Shark Surfing: File Under Novel Ways to Spend Your Weekend

in Random | May 9th, 2008

Just when you’ve thought that you’ve seen it all … Fake or real? I am guess­ing it’s the lat­ter.

(PS This has noth­ing to do with things cul­tur­al.)

via The Dai­ly Dish

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Wikipedia Goes Commercial

in Media | May 7th, 2008

The Ger­man pub­lish­er Ber­tels­mann announced that it will pub­lish annu­al­ly a 1,000 page edi­tion of Wikipedia start­ing next Sep­tem­ber. To be called “The One-Vol­ume Wikipedia Ency­clo­pe­dia,” it will sell for 19.95 euros (or rough­ly $32 U.S.) and fea­ture some of the most pop­u­lar arti­cles from the Ger­man ver­sion of Wikipedia. One euro per copy will go back to Wiki­me­dia, which runs Wikipedia. But noth­ing, as Read­writeweb notes, will go to the writ­ers who actu­al­ly cre­ate the ency­clo­pe­dia entries.

Because Wikipedia is pub­lished under a free license, its con­tent can be freely used and com­mer­cial­ized. And that’s pre­cise­ly what Ber­tels­mann plans to do. In Wikipedia, Ber­tels­mann has found a moth­er­lode of free con­tent it. It can then mon­e­tize that con­tent, keep most of the prof­its (a pub­lish­er’s dream), and kick 5% back to Wiki­me­dia, most like­ly as a way to under­cut the crit­ics. It’s all per­haps legal. But does it feel a bit unseem­ly? Just a touch. Or maybe you dis­agree?

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Video Lectures for the Science Mind

in Science | May 6th, 2008

We talk a good deal here about free uni­ver­si­ty cours­es and lec­tures, and most­ly we end up talk­ing about the human­i­ties. But here’s a good excuse to talk about the sci­ences, and par­tic­u­lar­ly about com­put­er sci­ence. A project start­ed in Slove­nia, Videolectures.net pro­vides “free and open access of high qual­i­ty video lec­tures pre­sent­ed by dis­tin­guished schol­ars and sci­en­tists at the most impor­tant and promi­nent events…” Among the most pop­u­lar lec­tures, you’ll find lec­tures along these lines: Fuzzy Log­ic, Where the Social Web Meets the Seman­tic Web, and an Inter­view with Tim Bern­ers Lee. But, you’ll also stum­ble upon a few non-sci­en­tif­ic talks giv­en by some well known names. Take for exam­ple Noam Chom­sky (Force, law and the prospects of sur­vival) and Umber­to Eco (On The His­to­ry of Ugli­ness).

For more uni­ver­si­ty con­tent, vis­it our Uni­ver­si­ty Pod­cast Col­lec­tion and our list of Free Online Cours­es, which includes a good deal of sci­en­tif­ic con­tent. Also see our Sci­ence Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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Junot Diaz, New Pulitzer Prize Winner, Speaks @ Google

in Books | May 5th, 2008

Last week, Junot Diaz land­ed the Pulitzer Prize for fic­tion with his debut nov­el, The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao. The book, which Diaz took 11 years to write, also won the Nation­al Book Crit­ics Cir­cle Award for best nov­el of 2007. Below, we have Diaz speak­ing last year about his prize win­ning book at Google. (Get more Google author talks here.) You can also catch his inter­view on NPR’s Fresh air (iTunes — Feed — Stream here).

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Introducing The Straddler

in Literature | May 5th, 2008

A quick heads up: The first issue of The Strad­dler, a new quar­ter­ly online mag­a­zine, has just been launched. If the edi­tors have their way, it will be the “anti-mag­a­zine of our day.” In the first issue, you’ll find:

  • an essay explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between an Emi­ly Dick­in­son poem, the New Testament’s Book of Matthew, the Get­tys­burg Address, and George Bush’s 2007 Memo­r­i­al Day speech.
  • a con­sid­er­a­tion of the Amer­i­can gang­ster film in light of the Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic sys­tem;
  • a med­i­ta­tion on works by Anne Car­son and recent Nobelist Doris Less­ing; and also
  • some orig­i­nal art­work, poet­ry, and fic­tion.

