130 Free eBooks from Kaplan Publishing

in e-books | January 6th, 2011

A quick fyi for any­one try­ing to get into col­lege or grad­u­ate school: Through Jan­u­ary 17th, Kaplan Pub­lish­ing will let you down­load 130 eBooks to your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Nook and Sony eRead­er – all for free. (You can find a spe­cial page for down­load­ing titles via the Kin­dle here.) Some select titles include: Get Into Grad­u­ate School, Get Into Law School, Kaplan Portable SAT, and Kaplan AP Sta­tis­tics. The full list of titles appears here, and you can start down­load­ing the books right here. Note that you will need to ini­ti­ate the down­load from a device list­ed above, and not your com­put­er. Remem­ber: this free offer will only last for the next few days …

Note: This offer pre­vi­ous­ly expired on Jan­u­ary 10th. Now it has been extend­ed to Jan­u­ary 17th.

via Gal­l­ey­cat

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Existentialism with Hubert Dreyfus: Five Free Philosophy Courses

in Online Courses, Philosophy | January 5th, 2011

Image by  Jörg Noller, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

All Things Shin­ing: Read­ing the West­ern Clas­sics to Find Mean­ing in a Sec­u­lar Age – This new book by Hubert Drey­fus (UC Berke­ley) and Sean Dor­rance Kel­ly (Har­vard) hit the book­shelves this week, and it cur­rent­ly ranks #56 on Ama­zon’s Top 100 List. Quite a coup for seri­ous think­ing.

Pro­fes­sor Drey­fus has taught many pop­u­lar exis­ten­tial­ism and phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy cours­es at UC Berke­ley, some of which laid the foun­da­tion for this book. Hap­pi­ly, you can find Drey­fus’ phi­los­o­phy cours­es online. And, even bet­ter, you can down­load them for free. The cours­es are list­ed below, and also in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

  • Exis­ten­tial­ism in Lit­er­a­ture & Film - Stream – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Hei­deg­ger – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Heidegger’s Being & Time – Stream — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Hei­deg­ger’s Being and Time, Divi­sion II — Free Online Audio — Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley
  • Man, God, and Soci­ety in West­ern Lit­er­a­ture — Free Online Audio – Hubert Drey­fus, UC Berke­ley

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Phi­los­o­phy with John Sear­le: Three Free Cours­es

What’s the Right Thing to Do?: Michael Sandel’s Pop­u­lar Har­vard Course Now Online

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Patti Smith Remembers Robert Mapplethorpe

in Art, Music | January 5th, 2011

Pat­ti Smith. Robert Map­plethor­pe. Born in 1946, the two bud­ding artists met in New York City, long before the 21 year olds achieved their even­tu­al fame – before Smith earned her creds as the “god­moth­er of punk,” and before Map­plethor­pe put his unique stamp on Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­phy. Their long-last­ing friend­ship was doc­u­ment­ed in Smith’s bit­ter­sweet mem­oir, Just Kids, which won the 2010 Nation­al Book Award for Non­fic­tion. Above, while appear­ing at The New York Pub­lic Library, Smith recounts the day she met Map­plethor­pe as a young­ster. Now 64 years old, she also elab­o­rates on this sto­ry (and more) dur­ing a lengthy inter­view on NPR’s Fresh Air. Stream the audio right below…

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A Journey Back in Time: Vintage Travelogues

in History, Video - Arts & Culture, Video - Politics/Society | January 4th, 2011

The Trav­el Film Archive lets you “see the world the way it was.” Fea­tur­ing dozens of videos shot between 1900 and 1970, these short trav­el­ogues take you across the globe, to farflung places that many Amer­i­cans con­sid­ered “exot­ic” at the time. Above, we have a 1940s clip that revis­its the glo­ries of Ancient Greece, tak­ing you through the ruins of Athens. But you will also find count­less oth­er des­ti­na­tions — Asia (aka The Far East), India, Hawaii and the South Seas, the Mid­dle East, South Amer­i­ca, and Egypt and North Africa. Paris, Venice, and a sam­pling of Euro­pean loca­tions get cov­er­age too, as do the ear­ly days of com­mer­cial air trav­el. You can dig through the full list right here. Thanks @KirstinButler

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14 Actors Acting: A Gallery of Classic Screen Types

in Film | January 4th, 2011

A few weeks back, The New Times Mag­a­zine pre­sent­ed a video gallery fea­tur­ing actors & actress­es doing what they do best — “per­form­ing in vignettes that rep­re­sent clas­sic screen types.” Direct­ed by Solve Sunds­bo with music scored by Arcade Fire’s Owen Pal­let, the videos (now avail­able on YouTube) fea­ture per­form­ers – all impor­tant fig­ures in today’s cin­e­ma – act­ing out scenes with­out the ben­e­fit of dia­logue. Above, we have Antho­ny Mack­ie (The Hurt Lock­er) in a chase scene rem­i­nis­cent of Hitch­cock­’s North by North­west. You can also catch Robert Duvall shav­ing in a moment of reflec­tion; Natal­ie Port­man dis­rob­ing and seduc­ing; Michael Dou­glas schem­ing; and Jen­nifer Lawrence doing anoth­er Hitch­cock-inspired scene from Psy­cho. You can watch all 14 scenes on the NYTimes web site, or again on YouTube.

