Corsets and Coasters

A catchy song from Brasilian reggae group Naturuts.

I previously mentioned the excellent Ciberp@is supplement to the Madrid newspaper El Pais. Yesterday, they had a particularly good list of websites. Here are some of the best:

What's up? is a sharply designed global news ticker. Click on the pixels for headlines from around the world. Jeroen Wijering is a recent graduate of the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Football Heros contains artistic renditions of World Cup teams past and present. The images contain an amazing variety of whimsical and unexpected styles. See Argentina 2006 and Australia 2006.


Here are over 13000 coasters from 153 countries around the world.





A page devoted to Antique Corsets. Click on the corsets for information on the details and history of each design.














Guy Billout's online gallery of haunting, surreal images.

Zaadz

Today, I listened to some Zaadz audio for the first time. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I usually keep away from self-help/spiritual materials, but Brian Johnson combines Wayne Dyer with Get Fuzzy. He hasan easy-going, enthusiastic attitude that takes the edge off some serious points. Call it spirituality for the YouTube generation.

Start with his introduction to Runi, then try his summaries of the 80/20 principle, LoveCats, and the One Minute Manager. If you're hooked, move on to Writing Your Goals and finally, 50 Things I'm Going to Do Today. Take it all with a "grain of salt", but Brian does an excellent job of getting to the point of some interesting selections in order to let them speak for themselves.

However, Brian, I'm not getting rid of my TV and I hate flossing. Sorry. In fact, I'm going to watch some TV right now. Just wasting away all that work I did on my reticular activating system...

Scholars Who Blog

Crooked Timber, an excellent academic blog, has a detailed index of scholarly blogs organized by discipline. See also Rhetorica's list and Scholars Who Blog.

Free Guidebooks for Distance Learning

Get Educated recently released their distance learning guidebooks as free ebooks. These 100+ page guidebooks contain information on programs in the US and rank the programs by factors such as cost. The guidebooks are available for graduate programs in business, education, library science, computer science, and engineering. Get Educated has been recognized by the WSJ, Wired, Newsweek, and others as a resource for locating reputable online learning.

Online Maps of the Ancient World

UNC-Chapel Hill has a large collection of free digital maps of the ancient world. The maps are available in a variety of file formats and also usually include a blank map for self-testing.

International Calls & Spiders on Mescaline

Russian rapper Triada discusses his lovelife problems.

My wife found this generator for finding international dialing codes. (The site just saved me twice this week when I knew the country code, but not the city code).



These two history sites containing personal accounts on historical events: Eyewitness To History and Telling Stories.

Beginner's Guide to Motorcycling (lots of links out)

Two introductions to classical music: Good Music Guide and The Timid Soul's Guide.

A list of Bill Clinton's favorite books.



Some fun links from I-Am-Bored (becoming one of my favorite sites):

Collection of comics without words

Video game images made from legos

Real life Mario Blocks

Is Mario a communist?

Last, we-make-money-not-art found these images of webs woven by drugged-up spiders (caffeine pictured).

Go Spiders Go!

Chocolate Gaming

The Escapist has an interesting article on Trip Hawkins, the man responsible for the video game Madden, and his vision of connecting social networks and videogames through the mobile phone. He talks about his new company, Digital Chocolate, and taking gaming back from the hardcore gamers:

"I'm looking at what's on the internet and looking at instant messaging and looking at Neopets and looking at fantasy sports and thinking, 'OK, what does that say about what we can do in mobile?' And realizing that with mobile, it quickly went beyond just being a phone. And we now have a $35 billion global market for text messaging. Why the heck would people do that when it's so much easier to just talk? Why would they do text messaging? And why did they all want to change their ring tone? And why did they want to share crummy pictures taken with a crummy camera? What's that about?"

What's happening, he thinks, is people are desperately trying to use technology to reweave the fabric of social life that was ripped apart as people moved from tight knit tribal communities to the sprawling disconnected life of modern dystopia.

Read the rest of the article for his secret plan. The Escapist is a free gaming web publication styled like a print magazine. See the archives for back-issues.