Thanks Elaine for the heads up.

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How Wikis (and Other Stuff) Work in Plain English

in Uncategorized | May 4th, 2008

This video gives you the quick gist of how wikis work, and it’s part of a larg­er series of videos on YouTube — called The Com­mon­craft Show — that explain the inner-work­ings of var­i­ous tech items. Recent videos delve into the mechan­ics of Twit­ter, RSS Feeds, social net­work­ing, and online pho­to shar­ing. We’ve added the video below to our YouTube playlist and the Com­mon­craft series to our larg­er col­lec­tion called 60 Signs of Intel­li­gent Life on YouTube. For oth­er good videos that demys­ti­fy things tech­ni­cal, you may want to check out this and this.

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The Kindle is Back in Supply

in Uncategorized | May 4th, 2008

Just a quick fyi: Ama­zon’s dig­i­tal book read­er, the Kin­dle, is final­ly back in sup­ply. If you’ve been wait­ing since March, now is your chance.

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This American Life on TV: Season II Starts Sunday

in Television | May 4th, 2008

A quick fyi: Sea­son 2 of the tele­vi­sion ver­sion of This Amer­i­can Life starts tonight at 10 pm on Show­time, and we’ve post­ed below the brief trail­er for the new show. Mean­while, the radio ver­sion remains the most down­loaded pod­cast on iTunes ( iTunes — Feed — Web Site). It has been that way for a long time. And you can always find it in our Ideas and Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (and Other Classic Films Online)

in Film | May 1st, 2008

It’s not exact­ly the same as watch­ing a film on the sil­ver screen. But you get what you pay for. Below, we have Frank Capra’s 1939 clas­sic, Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton, star­ring Jim­my Stew­art and Claude Rains. For those who cling to the hope that democ­ra­cies can rid them­selves of cor­rup­tion and spe­cial inter­ests, this film is for you, and it also appears in our col­lec­tion of free online movies.

Get a high­er qual­i­ty copy of Capra’s clas­sic on DVD here.

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How to Turn Your iPod Into Anything (75+ Tutorials)

in Apple, Podcasts | May 1st, 2008

Ear­li­er this week, Trav­el Hack­er post­ed this col­lec­tion of tuto­ri­als explain­ing how to max­i­mize the use of your iPod. And it hap­pens to include one of our ear­li­er posts: Turn Your iPod into a Trav­el Guide: 20 Trav­el Pod­casts.

Trav­el Hack­er could have just as eas­i­ly includ­ed some of our oth­er pop­u­lar pieces. Take for exam­ple:

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One Day, One World, United by Film

in Film | April 30th, 2008

In 2006, doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Jehane Nou­jaim (Con­trol Room) made a wish at the TED con­fer­ence (see below) — for world peace. For Nou­jaim, peace starts with cul­tur­al exchange, with get­ting to know one anoth­er. And since we all can’t trav­el, anoth­er way to achieve this is through film and its abil­i­ty to “take you into new worlds” and “across bor­ders.”

Two years lat­er, Nou­jaim’s wish may come true, and the uni­fy­ing pow­er of film will be put to the test. May 10 marks Pangea Day, a day when peo­ple from around the world (from Mum­bai and Cairo to Kigali, Rio and LA) will come togeth­er and watch the same films made by var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al film­mak­ers. “Watch par­ties” will be held world­wide, and the event will be broad­cast via web­cast and mobile phone. Below, we’ve also post­ed a movie trail­er intro­duc­ing the con­cept of Pangea Day. For more infor­ma­tion, click here. (Thanks Natasha for the heads up.)

Nou­jaim at TED

Pangea Day Trail­er

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