Understand neuroscience with these neat animations by Harvard University
Omar Kardoudi
10/23/14 - Thursday
When I first heard of Harvard's Fundamentals of Neuroscience online course, I thought it was going to be so hard to understand that I would have a seizure before the end of the first video. But no, thanks to the cool and straightforward animation it is actually very easy to get it.
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The Long Reach of Reason - Steven Pinker, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
Here's a TED first: an animated Socratic dialog! In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally lost its power? Watch as psychologist Steven Pinker is gradually, brilliantly persuaded by philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein that reason is actually the key driver of human moral progress, even if its effect sometimes takes generations to unfold. The dialog was recorded live at TED, and animated, in incredible, often hilarious, detail by Cognitive.* * * * *
This talk was presented at an official TED Conference. TED's editors featured it among our daily selections on the home page.
Steven Pinker - Linguist
Linguist Steven Pinker questions the very nature of our thoughts — the way we use words, how we learn, and how we relate to others. In his best-selling books, he has brought sophisticated language analysis to bear on topics of wide general interest. Full bio
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein - Philosopher and writer
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein writes novels and nonfiction that explore questions of philosophy, morality and being. Full bio
Why this might just be the most persuasive TED Talk ever posted
Posted by: Chris Anderson
March 17, 2014
In today’s talk, “The Long Reach of Reason,” Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein have been animated by RSA.I want to give you the back story behind today’s TED Talk and make the case that it’s one of the most significant we’ve ever posted. And I’m not just talking about its incredible animation. I’m talking about its core idea.
Two years ago the psychologist Steven Pinker and the philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, who are married, came to TED to take part in a form of Socratic dialog.
She sought to argue that Reason was a much more powerful force in history than it’s normally given credit for. He initially defended the modern consensus among psychologists and neurologists, that most human behavior is best explained through other means: unconscious instincts of various kinds. But over the course of the dialog, he is persuaded by her, and together they look back through history and see how reasoned arguments ended up having massive impacts, even if those impacts sometimes took centuries to unfold.
The script was clever, the argument powerful. However on the day, they bombed. And I’m mainly to blame.
You see, we gambled that year on seeking to expand our repertoire of presentation formats. Their dialog appeared in a session we called “The Dinner Party.” The idea was that all the speakers at the session would be seated around a table. They would individually give their talks, then come sit back down with the others to debate the talk, and everyone would end up the wiser. Seemed like an interesting idea at the time. But it didn’t work. Somehow the chemistry of the dinner guests never ignited. And perhaps the biggest reason for that was that I, as head of the table trying to moderate the conversation, had my back to the audience. The audience disengaged, the evening fell flat, and Steve and Rebecca’s dialog, which also suffered from some audio issues, was rated too low for us to consider posting it online.
At TED2012, Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein explored how reason shaped human history. We’ve animated the talk to bring new life to this important idea. Photo: James Duncan DavidsonThat would normally have been the end of it. Except that a strange thing happened. I could not get their core idea out of my head. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that TED’s entire mission rested on the premise that ideas really matter. And unless reasoned argument is the prime tool shaping those ideas, they can warp into pretty much anything, good or bad.
And so I tried to figure if there was a way to rescue the talk. And it turned out that there was. It came in the shape of Andrew Park, who, in my humble-but-true opinion is the world’s greatest animator of concepts. His RSA Animate series has notched up millions of views for sometimes difficult topics, and we have worked with him before to animate talks from Denis Dutton and some of our TED-Ed lessons (including one from yours truly on Questions No One Knows the Answer To.) If he could make me interesting, he sure as hell could do so for Pinker and Goldstein.
And so it turned out. Andrew and his amazing team at Cognitive fixed the audio issue and turned the entire talk into an animated movie of such imagination, humor and, most of all, explanatory power, it took my breath away.
And so here it is. The Long Reach of Reason. A talk in animated dialog form, arguing that Reason is capable of extending its influence across centuries, making it the single most powerful driver of long-term change. Please watch it. A) you’ll be blown away by how it’s animated. B) it may change forever how you think about Reason. And that’s a good thing.