AulaFacil Language Courses

At first glance, AulaFacil's online courses look like many others. But don't go before checking out the language courses. Audio narrations guide you through each lesson in German, French, Italian, and English. I found it very helpful to hear all of the words pronounced while reviewing conjugations and grammatical rules. Many free language learning sites contain audio, but the AulaFacil narrations load quickly within the browser and continue until the end of the lesson. Spanish speakers might also enjoy some of the other courses on topics ranging from business to cooking (los cursos básicos de MS Office son buenos).

Literature Podcasts

Since getting an iPod, my father-in-law has become quite adept at hunting down free scholarly podcasts. Here's a literary podcast round-up he found from Edward Champions' Return of the Reluctant. I updated the list to only include (1) podcasts that (2) have been updated recently. I also added a few more: Air Out My Shorts, The Bat Segundo Show, Book Stories, Books and Writing podcast, Bookpitch Voice, Bookworm, Collected Comics Library, Cory Doctorow, Crackleback Short Stories, Dead White Males, Drinks with Tony, Hotzbrinck Podcasts, Japanese bedtime, Maria Letrix, Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast, Librivox Podcast, Mister Ron’s Basement, Moby Lives Radio, Naxos Audiobooks, Nextbook, NPR Books, The Penguin Podcast, Pete’s Candy Store, Pinky’s Paperhaus, Raincoast Books, Scott Sigler, SF Site Reviews, Simon Says Podcast, Stories to Go, Thought Audio, Twain Reader, Vorleser, Weird Deer,Who Said?, Word by Word, The Word Nerds, Writer’s Voice Radio, The Writing Show.

Also see my previous post on university podcasts and OCWs. (Thanks to Carlos Matias for the photo).

Muslim Heritage

Muslim Heritage documents the many Muslim contributions to science and civilization. Try the timeline and 1001 Inventions. Thanks to Fred for finding this. Also see these two additional sites on Islamic history and civilization.

Artst

While artst.org only has galleries for four artists, each artist is addressed in depth with a bibliography, links, and high resolution images of their works. A great starting point for Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keefe, Edgar Degas, and Pablo Picasso.

Podcasts, Camels & ASCII Babes

Courtesy of the 80s Finnish music scene, one of the worst music videos ever: "I Wanna Love You Tender" by Armi & Danny (gracias a Mercedes por el enlace).

Two more language exchange sites
In addition to linking up speakers, Babelpod's added twist is a focus on language learning podcasts. Here's their current list:

Chinese Survival Guide
ChinesePod.com
clip2go English/German
English as a Second Language Podcast
English Through Stories
EnglishPod.com
Esperanto Radio Arkivo
FrenchPodClass
Japanesepod101
Learn Japanese
Learn Mandarin Chinese with Serge Melnyk
LearnItalianPod
Lets speak German!
Lille Podcast
Really Learn Spanish
Spanish Arriba!
TOEFL Podcast
Trying to Learn Spanish






Friends Abroad, another free site, partners with major companies such as Berlitz. It also has a nice interface. Personally, I've still had the most luck getting in touch with people through Shared Talk (see previous post).


All Camels
If you ever wanted to own a camel, here are all the resources you need.






ASCII Babes
A salute to the pioneers of internet pornography. Visit the ASCII babes archive for ASCII text-images of celebrities such as Halle Barry and Heidi Klum. The images are all work safe...I think...kind of have to look at them from a distance.





Almost forgot to mention - Learn Out Loud just released the third selection in their audiobook of the month club - Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Iron Sudoku

Sudoku addicts: check out Iron Sudoku for challenging new puzzles everyday. The nicely designed site also draws a friendly community of users. Also try the word game Babble.

In2TV & In Your Neighborhood

Two more video sites. AOL's In2TV has free streaming classic TV shows such as Growing Pains, Perfect Strangers, Kung Fu, and Babylon 5. Turnhere is an interesting new video site that features user-made neighborhood guides for places around the country.

