Jay‑Z: The Evolution of My Style

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | March 3rd, 2011

Shawn Carter – the MC, entre­pre­neur, and recent best-sell­ing author who is known to every­one but his moth­er as Jay‑Z  – proved with the 2010 pub­li­ca­tion of his mem­oir Decod­ed that he is not only one of hip-hop’s top artists, but also one of its top inter­preters.

In Decod­ed, Jay‑Z offers lit­tle in the way of new per­son­al details. He’s been telling that sto­ry in his raps for twen­ty years now – from his father­less child­hood in the projects, to his years deal­ing crack cocaine, to his star­dom, and final­ly to his cur­rent suc­cess as a busi­ness­man and cul­tur­al icon. And what­ev­er the 41-year-old has­n’t divulged yet, he may well have been advised by a lawyer to keep to him­self. Instead of auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Decod­ed pro­vides some­thing much more valu­able, a thought­ful analy­sis of his own lyrics and the his­to­ry of his cho­sen art form. Jay‑Z  helps us under­stand that he and hip-hop are rough­ly the same age, and that their sto­ries are almost inter­change­able: When young Shawn Carter first fell in love with the sound of rhymes over beats in Brook­lyn in 1978, he was dis­cov­er­ing the new music just as the new music was dis­cov­er­ing itself.

Ran­dom House has just released an iPad appli­ca­tion of Decod­ed, adding about thir­ty min­utes of mul­ti-media con­tent, includ­ing the video above. You might also want to check out Jay-Z’s appear­ance on Char­lie Rose (on Youtube in 5 parts) and his recent inter­view on Fresh Air.

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Visualizing WiFi Signals with Light

in Science, Technology, Video - Arts & Culture | March 3rd, 2011

Have you ever won­dered what the WiFi sig­nal looks like around your office, school, or local café? In this video, Timo Arnall, Jørn Knut­sen, and Einar Sneve Mar­t­i­nussen show you the invis­i­ble. And they pulled this off by build­ing a WiFi mea­sur­ing rod, mea­sur­ing four meters in length, that can visu­al­ize WiFi sig­nals around Oslo, Nor­way with the help of long expo­sure pho­tog­ra­phy.

What’s fas­ci­nat­ing to see is how the WiFi sig­nals vary across the city. Away from res­i­den­tial build­ings, the drop-off in WiFi strength is steep. On the oth­er hand, the WiFi sig­nal is dense around com­mer­cial and aca­d­e­m­ic build­ings. The amaz­ing visu­al­iza­tion gives us a glimpse into the com­plex rela­tion­ships between WiFi net­works and the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ments under­pin­ning them. For a deep­er read about this project, see this blog post.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel Promotes World’s Largest Online Guitar Lesson

in Music | March 3rd, 2011

Nigel Tufnel, lead gui­tarist for Spinal Tap (wink, wink) sets the stage for you. This after­noon (March 3), Berklee Music will hold what it hopes will be the largest online gui­tar les­son ever. It all starts at 1:30 EST. Get details and join in here.

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Revolutions in the Middle East: Head of Al Jazeera Speaks at TED

in Current Affairs, TED Talks | March 2nd, 2011

Where will the Mid­dle East go from here? Towards democ­ra­cy, as many hope? Towards a more theo­crat­ic mod­el, as some despair? Or, towards more of the same dis­il­lu­sion­ing autoc­ra­cy?

On the first day of the big TED con­fer­ence, Wadah Khan­far, the head of Al Jazeera, offered a supreme­ly opti­mistic take on the rev­o­lu­tions trans­form­ing Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and per­haps beyond. Through­out the past few weeks, many West­ern­ers have tuned into Al Jazeer­a’s live Eng­lish-lan­guage cov­er­age on the web and found them­selves pleas­ant­ly sur­prised by the bal­ance and depth of their report­ing. Now you get 17 upbeat min­utes with the leader of the Qatar-based news orga­ni­za­tion …

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NASA Captures Giant Solar Storm

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | March 2nd, 2011

Last Thurs­day, the sun deliv­ered the goods, unleash­ing a beau­ti­ful solar flare. The erup­tions last­ed some­where around 90 min­utes, and the plas­ma flares were all cap­tured in high def by NASA’s Solar Dynam­ics Obser­va­to­ry, a project ded­i­cat­ed to study­ing the sun and its impact on space weath­er. This footage comes soon after anoth­er ground­break­ing NASA video – the First 360 Degree View of the Sun.

via Pop­u­lar Sci­ence

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The Restoration of a Masterpiece, as Narrated by Martin Scorsese

in Film, TED Talks, Video - Arts & Culture | March 2nd, 2011

This week, some of the world’s great­est thinkers (and biggest spenders) are gath­ered in Palm Springs and Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia for TED’s annu­al con­fer­ence. In case your invi­ta­tion to TED2011 got lost in the mail along with ours, you can still keep up with the con­fer­ence through TED’s home­page. Some high­lights so far include an open­ing address beamed in from out­er space, physi­cist Jan­na Lev­in’s dis­cus­sion of what she calls the sound­track of the uni­verse, and final­ly, a stun­ning video doc­u­ment­ing the restora­tion of Luchi­no Vis­con­ti’s 1963 clas­sic film, The Leop­ard. Even bet­ter, the video is nar­rat­ed by Mar­tin Scors­ese, uber-direc­tor, cin­e­ma his­to­ri­an, and founder of The Film Foun­da­tion, one of the many orga­ni­za­tions involved with the restora­tion.

By the way, Scorcese gave a fas­ci­nat­ing talk about film restora­tion last year at LACMA. You can watch it here. For a com­plete list of films his foun­da­tion has been involved in restor­ing or pre­serv­ing, click here.