And speak­ing of Hitch­cock, you will find 15 of his films, most­ly ear­ly ones, in our col­lec­tion of 275 Free Movies Online.

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The Joy of Stats: Hans Rosling’s Rollercoaster Ride Through the Wonderful World of Statistics

in Math | January 3rd, 2011

Last month, we post­ed a daz­zling clip – Hans Rosling trac­ing health trends with­in 200 coun­tries over 200 years, using 120,000 data points, all in 4 min­utes. Pret­ty quick­ly you saw why Rosling has earned a rep­u­ta­tion for pre­sent­ing data in extreme­ly imag­i­na­tive ways. The video was an out­take from a BBC doc­u­men­tary called “The Joy of Stats,” which is now ful­ly avail­able online. It runs 59 min­utes and takes you on a “roller­coast­er ride through the won­der­ful world of sta­tis­tics.” When it’s all over, you’ll nev­er doubt that stats can change how you under­stand our world.

The Joy of Stats will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Doc­u­men­taries Online, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Birth to 10 Years Old in Time Lapse Video

in Life | January 3rd, 2011

The Milky Way Over Texas. The Auro­ra Bore­alis over Nor­way. Decem­ber’s win­ter sol­stice lunar eclipse. Last week’s bliz­zard. What beau­ty can’t be cap­tured in time lapse pho­tog­ra­phy? Per­haps ten years of human life and devel­op­ment? Not so. No if the par­ents reli­gious­ly take a pho­to a day. Then, voila, human growth in time lapse…

via Der­ren­Brown

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Thomas Edison Recites “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in Early Voice Recording

in History, Science, Technology | January 3rd, 2011

In the late 1870s, Thomas Edi­son, Amer­i­ca’s pro­lif­ic inven­tor, per­fect­ed the phono­graph and cap­tured a very ear­ly record­ing of the human voice – his own voice recit­ing the still pop­u­lar nurs­ery rhyme, Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb. (Get mp3 here.) Lat­er, the Edi­son cylin­der also record­ed for pos­ter­i­ty Russ­ian com­pos­er Pyotr Tchaikovsky (The Nut­crack­er, the 1812 Over­ture, etc.) talk­ing with oth­er musi­cians in a light moment.

The Edi­son cylin­der was actu­al­ly pre­ced­ed by anoth­er sound-record­ing device, the pho­nau­to­graph, invent­ed by Édouard-Léon Scott de Mar­t­inville in 1857. Not long ago, sci­en­tists from the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry extract­ed a record­ing not heard in 150 years, a voice singing the French folk song “Au Clair de la Lune.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mark Twain Cap­tured on Film by Thomas Edi­son (1909)

Bike Tricks Cour­tesy of Thomas Edi­son

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Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree: The Animated Film Narrated by Shel Himself (1973)

in Film, K-12, Literature | January 1st, 2011

Back in 1964, Shel Sil­ver­stein wrote The Giv­ing Tree, a wide­ly loved chil­dren’s book now trans­lat­ed into more than 30 lan­guages. It’s a sto­ry about the human con­di­tion, about giv­ing and receiv­ing, using and get­ting used, need­i­ness and greed­i­ness, although many fin­er points of the sto­ry are open to inter­pre­ta­tion. Today, we’re rewind­ing the video­tape to 1973, when Sil­ver­stein’s lit­tle book was turned into a 10 minute ani­mat­ed film (now added to our free movie col­lec­tion). Sil­ver­stein nar­rates the sto­ry him­self and also plays the har­mon­i­ca.… which brings us to his musi­cal tal­ents. Don’t miss Sil­ver­stein, also a well known song­writer, appear­ing on The John­ny Cash Show in 1970, and the two singing “A Boy Named Sue.” Sil­ver­stein wrote the song, and Cash made it famous. Thanks to Mark, co-edi­tor of the phi­los­o­phy blog/podcast The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life for send­ing these along.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein Reads His Poem ‘Ick­le Me, Pick­le Me, Tick­le Me Too’ in Ani­mat­ed Video

Studs Terkel Inter­views Bob Dylan, Shel Sil­ver­stein, Maya Angelou & More in New Audio Trove

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A New Year’s Wish from Neil Gaiman

in Life, Literature | December 31st, 2010

A few days ago, we gave you Neil Gaiman’s dark ani­mat­ed Christ­mas poem. Now, it’s time for his entire­ly upbeat New Year’s Bene­dic­tion, which has some per­fect words for any­one with a cre­ative urg­ing. This short video was record­ed in 2010 at Sym­pho­ny Hall in Boston. Best wish­es to all…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Neil Gaiman Sto­ries

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

Neil Gaiman Gives Sage Advice to Aspir­ing Artists

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The Best of Open Culture 2010

in Most Popular, Random | December 29th, 2010

That’s it. We’re putting a wrap on 2010. We’ll hit the ground run­ning again on Mon­day. But, until then, we leave you with a handy list of our favorite and most pop­u­lar posts from 2010, all ordered in a rather ran­dom way. If you crave a lit­tle more Open Cul­ture good­ies, you can always browse through our com­plete archive here, and fol­low us on Twit­ter, Face­book, and RSS. Hope you have a safe, hap­py and pros­per­ous New Year!

More to come Mon­day…

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