Songbird

Maybe I'm late on the Songbird bandwagon, but I'm glad I got on it. At first, Songbird just looks like an opensource, black iTunes. But it's much more than that. Songbird runs in a browser window and is essentially a jukebox for the internet. Run the program and open a music blog such as Tofu Hut or anyone of its thousand links. All mp3's on the page appear in the cue. Now it's easy to play the song, download it, or add it to a custom playlist. Try opening an education sites with mp3s lectures (such as the Harvard E-1 computer science course): Songbird is a easy way to make playlists of free educational materials.

University Podcasts, Webcasts & OCWs

My wife and I have both been sick all weekend with strep throat. On the bright side, I had a chance to make a better list of university podcasts, webcasts, and OpenCourseWares (and a chance to catch-up on Lost and 24).

I thought that Wayfaring might be an interesting way to present the materials. Here's the list in alphabetical order:

Allegheny College Podcast

Arizona State University Podcasts

Australia Broadcasting Corporation Wisdom Interviews

BBC - Reith Lectures

BBC - Challenging the Global Order

BBC - Radio 3 Speech & Drama

BBC - Film4 150 Short Movies

BBC - Sound Archive

BBC - Stephen Hawkings’ 60th Birthday

Berkeley - Webcast.Berkeley

Berkeley - Online Media Resources

Berkeley Multimedia Research Center

Berklee Shares

Buffalo State College Podcasts

Butte College, Media & Distance Learning Centre

Carleton University Vodcast

Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative

CERN Webcasts (Particle Physics & Related)

Classcaster Law Podcasts

Drexel CoAS Talks

Duke University Mathematics Multimedia

Fathom Source for Online Learning (Columbia)

FETP OpenCourseWare (Vietnam)

Foothill De-Anza SOFIA

GCSU - iPod @GCSU

Georgetown University Forum

Gresham College Lectures

Harvard Extension School

Harvard - Homeric Odyssey Course

Higher Education Academy Economics Network

International Research Center for Japanese Studies

Japan OCW Alliance

John Hopkins School of Public Health OCW

Library of Congress Cybercasts

LIFESIGN Life Science Videos (University of Glamorgan & Consortium)

Mises Institute

MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT World

Monclair State - Furr’s Important Audio Page

MSRI Video

Nobel Prize Lectures

OOPS OCW (Taiwan)

Paris Tech “Graduate School”

Princeton - University Channel Princeton

Princeton WebMedia

Princeton - New Media Center

Purdue BoilerCast

Research Channel

Rice University Webcasts

Rockefeller University Multimedia

Roland Collection Art

Roland Collection Literature & Philosophy

Sommaire Canal-U

St. Edwards’ Philosophy Audio

Stanford on iTunes

Tufts OpenCourseWare

UCONN - iCube Intro to Psychology

UCONN - School of Medicine Core Curriculum Videos

UCLA Webcasts

UNSW Embryology Podcasts

University of Arizona Law Videos

University of Bath - bathPOD

University of British Columbia Podcasts

University of California Television - UCTV

University of Hawaii - ICS101

University of Kentucky - Neo-Latin Colloquia,

University of Lethbridge Globalization Studies

University of Michigan Dental School iTunes

University of Oregon - UO Channel

University of Virginia Podcasts & Webcasts

University of Warwick Podcasts

University of Washington - UWTV

University of Wisconsin - The Havens Center

Utah State University OCW

Vanderbilt VUCast

Vega Science Trust Videos

Washington College of Law Podcasts

Weber State University Podcasts

If you know others, please add them to the comments and/or map.

Rhetoric & Old Newspapers

King Without a Crown from Matisyahu, the very talented Othrodox Jewish reggae artist.

Mike Eidenmuller's American Rhetoric is one of the largest archives of famous speeches. In addition to great historical moments and classic movie dialogue, the site also tools for scholars studying rhetoric. Hear explanatory audio samples such as Bono making an analogy or Seinfeld using simile.


Newspaper Archive contains vast files of newspaper clippings going back to the 1700s. Although a paid subscription is required to access the full contents, many fun samples are available, such as weekly vintage cars and crosswords. Additionally, these guys have started a clippings blog, The Daily Perspective, and four free archives devoted to specific topics - Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, the Titanic and the Winter Olympics. I also hear they will be coming out with more.