It is a delicious example in favor of the talk’s conclusions that it was the power of its own arguments that kept it alive and turned it into a animation capable of far greater reach than the original.
For me, the argument in this talk is ultimately a profoundly optimistic one. If it turns out to be valid, then there really can be such a thing in the world as moral progress. People are genuinely capable of arguing each other into new beliefs, new mindsets that ultimately will benefit humanity. If you think that’s unlikely, watch the talk. You might just find yourself reasoned to a different opinion.
An experiment I will never try again: hosting a session with my back to the audience. Photo: James Duncan Davidson
Quantum Entanglement Animated
February 20th, 2014
PhD Comics has released the third video in an animated series explaining Quantum concepts and devices. This one focuses on Quantum Entanglement and features the work of Caltech physicists Jeff Kimble and Chen-Lung Hung. Meanwhile Jorge Cham, creator of PhD Comics, provides the accompanying animation.
Entire courses on Quantum Entanglement can be found in our collection of Free Online Physics Courses, part of our collection of 825 Free Online Courses.
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- Leonard Susskind Teaches You “The Theoretical Minimum” for Understanding Modern Physics
- Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple: A Mini Course from Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Hans Bethe
- The Higgs Boson, AKA the God Particle, Explained with Animation
- What’s Next for the Large Hadron Collider? PhD Comics Introduces the Search for Extra Dimensions
- The Famous Feynman Lectures on Physics: The New Online Edition (in HTML5)
This Gives New Meaning to Bear Hug! An RSA Short Animated by Katy Davis
December 10, 2013
So grateful to The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts) for inviting me to speak in London this year and to animator and illustrator, Katy Davis, for this amazing short on empathy! Beautiful.
RSA Animate - Re-Imagining Work
How can we get people more engaged, more productive, and happier at work? Is technology part of the problem – and could it also be part of the solution? Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, imagines what might be possible if more organisations embraced the full, empowering potential of technology and encouraged a truly open, collaborative and flexible working culture. Taken from a talk given by Dave Coplin as part of the RSA's free public events programme.
Re-Imagining Work: Shifts in the digital revolution
08 Apr 2013
Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, imagines what might be possible if organisations really began to think differently about the power of technological and social change to transform the way we do business.
- Listen to the podcast of the full event including audience Q&A
Download the video (mp4)
Dave Coplin is Chief Envisioning Officer for Microsoft UK.Enjoy.
Since joining Microsoft in 2005, Dave has worked across a wide range of sectors and customers, providing strategic advice and guidance around the cost effective use of technology in relation to their business needs.
Dave is an established thought leader in the UK having spent a considerable amount of time in the Public Sector providing leadership and guidance around key technology policy issues like Cloud Computing, Open Government, Open Data and the “consumerisation” of IT.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Dave spent 13 years delivering IT strategy and solutions within the Professional Services industry in the UK, Canada and the Netherlands, helping to build the foundations of a global IT infrastructure.
The RSA
Published on Sept 25, 2013How can we get people more engaged, more productive, and happier at work? Is technology part of the problem -- and could it also be part of the solution?
Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, imagines what might be possible if more organisations embraced the full, empowering potential of technology and encouraged a truly open, collaborative and flexible working culture.
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This audio has been edited from the original event by Abi Stephenson, RSA. Animation by Cognitive Media.------
The RSA is a 258 year-old charity devoted to creating social progress and spreading world-changing ideas. For more information about our research, RSA Animates, free events programme and 27,000 strong Fellowship.
- Find out more about the RSA at http://www.thersa.org
- Follow the RSA on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thersaorg
- Like the RSA on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thersaorg
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The Cave: Plato’s Allegory in Claymation
by Kent Thune - May 10th, 2013
This is a wonderful clay animation adaptation of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which dovetails nicely into my Decline of America piece posted yesterday. The video demonstrates simply and briefly how our decline is probable but preventable.
The number of “prisoners” increases daily. My goal is to free as many people from “the cave” as possible. Please share with anyone who may benefit.
