Friday, June 30, 2006

Cooking 101



Fatlip (ex-Pharcyde) - What's up Fatlip?

Tired of subsisting on Ramon noodles? Wife annoyed you never cook? Better see these 20 lessons on basic, basic cooking. From boiling water to baking a cake, this introduction to your kitchen might not make you the next Rachel Ray, but will certainly get you started.

For more cooking tips, check out the Food Network video guide.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

When You Can't Earn an MBA

The Personal MBA has become popular among young professionals unable to commit to a program as well as graduates who feel that they've wasted their time and money. These websites show how to get an "MBA equivalent" education in their free time through books and learning materials. In addition to the typical advice to network and read prolifically, this short guide by Rajesh Shetty (only 23 pages) adds some practical suggestions on getting a good mentor, building karma by helping a core group of friends, and deversifying your opportunities through volunteer work in organizations and start-up's.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Gilberto Gil's Great Website



Gilberto Gil, legend of latin american music and current culture minister of Brasil, has a great website. In addition to videos, interviews, and writings, the site contains streaming audio for every track on every disc spanning his incredibly prolific musical career. Many of these discs are tough to find - such as this great live version of Kaya N'Gon Daya, his Bob Marley tribute album. For more on his perspective on open software and copyright reform, see this article from the Guardian. Here's an except:

He is politician enough to hold back from endorsing the breaking of laws, for example on music downloading, but only just. "The Brazilian government is definitely pro-law," he grins. "But if law doesn't fit reality anymore, law has to be changed. That's not a new thing. That's civilisation as usual." (He is not a hi-tech person himself, he says, but readily concedes that his children have "probably" done a fair bit of illegal downloading.)

Also check out these speeches from NYU and Berkeley.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

10 Beautiful Women Who Are Way More Intelligent Than You


















From Yongfook, the Japanese Food and Tech Blog, a list of ten women who are as brilliant as they are beautiful. For example, see Mira Aroyo: Bulgarian model, lead-singer of Ladytron, and a genetics PhD graduate from Oxford University. Or Queen Rania of Jordan who in addition to wealth and hotness, can boast of her involvement in several core economic and welfare-related issues including best practices in the field of microfinance. And Carmen Kass, the young lady pictured? - President of the Estonian Chess Association. See the whole list (Warning: some of the language and comments are not very tasteful and probably not safe for work).

Monday, June 26, 2006

Free iPod Tourguides Map



A few months back, I gathered together a number of free iPod tourguides. Here's a map of the locations via Wayfaring (unfortunately, I couldn't include several guides that are no longer available). Be sure to also check out the Wayfaring map of University Podcasts and OCWs.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Take On Me



A-Ha's "Take On Me". Part of Pitchfork Media's 100 Awesome Music Videos.

Some very difficult analytical puzzles. Less difficult ones are also available. (photo by plusverde)













From popsicles to X-Rays, the top 10 accidental discoveries.











The Completely Useless, Yet Interesting Fact Collection is a huge database of worthless-but-true information.
















A list of free science and math lectures online. Many of these will be familiar, but it's a handy round-up.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Greylodge GPod














Greylodge's GPod selects a great mix of "underground" art, podcasts, and documentaries. Each posting contains a short, informative background and multiple links to the selection (often at Ubuweb) allowing easy access to the content. From eclectic cinematic shorts, to Japanese children's comedy shows, to bedtime stories with the antichrist, it's an endless stream of interesting stuff.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

The Internet Detective (& Puppies!)



Sorry that I'm behind in the posts - i've had a pretty busy week. As always, here are some cute puppies.

The Internet Detective is a research guide showing internet-savvy university students how to make the most of web resources while avoiding common pitfalls. Included are tips on smart internet research, exercises on evaluating the quality of information, and tips on avoiding plagiarism and copyright infringement. One of the site's most important messages is that key resources may not be found on the internet. Students should be aware of the academic evaluation process and use all resources at their disposal.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Guide to DRM-Free Audio














Jon Bischke wrote a post on the Learn Out Loud blog about sites offering DRM-free audio. There are lots of interesting music and audiolearning sites listed such as AudioLunchbox, betterPropoganda, and iAmplify.

P.S. It's my birthday!

Monday, June 19, 2006

Easy Online Powerpoint

Microsoft Office includes some great programs, but it's often really hard to do simple things (for example, MS Word styles). In this respect, Powerpoint is probably one of the worst culprits. Putting aside aesthetic complaints, a casual user can find it pretty tough to create some simple slides or graphics.

Gliffy is a solution to Powerpoint woes. Another AJAX, web-based program with the feel of desktop software, Gliffy contains a simple drag-and-drop interface. The site contains lot of shapes and frequently needed images for designing an apartment floorplan or a computer network. It's very easy to alter sizes, shapes, and colors. Afterwards, you can even publish the image on another site (sounds perfect for Craigslist). Here's our apartment:

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Things I Probably Should Have Mentioned



Folk Implosion "Natural One"

As I've said before, roughly 90% of the links I post come from del.icio.us. Whenever someone tags a site "academic", "education", "university", or a combination of various other tags, I receive an RSS notification. Every day, I browse through several hundred links and choose sites that are (1) substantial, (2) interesting, and (3) genuinely free. The other 10% of the links come from browsing other sites or email recommendations (thanks!).

The criteria for exclusion is somewhat hazier. Generally, I don't post sites that are extremely technical or narrowly focused (such as many excellent programming tutorials). I also don't post sites that have already heavily discussed in the blogosphere.