Hot For Teacher

Teachers' TV has an online archive of their videos designed to aid and inspire educators. Broadcast daily on TV in England, these programs are high quality and substantive. For a sample, see this show on activity-based methods for learning foreign languages.

Advertising Round-up

I was on Retrojunk earlier today watching some 80's kids TV intros and commercials (such as Pee Wee's Playhouse) and thought to round-up some advertising and design resources.

TV Commercial Archives
Best Ads on TV
Adweek's Best Spots
Visit4Info

Blogs
Duncan's TV Ad Land
Adfreak
The Spunker
Campaign Brief


Resources
Blue Vertigo (lots)
Design Links (lots)
U Texas Advertising Portal (a little out of date, but still useful)
Corporate Identity Catalog (specs for corp logos)
What The Font? (load image to learn font type)
500+ Colours (see specific color gradients)

Think you can do better? Submit your ideas at Ad Candy.

Calvin & Hobbes Database

A searchable database of 1838 Calvin & Hobbes comics. Try some searches such as "god", "death", or "snowman" to find comics where the words appear in the text.

Sorry for the late post. I was at a Babasonicos concert. Check out their videos on You Tube, such as this one for Risa.

Blackberry Book Club

Dear Reader brings the book club to the blackberry. Choose the club that interests you, select a library in your area, and start receiving chapters via email. Since the contents are pure text, this is a great options for mobile devices such as newer cellphones and blackberries. Although you are prompted to choose a library in your area, you don't have to be a member and I do not see any mechanism to verify that you live in the United States.

Settle Drunken Debates

My brother, who studies Medieval History at the University of Pittsburgh, tells me about Telefact, a free service from the university. Dial (412) 624-FACT and students will answer questions on any topic. They've resolved dozens of drunken debates such as Q: "Were there kamikaze bombers during the attack on Pearl Harbor?" A: No. Or Q:"In the Nickolodeon game show Legends of the Hidden Temple, what were the pendents for?" A: To get past the temple guards. During the semester, hours are until 10pm or 11pm USA/Eastern.

Poetry, Google and Comics

Gilberto Gil's great cover of Three Little Birds. A couple months ago, Wired published an excellent article on the open source movement in Brasil that mentioned Gilberto Gil quite a bit.

First, if you've never been before, visit the Poetry Archives. The site contains audio and video of poets reading their own poems. Take the tour to learn all the features. The children's archive is pretty cute and even allows you to browse poems by animals. Thanks to Becky at the Farm School blog for the suggestion.

Second, earlier this week, Google announced that they are working with the National Archives to digitize their digital content. A handful of videos are already available on a the Google Video site, such as The Eagle Has Landed. Unfortunately, unlike other files, the code isn't available to post these videos. Thanks to Dave at Open History for the link.

Finally, for tons of comics books and graphic novels, visit BD Comics. There is a lot of good stuff on here, mainly linking to the Rapid Shared servers. There is also more on their old blogspot site.

Long Links & Seminars

The Long Now Foundation - the group behind the Rosetta Project linguistic archive and the 10,000 Year Clock - have many links, articles, essays, seminars, and downloads on very long term thinking. For additional geek cred, the lectures are also available as Ogg Vorbis files and as a single Bit Torrent download. (Muito Obrigado to Daniel for the photo).

Current's Film-Making Tips

The innovative TV network Current has a training section on the principles of filmaking. Short videos cover topics in storytelling, gear, shooting, editing and compression. The nicely designed tutorials give tips for making amateur films look more professional.

Amateur film-makers might also enjoy watching some Dogme 95 films for examples of great movies that use natural setting and lighting. Here's a pretty complete list from Wikipedia of movies that adhere to the principles.

Speaking of amateur filmmaking, if you are a 24 fan and enjoyed My Space: The Movie (which has been getting plenty of attention), you might enjoy this guy's home-made film about the theft of his Season 3 box set: