Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Feed Your Mind

Lately, I've discovered a few sites, which feature lectures by some of the world's biggest brains, so many that I could probably fill my 30 GB iPod several times over.

Here's a few great resources, including links to some lectures I've enjoyed.

Listening to Words - fantastic clearinghouse for all kinds of different lectures, gathered from various sources across the internet, including MIT, Princeton, the Museum of Natural History, and the BBC. Plus you can browse by lectures, people, locations, tags, and popular.
  • Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything [mp3]
The Long Now - Brian Eno coined the term "The Long Now" and he's one of the founders of this group, which understands the need for long-term thinking when considering human progress. Check out the seminar section of the site for mp3 lectures by Jared Diamond, Stewart Brand, Jill Tarter and loads more. Many Long Now videos are provided, too, via Google video.
  • Jared Diamond - How Societies Fail-And Sometimes Succeed [mp3]
  • Jill Tarter - The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence: Necessarily a Long-term Strategy [mp3]
TED - view videos of lectures online through a slick AJAX interface or download them free for your iPod. Includes Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Jane Goodall, James Nachtwey, Bill Clinton and E. O. Wilson among many, many others.
  • Richard Dawkins - The universe is queerer than we can suppose [mp3 | mp4 video]
  • James Nachtwey - The recent TED winner discusses his photography [mp3 | mp4 video]
Even YouTube has some great stuff among all those vanity projects if you look for it.

You can practically attend the world's best university online for free.

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