Hat tip to my friend Ken at Cicero’s Free Citizen Post for making me aware of the video.
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Kent Thune is the blog author of The Financial Philosopher. You can follow Kent on Twitter @ThinkersQuill.
If Mr. K.G.B. feels a little too severe, then why not have a little fun with Mr. Blasty? He’s adorable, a barrel of laughs, but he pulls no punches. “While you’re all suddenly wondering about me and my drone friends blowing you to bits in Bowling Green, I've been busy abroad for years killing thousands!…” “Don’t worry, they’re usually just foreigners though. But whether they’re foreigners or citizens– first comes firepower [blam], then comes legalese! And if the legalese doesn't work, there’s always “state secrets” where nobody knows nothin'–.” The more the administrations the change, the more they stay the same.Drones Over America!: Two Animated Satires of Misguided American Policy
March 25th, 2013
Drones over America –they’re a high tech assault on American constitutional rights, and they deserve to be met with a modern form of dissent, something more than a cranky op-ed in the pages of The New York Times. In this case, animated satire feels just about right. Enter Drew Christie, who created a satirical “Op-Doc” for the Times that mocks plans to use drones to police America. Christie hails from Seattle, whose police force recently announced it would adopt an aerial drone program. When the plan was later scuttled, K.G.B. agents everywhere were very upset. Who could blame them, seeing that we were so close to achieving our brave new world?
Animal Farm is an allegorical novel by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.[1] Orwell, a democratic socialist,[2] was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, especially after his experiences with the NKVD and the Spanish Civil War.[3] The Soviet Union he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as his novel "contre Stalin"[4] and in his essay of 1946, Why I Write, he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he had tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".Enjoy!
The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but the subtitle was dropped by U.S. publishers for its 1946 publication and subsequently all but one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime omitted the addition. Other variations in the title include: A Satire and A Contemporary Satire.[4] Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which recalled the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques, and which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin for "bear", a symbol of Russia.[4]
It was written at a time (November 1943-February 1944) when the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union was at its height and Stalin was held in highest esteem in Britain both among the people and intelligentsia, a fact that Orwell hated.[5] It was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz. Its publication was thus delayed, though it became a great commercial success when it did finally appear—in part because the Cold War so quickly followed WW2.[6]
Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005);[7] it also places at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is also included in the Great Books of the Western World.
The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders but also how wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and myopia corrupt the revolution. It portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution, rather than the act of revolution itself. It also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people's government is not achieved.
Animal Farm
(1955) 73 mins
Animal Farm Synopsis
George Orwell's classic satire in a feature-length animated film. A brilliant and captivating tale that cleverly points out faults in human nature and politics.
Film CreditsStarring: Maurice Denham, Gordon HeathDirector: John Halas
The Mirroring Mind: An Espresso-Fueled Interpretation of Douglas Hofstadter’s Groundbreaking Ideas
March 13th, 2013
Today, Jason Silva serves up another philosophical espresso shot with The Mirroring Mind, a two-minute video inspired by the ideas explored in Douglas Hofstadter’s influential book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. The film — which you may need to watch twice, ideally after you’ve had your own stiff cup of coffee – offers Silva’s “interpretation of Strange Loops of Self Reference, recursion, and the emergence of consciousness and self-awareness.” Once you’ve got a handle on things, you can watch Silva’s previous films on The Immersive Power of Cinema, The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck, and The Gospel of Radical Openness.
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18 Animations of Classic Literary Works: From Plato and Shakespeare, to Kafka, Hemingway and Gaiman
December 12th, 2012
Yesterday we featured Piotr Dumala’s 2000 animation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s classic novel, Crime and Punishment, and it reminded us of many other literary works that have been wonderfully re-imagined by animators — many that we’ve featured here over the years. Rather than leaving these wondrous works buried in the archives, we’re bringing them back and putting them all on display. And what better place to start than with a foundational text — Plato’s Republic. We were tempted to show you a claymation version of the seminal philosophical work (watch here), but we decided to go instead with Orson Welles’ 1973 narration of The Cave Allegory, which features the surreal artistic work of Dick Oden.
Staying with the Greeks for another moment … This one may have Sophocles and Aeschylus spinning in their graves. Or, who knows, perhaps they would have enjoyed this bizarre twist on the Oedipus myth. Running eight minutes, Jason Wishnow’s 2004 film features vegetables in the starring roles. One of the first stop-motion films shot with a digital still camera, Oedipus took two years to make with a volunteer staff of 100. The film has since been screened at 70+ film festivals and was eventually acquired by the Sundance Channel. Separate videos show you the behind-the-scenes making of the film, plus the storyboards used during production.
Between 1992 and 1994, HBO aired The Animated Shakespeare, which brought to life 12 famous Shakespeare plays. Leon Garfield, a well-known British children’s author, wrote the scripts, mainly using Shakespearian language. And some talented Russian artists did the animation. Above, we give you the first part of the animated Romeo & Juliet. Get Part 2 and Part 3 here, and find other animated Shakespeare plays on this Youtube Channel.
Eight years before Piotr Dumala tackled Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Dumala produced a short animated film based on The Diaries of Franz Kafka. Once again, you can see his method, known as “destructive animation,” in action. It’s well worth the 16 minutes. Or you can spend time with this 2007 Japanese animation of Kafka’s cryptic tale of “A Country Doctor.” And if you’re still hankering for animated Kafka, don’t miss Orson Welles’ Narration of the Parable, “Before the Law”.
The animated sequence above is from the 1974 film adaptation of Herman Hesse’s 1927 novel Steppenwolf. In this scene, the Harry Haller character played by Max von Sydow reads from the “Tractate on the Steppenwolf.” The visual imagery was created by Czech artist Jaroslav Bradác.
In 1999, Aleksandr Petrov won the Academy Award for Short Film (among other awards) for a film that follows the plot line of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novella, The Old Man and the Sea (1952). As noted here, Petrov’s technique involves painting pastels on glass, and he and his son painted a total of 29,000 images for this work. Rather incredible. It’s permanently listed in our collection of Oscar Winning Films Available Online and our collection of 500 Free Movies Online.
Italo Calvino, one of Italy’s finest postwar writers, published Italian Folktales in 1956, a series of 200 fairy tales based sometimes loosely, sometimes more strictly, on stories from a great folk tradition. Upon the collection’s publication, The New York Times named Italian Folktales one of the ten best books of the year. And more than a half century later, the stories continue to delight. Case in point: in 2007, John Turturro, the star of numerous Coen brothers and Spike Lee films, began working on Fiabe italiane, a play adapted from Calvino’s collection of fables. The animated video above features Turturro reading “The False Grandmother,” Calvino’s reworking of Little Red Riding Hood. Kevin Ruelle illustrated the clip, which was produced as part of Flypmedia’s more extensive coverage of Turturro’s adaptation. You can find another animation of a Calvino story (The Distance of the Moon) on YouTube here.
Emily Dickinson’s poetry is widely celebrated for its beauty and originality. To celebrate her birthday (it just passed us by earlier this week) we bring you this little film of her poem, “I Started Early–Took My Dog,” from the “Poetry Everywhere” series by PBS and the Poetry Foundation. The poem is animated by Maria Vasilkovsky and read by actress Blair Brown.
E.B. White, beloved author of Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and the classic English writing guide The Elements of Style, died in 1985. Not long before his death, he agreed to narrate an adaptation of “The Family That Dwelt Apart,” a touching story he wrote for The New Yorker. The 1983 film was animated by the Canadian director Yvon Malette, and it received an Oscar nomination.
Shel Silverstein wrote The Giving Tree in 1964, 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. Silverstein narrates the story himself and also plays the harmonica.