However, I realize that many readers don't religiously go on Lifehacker, Boing Boing, and Digg. So here's a round-up of some popular sites that I probably should have mentioned:















Professor Alex Halavais shares some advice on How to Cheat Better. Tired of reviewing poor attempts, he suggests the students make a decent effort and follow some of his tips such as "Borrow from someone who writes as badly as you do" and "Edit>Paste Special>Unformatted Text".















A concise list of 10 basic grammar mistakes you can easily fix.














This course on computer cryptography from the University of Washington is one of the most complete open coursewares online. (Image from Anna in Galicia).














Google's Shakespeare site
attempts to be a portal for all things Shakespeare, helping students find reviews, choose editions, and even visit the Globe Theatre via Google Earth.



















yWriter is a tool for organizing your great novel. Check the Lifehacker comments for some other suggestions.



















From Boing Boing, a site with tons of resources on Victorian London. (Thanks to Jessica Browne for the pic)

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Finding Pearls

The OAIster project is after my heart. How often have you been prompted to pay $30 to read an article found on Google Scholar search? Or been frustated by lack of access to the JSTOR database? Not here. We're talking about free materials. Quality materials. No sifting. Free access. Free. Free. Free.

Take everything you like about Highwire or the SSRN. But cut out the crap. And you have OAIster. To top it off, the search is excellent, allowing you to choose media type (audio, video, etc.) and the sorting of results. Even more features are on the way. This is how it should be.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Kiddie Records

Both nostalgics and retro hipster will love the Kiddie Records collection of old 78's converted to high-quality mp3's and jpeg's. This 2-year project has already posted an ample number of classic albums from the 40's and 50's including major productions from Disney. Sounds to me like a good way to pass long car trips.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Let's Get Political

Some excellent political sites from Fred Lapides:

The Cold War International Project contains a very deep selection of key documents related to communism. Best of all, this project organizes the documents by subject, location, and other filtration methods.

Next, in George Washington University's National Security Archive, great source documents are available on the Pentagon Papers and Nixon's paranoia. Streaming audio of phone conversations, US Supreme Court opinions, and memoirs are all available.

Finally, here's a great site on Charles Bukowski. Not very political, but you can read his FBI file. (Thanks to Natalia for the photo).

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Amazing Video Collection




Les Rita Mitsouko's "Marcia Baila". One of many music videos in popef**ker33's amazing video collection.

Things I know about popef**ker33: He's fascinated by violent death and government conspiracy. He listens to Atari Teenage Riot. He's french. He likes documentaries and classic cartoons. He's a fan of surreal and twisted art. He's studying Japanese. He's probably done alot of drugs. He's very angry. He's probably not a good guy to bring home to the parents ("Why popef**ker33, such a thoughtful young lad, however did you know that white chocolate truffles were my favorites?" Doesn't seem very likey.)

At the time of this post, popef**ker33 has posted nearly 1000 awesome videos to Google Videos. Here's just a small sampling:

Un Chien Andalou


Stephen Hawking's Universe 02


Les Kiriki Acrobates Japonais (1907)


The Skeleton Dance (1929)


Andy Kaufman's Mighty Mouse

Thursday, June 08, 2006

The Fantastic in Art & Fiction

This collection from Cornell's Institute for Digital Collections contains beautiful and bizarre images from rare books in Weird Science, Bestiary, the Grotesque, and other fantastic literature themes. The images can be viewed by theme, by book, or all at once.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Gray Matter Mad Science
















Popular Science's archive of Theodore Gray's mad science column contains three years of melting, magnetizing, and blowing things up. See how to launch a rocket with oreo cookies, make your own lightbulb, or save a snowflake for decades.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Commencement Cartoon




















A clever cartoon from today's Boston Globe. On this topic, check out the downloadable audio of Steve Jobs' Stanford speech - a commencement classic.

Also - iPod in Education is an interesting site that was created to keep track of the growing variety of uses for the iPod in the classroom. Unfortunately, the ambitious site hasn't beenupdated much recently.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Landmark Education on Web 2.0



















You always have to be careful when browsing free materials. All too often, there is a hidden objective. Sometime it's money, but sometimes it's just wacky and unpredictable. Apparently harmless communism documentaries are on a mission from God. A search for information on textbook reform leads to a discussion on "Lies In The Textbooks" - such as evolution. I'm not even going to link to the rascist nonsense on AIDS and the Holocaust.

When I was living in New York, I heard some horror stories about Landmark Education's creepy recruiting techniques and secret organizations. I don't know the truth to these claims, but both the French and German government have listed the organization as a cult (although this was later retracted - dum dum dum!)

I don't see anything in this "Coming of Age" manual other than 92 pages of introductions to Web 2.0 technologies and a ton of great links. Use at your own risk. I will not take responsibility for sudden urges to "donate" or sentiments that Tom Cruise seems to be settling down and makeing sense.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

















The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments is posted as a torrent on Mininova and is currently very well seeded. This classic from the 60's contains hundreds of experiments and great art. Direct link to torrent.

Friday, June 02, 2006

L'amour de Classroom Tech



Since everyone liked the Pet Shop Boys video last friday, I thought I'd post some more classic, sexually ambiguous pop-tronica. Erasure "Oh L'amour".

SVSD Classroom Technology has posted a couple of really useful webware and software over the past few weeks:














Wink
is a program that makes screencasting easy. Use it to create flash presentations.















Captioner adds comic-book styled captions to your photos.


















Eyespot
is one of the better new sites for loading and editting your videos.

SocialLearning.ca is a network of British Columbian educators introducing the basics of podcasting, blogging, and Web 2.0 apps.








Also, check out the Free iPod Book 2.0 from iPod lounge. Lots of good stuff in there. And it's free. Direct link to download mirror.

Thursday, June 01, 2006