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!

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The Historical Jesus on Your iPod

in History, Religion | February 2nd, 2009

I men­tioned this course over two years ago, back when the Open Cul­ture had about five read­ers. And giv­en that the top­ic is hard­ly out of date, I fig­ured that it would­n’t hurt to bring it back to the sur­face. The course comes out of Stan­ford’s Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies Pro­gram (where I help give a hand). The top­ic is the real Jesus. The pro­fes­sor is Thomas Shee­han. You can access it on iTune­sU and oth­er­wise find it in our col­lec­tion of free online cours­es. Final­ly, the course descrip­tion is here:

Who was the his­tor­i­cal Jesus of Nazareth? What did he actu­al­ly say and do, as con­trast­ed with what ear­ly Chris­tians (e.g., Paul and the Gospel writ­ers) believed that he said and did? What did the man Jesus actu­al­ly think of him­self and of his mis­sion, as con­trast­ed with the mes­sian­ic and even divine claims that the New Tes­ta­ment makes about him? In short, what are the dif­fer­ences — and con­ti­nu­ities — between the Jesus who lived and died in his­to­ry and the Christ who lives on in believ­ers’ faith?

Over the last four decades his­tor­i­cal schol­ar­ship on Jesus and his times — whether con­duct­ed by Jews, Chris­tians, or non-believ­ers — has arrived at a strong con­sen­sus about what this unde­ni­ably his­tor­i­cal fig­ure (born ca. 4 BCE, died ca. 30 CE) said and did, and how he pre­sent­ed him­self and his mes­sage to his Jew­ish audi­ence. Often that his­tor­i­cal evi­dence about Jesus does not eas­i­ly dove­tail with the tra­di­tion­al doc­trines of Chris­tian­i­ty. How then might one adju­di­cate those con­flict­ing claims?

This is a course about his­to­ry, not about faith or the­ol­o­gy. It will exam­ine the best avail­able lit­er­ary and his­tor­i­cal evi­dence about Jesus and his times and will dis­cuss method­olo­gies for inter­pret­ing that evi­dence, in order to help par­tic­i­pants make their own judg­ments and draw their own con­clu­sions.

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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…

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Bob Dylan at The Super Bowl

in Music, Television | February 1st, 2009

As you’ll recall, we men­tioned a few days ago that Bob Dylan allowed “Blowin’ in the Wind” to be used in a British com­mer­cial. Nev­er before had Dylan allowed that to hap­pen, at least in Britain. For one of our read­ers, there was a small sil­ver lin­ing. The com­pa­ny using the clas­sic song (the Co-oper­a­tive Group) has some clear virtues. “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.”

Fast for­ward a few days, and we strange­ly find Dylan doing a Super Bowl ad for Pep­si — not the worst com­pa­ny in the world, but also not the best. Above, Dylan and Will.i.am (Black Eye Peas) sing a song that they wrote specif­i­cal­ly for the Super Bowl ad, and you might even­tu­al­ly find it being sold on iTunes. I can hard­ly wait.

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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.

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Follow Open Culture on Twitter!

in Uncategorized | January 31st, 2009

This is just a quick note to let you know that you can now fol­low Open Cul­ture on Twit­ter. If you sub­scribe, you’ll know when­ev­er we post some­thing new on the site. To get going, cre­ate a Twit­ter account (if you don’t already have one), access our Twit­ter page here, and then click the word “Fol­low” beneath our logo, and you’ll be all set. If you’re won­der­ing what Twit­ter is all about, you can watch this handy video.

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Beethoven Symphony No. 5, Arturo Toscanini, 1952

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | January 31st, 2009

Here’s a nice vin­tage clip that comes out of a YouTube Chan­nel called The Great Per­form­ers, which we’ve added to our page: Best YouTube Col­lec­tions. The video fea­tures Arturo Toscani­ni con­duct­ing Beethoven’s 5th at Carnegie Hall in 1952. You can find the sec­ond move­ment here.

For more clas­si­cal music see:

Free Beethoven and Mozart Record­ings via Pod­cast

Beethoven’s Sym­pho­ny No. 9 — Kara­jan or Mup­pet Style

The Ten Best Clas­si­cal Music Record­ings of 2008

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The Lincoln Revival

in History | January 30th, 2009

lincolnAbra­ham 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.

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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.

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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

 

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The New Design and Your Feedback

in Uncategorized | January 28th, 2009

open_culture_beigeAs you prob­a­bly know, Open Cul­ture launched a new look last week, and it seemed worth devot­ing a few words to it. With the new design, I was hop­ing to give the site a more invit­ing look and stream­line the over­all nav­i­ga­tion. I was also hop­ing to make it clear that user con­tri­bu­tions are always wel­come. If you have tips on good media, send them our way. And if you ever want to write a guest blog post, please feel free to let me know what you have in mind. The more indi­vid­ual read­ers con­tribute, the more our com­mu­ni­ty of read­ers ben­e­fits.

I def­i­nite­ly want to send a word of thanks to the folks at Rolling Orange, who han­dled all of the design and imple­men­ta­tion. An excel­lent group to work with. Also, I want to thank Eric Ober­le who has been very gen­er­ous with his tech sup­port since the begin­ning.

Last­ly, this is a great time to ask you what you would like to see from Open Cul­ture in the future. What should the site do more of? What should it do less of? What good things haven’t we thought about? Your input would be real­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Feel free to send thoughts from the con­tact page, or add any thoughts in the com­ments sec­tion below. Thanks in advance to all…

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