The online bookseller Good Books created an animated mash-up of the spirits of Franz Kafka and Hunter S. Thompson. Under a bucket hat, behind aviator sunglasses, and deep into an altered mental state, our narrator feels the sudden, urgent need for a copy of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Unwilling to make the purchase in “the great river of mediocrity,” he instead makes the buy from “a bunch of rose-tinted, willfully delusional Pollyannas giving away all the money they make — every guilt-ridden cent.” The animation, created by a studio called Buck, should easily meet the aesthetic demands of any viewer in their own altered state or looking to get into one.
39 Degrees North, a Beijing motion graphics studio, started developing an unconventional Christmas card last year. And once they got going, there was no turning back. Above, we have the end result – an animated version of an uber dark Christmas poem (read text here) written by Neil Gaiman, the bestselling author of sci-fi and fantasy short stories. The poem was published in Gaiman’s collection, Smoke and Mirrors.
This collaboration between filmmaker Spike Jonze and handbag designer Olympia Le-Tan doesn’t bring a particular literary tale to life. Rather this stop motion film uses 3,000 pieces of cut felt to show famous books springing into motion in the iconic Parisian bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. It’s called Mourir Auprès de Toi. Are there impressive literary animations that didn’t make our list? Please let us know in the comments below. We’d love to know about them.
An Animated Christmas Fable by Maurice Sendak (1977)
December 25th, 2012
Today we say merry Christmas the Open Culture way, by bringing in a piece of work from the late Maurice Sendak, the children’s author and illustrator who with everything he wrote and drew evaded the limitations of that label. Though most of us remember his books Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen from childhood, whenever our childhoods happened to be, fewer of us have seen his animated work. Above you’ll find a bit of it relevant to this time of year: Sendak’s opening sequence forSimple Gifts. In it we witness a shoeless waif’s metamorphosis into a Christmas tree which attracts and comforts a pair of similarly dispossessed tots. The 1977 anthology film collected six short films, all on the theme of Christmas. But only this first minute and a half comes from the inimitable mind belonging to the man Time called “the Picasso of children’s books.” The video then features Simple Gifts‘ opening remarks from Colleen Dewhurst, who reflects on and draws a lesson from this brief animated tale: “A person gives nothing who does not give of himself.”
via Biblioklept
Related content:
- Watch the Animation of Maurice Sendak’s Surreal and Controversial Story, In the Night Kitchen
- The Mind & Art of Maurice Sendak: A Video Sketch
~ Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes essays on literature, film, cities, Asia, and aesthetics. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall.
Earlier this year, the blues guitarist Charles ‘Skip’ Pitts passed away after a bout of lung cancer. He had a musical career that spanned many decades. But, he’s best remembered for his riffs on one song — Isaac Hayes’ theme song for the 1971 film Shaft. (Catch it below.) Pitts’ licks have been sampled by countless younger musicians, everyone from Snoop Dogg and the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre and Massive Attack. Starting in the late 90s, the bluesman began playing with a band called The Bo-Keys, which became the subject of a mini documentary in 2011. The short film yielded some insightful interviews with Pitts. And, once he departed from our world, the conversations became the basis for the “animated interpretation” you’re hopefully now watching above. It’s the work of Loaded Pictures, a studio based in Seattle, Washington.
Kafka’s Nightmare Tale, ‘A Country Doctor,’ Told in Award-Winning Japanese Animation
December 5th, 2012
Here’s a good story for a cold December night: Franz Kafka’s cryptic, hallucinatory tale of “A Country Doctor.”
Written in Prague during the icy winter of 1916-1917, Kafka’s story unfolds in one long paragraph like a fevered nightmare. “I was in great perplexity,” says the narrator, an old doctor, as he sets out in a blizzard at night on an urgent but vague mission. But he can’t go anywhere. His horse, worn out by the winter, has just died and his servant girl is going door to door pleading for help. A surreal sequence of events follow.
“A Country Doctor” is permeated with the qualities that John Updike found so compelling in Kafka: “a sensation of anxiety and shame whose center cannot be located and therefore cannot be placated; a sense of an infinite difficulty within things, impeding every step; a sensitivity acute beyond usefulness, as if the nervous system, flayed of its old hide of social usage and religious belief, must record every touch as pain.”
