RadioBeta is a newish venture that allows you to reach radio stations around the globe, to create your personal playlists, and listen to them for free. Just search by geography or genre, and then start listening in the player on RadioBeta’s website.
James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University, has just put out a new book called The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind, and it basically tells citizens what they need to know about intellectual property law to take meaningful part in our emerging information society. The book clearly complements a lot of the work done by Lawrence Lessig. You can snap up a copy in three different formats (Free PDF copy, Free HTML copy, Buy on Amazon) and also find other free, downloadable books at Creative Commons.
Michael Gough (I believe) reads the poem that launched T.S. Eliot’s career in 1917, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (get the full text of the poem here)
Nietzsche’s final days weren’t ones that you’d wish on anyone. Some biographers speculate that he contracted syphilis, which eventually triggered his decline into madness in 1899. Two strokes followed, then pneumonia and it was all over in August, 1900. The footage below is apparently from 1899, and we’re now adding it to our YouTube Favorites, which currently has 399. Who wants to put it over 400?
Each year, The New York Times names its 100 Notable Books. Then, they shorten the list and name their top ten.
The Times published 100 Notable Books of 2008 last weekend, and now we have The 10 Best Books of 2008. We’ve listed the books below, along with links to the first chapter of most works. For more insight into what the book review team found special about each book, just click here.
Some have put it on the level of a Tolstoy novel. Others have made the comparison to Dickens. No matter how you slice it, The Wire is TV at its best. Below, we have posted a fast-moving summary of the first four seasons, which was made in the same format as the viral video The Nine Minute Sopranos. The fifth and final season of The Wire is not included here. But that’s just as well. If you want to watch the series in full, you don’t want to know how it ends. Actually, on second thought, you may not want to watch any of this. Move forward at your own risk.
Not long after Studs Terkel, the historian of the everyman, died in October, This American Life featured a series of interviews that Terkel once conducted with Americans who lived through the Depression. (Listen to the mp3 here.) The tapes would eventually provide the material for his book, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. And, as you’ll see, these recordings make this transformational moment real in a way that few other historical sources can. You’ll hear the voices of real people, recounting their daily experiences and remembering the race and class divisions that ran deep in America. You’ll also hear about the humiliations and acts of kindness that were part of everyday life. (NOTE: The interviews start about 6 minutes into the recording.)
Indignation is Philip Roth’s 29th book and his third novel in the past three years. Pretty good for a writer working at 75. In this extended interview with Michael Krasny (iTunes — Feed — MP3), Roth talks about Indignation, which takes readers back to the Korean War and college life in conservative America.
YouTube has had the mass market locked up for some time. But, during the past year, it has been giving a little nod to more “highbrow” viewers. We’ve seen channels sprouting up on YouTube that feature content produced by universities and other high-value content providers. (See our collection Intelligent Life at YouTube: 80 Video Collections.) We’ve also watched the launch of The YouTube Screening Room, which brings short independent films to the viewing public. Now we have The YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
This project brings classical music into the world of Web 2.0. As The New York Times explains it, the initiative will produce a mashup of orchestral pieces contributed by users. And, it will also feature a contest in which musicians can upload samples of their work, and, à la American Idol, winners will be chosen by a panel of judges and brought to perform at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony. (Get more from the video below.) Some purists will find this highly gimmicky, no doubt. Others may see it as a good way to keep classical music relevant. Have an opinion? Let us know in the comments.
It’s pretty hard to pull this off, but the titans of American industry have made Herbert Hoover look like a very wise man, at least when he said: “You know, the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damn greedy.”
But we shouldn’t consider Hoover rehabilitated. Not quite yet. The video clip below suggests that in Japan the CEOs have figured out how to run their capitalist system with a degree of humility. And they’re doing it voluntarily. That’s a news flash that you can send to our political leaders before they funnel more taxes to mismanaged institutions with no real strings attached.
(A quick PS: Europe’s leading philosopher and sociologist recently spoke in the German press about the financial crisis and what it means for the future of our globalized society. You can find an English translation here.)
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