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50 Years Ago Today: JFK Authorizes Peace Corps

in History | March 1st, 2011

On March 1, 1961, Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy signed Exec­u­tive Order 10924, offi­cial­ly autho­riz­ing the estab­lish­ment of an “agency in the Depart­ment of State which shall be known as the Peace Corps.” Fifty years lat­er, that Agency has sent more than 200,000 vol­un­teers to over 93 coun­tries.

A note:  If you’ve ever won­dered about all those CIA-Peace Corps con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, lis­ten to the Nation­al Archives’ fas­ci­nat­ing audio and tran­script of a con­ver­sa­tion between JFK and his broth­er-in-law R. Sar­gent Shriv­er, the Peace Corps’ first Direc­tor (and Maria Shriver’s grand­fa­ther), dis­cussing “pos­si­ble CIA pen­e­tra­tion” of the Agency.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

JFK Revis­it­ed on YouTube

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Jane Russell (RIP) Stars in “Outlawed” Western

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 1st, 2011

Pub­lic­i­ty can be ter­ri­ble. But only if you don’t have any. - Jane Rus­sell

Jane Rus­sell learned the pow­er of noto­ri­ety at an ear­ly age. Direc­tor Howard Hugh­es (the reclu­sive bil­lion­aire) had cast the volup­tuous 19-year-old in his epic West­ern The Out­law (1943), with the full inten­tion of mak­ing her a sex sym­bol. Hugh­es essen­tial­ly made her con­sid­er­able assets the star of the film, even going so far as to design a spe­cial can­tilevered push-up bra for her to wear dur­ing shoot­ing.

Hugh­es did his job almost too well. The promi­nent dis­play of cleav­age in both the film and its trail­er unnerved cen­sors and kept The Out­law out of the­aters until near­ly 1950. (You can watch the full movie above.) The con­tro­ver­sy also launched Rus­sel­l’s career as a WWII pin-up girl, but she con­tin­ued to per­form in films, even­tu­al­ly prov­ing to be a fine actress and singer. Today she is per­haps best remem­bered  for her con­fi­dent, sexy, per­for­mance oppo­site Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe in the 1953 com­e­dy Gen­tle­man Pre­fer Blondes, and espe­cial­ly for her show­stop­ping num­ber, “Ain’t Any­one Here For Love?”

A botched ille­gal abor­tion at the age of 19 left the actress unable to bear chil­dren, and she was a vocal anti-abor­tion activist and advo­cate for adop­tion. Also a proud Repub­li­can, she described her­self to an inter­view­er in 2003 as a “a tee­to­tal, mean-spir­it­ed, right-wing, nar­row-mind­ed, con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian big­ot — but not a racist.”

Ms. Rus­sell died yes­ter­day of a lung-relat­ed ill­ness at her home in San­ta Maria, Cal­i­for­nia. She was 89 years old.

You can see The Out­law in our free movies col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

25 Free John Wayne West­erns

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The Big Apple in Incredible Time Lapse Video

in Video - Arts & Culture | March 1st, 2011

In this beau­ti­ful time lapse video, Josh Owens (aka Min­drel­ic) shows us New York City as we’ve nev­er seen it before. We begin with an unas­sum­ing shot of a boat in a har­bor, but then the action picks up. We pass quick­ly through icon­ic land­marks of the city – Times Square, the Brook­lyn Bridge, the Hol­land Tun­nel, and the New York Stock Exchange – right before see­ing the city from the van­tage point of a pas­sen­ger in an NYC cab.

The footage was shot over mul­ti­ple days using the Canon 5d Mark II dSLR and the fol­low­ing lens­es: Canon 14mm 2.8L, Canon 24mm 1.4L, Canon 50mm 1.2L, and Canon 70–200mm 2.8L. The video is one of the best time laps­es out there, a stun­ning trib­ute to the city that nev­er sleeps.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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The New Yorker: Finger Drumming Keith Moon

in Music | February 28th, 2011

Some­how this flew below my radar. Back in Novem­ber, James Wood, the Har­vard lit pro­fes­sor and New York­er staff writer, revis­it­ed his child­hood idol — Kei­th Moon, the long­time (though now depart­ed) drum­mer for The Who. In “The New York­er Out Loud” pod­cast, Wood demon­strates – using his fin­gers – what makes Moon’s style so dis­tinc­tive. (Lis­ten here.) And, as an added bonus, we give you Wood fin­ger drum­ming on his kitchen table at home. At least one of these clips will make your day…

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Alan Davies: How Long is a Piece of String?

in Comedy, Math, Video - Science | February 28th, 2011

Yes­ter­day’s lack­lus­ter Acad­e­my Awards cer­e­mo­ny may have afford­ed you some unex­pect­ed time for con­tem­plat­ing life’s more urgent ques­tions, such as the one British come­di­an Alan Davies pur­sues above:  How long is a piece of string? Watch Davies, who is also a fre­quent pan­elist on the pop­u­lar Stephen Fry-host­ed quiz show Quite Inter­est­ing, explore the rid­dle’s philo­soph­i­cal impli­ca­tions and inevitable con­nec­tion to string the­o­ry with the help of physics, quan­tum mechan­ics, and final­ly a vis­it with math­e­mati­cian Mar­cus de Sautoy. Fans of the Davies/du Sautoy inter­ac­tion may also want to check out Du Sautoy’s TED talk on Sym­me­try, as well as the debates in that video’s com­ments sec­tion. More docs can be found in our col­lec­tion of 200+ Free Doc­u­men­taries, part of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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