In 2007 the award-winning Japanese animator Koji Yamamura made a 21-minute film (see above) which captures some of the strangeness and beauty of Kafka’s story. It seems somehow appropriate that the dreamlike narrative has been transmuted into a form and language unknown to Kafka. And if you aren’t familiar with the original, you can read a translation of “A Country Doctor” by Willa and Edwin Muir. You can also find Kafka’s stories in our collection of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.
Related Content:
Children who suck their thumbs get a terrifying visitor in the short horror film Suckablood
Lauren Davis
Parents tell their children all sorts of terrifying tales to break them of unwanted habits. When the monstrous mother of the young protagonist of Ben Tillett & Jake Cuddihy's Suckblood can't beat the thumbsucking habit out of her, she calls upon the vile creature who murders children who can't keep their fingers out of their mouths. Now the little girl must spend a terrified night without sucking her thumb for comfort.
This short is part of the Bloody Cuts anthology series of short horror films. This one has a dark fairytale feel and a gorgeous gothic sensibility to match. The tale even comes with its own grisly moral. Sweet dreams, thumbsuckers.
[via GeekTyrant]
Description: Our existence and everything we experience is dependent on our consciousness. But what is consciousness? Using original animations, Deepak Chopra addresses the age-old question of what conceives, governs, constructs, and becomes the universe around us.
THE RABBIT HOLE features fast-paced and mind-blowing explorations of BIG questions - What is death? Who is God? Is life an illusion? Are we alone in the universe? Using visually-stunning graphics and music, we fall down the rabbit hole as Deepak Chopra provides his unique and intriguing take on some of humanity's eternal questions.
60-Second Adventures in Religion: Watch New Animations by The Open University
October 15th, 2012
American friends who went studying abroad in the Great Britain of the 70s all have a story about discovering the Open University. They usually did so late at night, more than a little inebriated, and well into a bout of semi-exotic channel-flipping. Suddenly they’d stumble upon a plaid-jacketed lecturer introducing psychology, say, or biology, or some branch of literature, and find themselves surprised and transfixed. Back then, the OU had to lean on television and radio as content distribution systems, but now that they can make use of the internet, they’ve put out all sorts of educational materials of great interest to Open Culture readers. We’ve previously featured their 60-Second Adventures in Thought and 60-Second Adventures in Economics. Now you can watch and learn about another subject from the latest in their series of animated, joke-filled intellectual primers, 60-Second Adventures in Religion.
“Karl Marx was a German philosopher-economist, and the least funny of the Marxes,” says the narrator of the first adventure, “Religion as Social Control.” “He famously called religion ‘the opium of the people,’ in that religion was not only used by those in power to oppress the workers, but it also made them feel better about being oppressed when they couldn’t afford real opium.” The other three adventures approach religion as ritual, religion as mother, and religion as virus. Each video (watch them below) references a different theorist and takes their views as seriously as such a humorous project can, though they all avoid ascribing absolute authority to anyone in particular. The fourth installment, for instance, opens by quoting Richard Dawkins, whom the narrator introduces as “an atheist, evolutionary biologist, and probably not someone you should ask to be a godfather.” But hearing about his thoughts on the virus of religion will certainly get you curious about what else OU has to offer on the subject.
(You can also download 60-Second Adventures in Religion on iTunes.)
The short animated film One Day features a man with an incredible gift: his home jumps around the world, spending just one day in each location. But what happens when the house's occupant finds a place where he wants to stay.
This short comes out of Paris' Gobelins School of the Image. There are shades of Doctor Who in the house that jumps around, unbidden by its owner, but it has a very different, very travel-weary protagonist who might be swayed to stay put after a simple, human encounter.
For non-French-speakers, "rien à faire" means "nothing to do."
[via Geek Art Gallery]
Are you more honest than a banker? Under what circumstances would you lie, or cheat, and what effect does your deception have on society at large? Dan Ariely, one of the world's leading voices on human motivation and behaviour is the latest big thinker to get the RSA Animate treatment.
Taken from a lecture given at the RSA in July 2012 . Watch the longer talk here.
