenCulture.com … and a Small Favor to Ask
Here’s a quick announcement, and please take note. Starting today, you can find Open Culture at www.openculture.com. Our old domain (oculture.com) will still work, as will old links. But they’ll forward (hopefully) seamlessly to the new domain. Why the change? Because it seemed time to have the url actually match the site’s name.
If you encounter any technical problems, please let us know at ma**@*********re.com. Also, let me please ask a quick favor from you. If you’ve previously linked to our site, could you please update your links to reflect the new domain? Simply change oculture to openculture, and keep the rest of the link the same, and you’re good to go. This will be a big help to us. Meanwhile, if you’ve never told a friend about Open Culture, now would be a good time to spread the word.
Lastly, I want to extend a big thanks to Eric Oberle for making this switch possible and for generally keeping the site running smoothly. Without Eric, I would have blown this site to pieces long ago. We’re only still around because of him. Thanks ‑e!
Crime Fiction: Download and Listen
Seth Harwood is bringing crime writing into the new world of Web 2.0. Since 2006, Harwood has been podcasting his own crime fiction, including a book called Jack Wakes Up, which you can download (for free) via iTunes, RSS Feed, or MP3. (Random House will be releasing Jack Wakes Up in print next month for $10.25.) This experience got Seth thinking about the power of podcasts, and he soon took the next logical step, launching Crimewav.com, a website devoted to podcasting crime stories (not just his own) to an audience worldwide. On Crimewav, you’ll find some gems, including Dashiell Hammett’s first story (1923), “The Barber and His Wife” (mp3). Plus, you’ll stumble upon a deleted chapter from Michael Connelly’s latest NYT bestseller, The Brass Verdict, read by Connelly himself (mp3). Lots of good pieces to explore. And if this sort of fiction is your thing, then let me direct you to two other good resources. First, an archive of Agatha Christie’s radio mysteries, and then the free works of bestselling horror author, Scott Sigler. Enjoy.
Good Novels For Hard Times
Not long ago, I flagged a piece by Leon Wieseltier called “The Tolstoy Bailout,” and it makes a great case for why great books matter, especially in these hard times. As he put it, “In tough times, of all times, the worth of the humanities needs no justifying. The reason is that it will take many kinds of sustenance to help people through these troubles. Many people will now have to fall back more on inner resources than on outer ones. They are in need of loans, but they are also in need of meanings…. We are in need of fiscal policy and spiritual policy. And spiritually speaking, literature is a bailout, and so is art, and philosophy, and history, and the rest. … Regression analysis will not get us through the long night. We need to know more about the human heart than the study of consumer behavior can teach. These are the hours when the old Penguin paperbacks must stand us in good stead. It was for now that we read them then.”
With that in mind, I present you with a handy list, “Good Novels for Hard Times,” just published by the San Francisco Chronicle.
You may also want to visit our list of Life Changing Books, as determined by our readers.
ArtBabble: The New Destination for Art Videos
This week, ArtBabble, a new video website for the museum & art world, opened its virtual doors. Created by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, ArtBabble brings together videos from various arts institutions (MoMA, SFMOMA, PBS, the New Public Library, etc) and presents them to users in a clean, organized way. The footage, often produced in high definition, features interviews with artists and curators, documentaries and art installation videos. And, collectively, they give you a more direct way to “experience the life of museums.” To learn more about ArtBabble, you can read a piece in The NY Times.
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Twitter in the University Classroom
From The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Wired Campus” Blog:
“Cole W. Camplese, director of education-technology services at Pennsylvania State University at University Park, prefers to teach in classrooms with two screens — one to project his slides, and another to project a Twitter stream of notes from students. He knows he is inviting distraction — after all, he’s essentially asking students to pass notes during class. But he argues that the additional layer of communication will make for richer class discussions…
Once students warmed to the idea that their professors actually wanted them to chat during class, students begin floating ideas or posting links to related materials, the professor says. In some cases, a shy student would type an observation or question on Twitter, and others in the class would respond with notes encouraging the student to raise the topic out loud. Other times, one of the professors would see a link posted by a student and stop class to discuss it.
Get the full story here, and feel free to tell us about other educational uses of Twitter. Just add them to the comments below. Lastly, you can find us on Twitter here.
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Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
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