by Salman Hameed

Erol Morris, of course, always picks up interesting topics for his short and long films. He did A Brief History of Time, but my favorite is his charming documentary, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. If you haven't seen it, check it out - it also somewhat related to science (and obsession with animals). But here I want to highlight his interview with Benoit Mandelbrot: The Father of Fractals. It is a wonderful short film under 5 minutes. Enjoy!

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by Salman Hameed

Well, here is a good way to spend your four-minutes. Here is a short TED talk by Terry Moore on "Why is 'x' the Unknown":

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by Salman Hameed

Here is an intriguing short film (about 20 minutes): Giordano Bruno in Conscious Memory. Bruno, of course, has come to stand in as a symbol for free speech etc., but that is a later construction (see this earlier post: Why was Giordano Bruno burnt at the stake? But this movie, takes it in another direction and presents his broader influence, including on the writings of Shakespeare (they were contemporaries - and some have suggested this connection. I don't know anything about this to comment on it). Despite the acting and some limited camera work, I like the ambitious nature of the short film. Enjoy!

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by Salman Hameed

I posted this clip several years ago, so I thought I'll post it again. Here is Richard Feynman on doubt, uncertainty and religion. Unlike some of the newer breed of scientists, he states his own beliefs, but does not intend to be offensive to others. This doesn't mean that some people will not take offense to his views - but that is not his intent, and he stays with his personal opinion. It is also his delivery that makes the difference. This is fantastic! One of the best lines in there: "..I can live with doubt...and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong".

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by Salman Hameed

This was created for BBC 2 (tip from Open Culture). Enjoy!


P.S. Note that in a little over four minutes, it also resolves the tension(s) between science and religion. 

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by Salman Hameed

Here is a nicely made short film that brings up an interesting question about personhood. The ending of this film is okay - but I think it raises some fascinating questions about death that can be examined in a follow-up film. [Spoiler: Read the next sentence after watching the short film. I think the detective at the end should really be charged with murder. But then can there be a primary and a secondary murder of the same person?]

Here is 16-minute film: The Final Moments of Karl Brant (tip from Jason Tor):

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by Salman Hameed

For your trippy Saturday experience, here is an interesting choice of animation for Italo Calvino's short story, The Distance of the Moon [about 8 minutes long] (tip from Open Culture). This is one of the stories from his collection, Cosmicomics. The basic premise of the Moon being closer to the Earth soon after its formation is actually scientifically correct (though definitely not as close as it is in the story :)). The Moon is indeed moving away from us every year, but an incredibly slow pace of an inch and a half per year. No need to worry about losing the Moon soon. In any case, enjoy the story:


You can also listen to the full story in the voice of Liev Schreiber (an alum of Hampshire College!) on Radiolab (about 40 minutes long):

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by Salman Hameed

Here is a nicely executed short film (about 6 minutes long). I don't want to spoil the film, but I have to say that the basic premise works because this is something that we have all experienced at one time or another.

Enjoy!


Blind Spot from Matthew K. Nayman on Vimeo.

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by Salman Hameed

Here is a nice sci-fi short film (6 minutes long) for your Saturday:

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by Salman Hameed

There have been fears and hope since the beginning of the Arab Spring. There now have been democratic elections in Egypt and Tunisia, and in both places, Islamist parties have come in power. The question then is how will they shape the future of their respective countries. If you have an hour, check out this fantastic talk by John Calvert on The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Between Ideology and Political Pragmatism, hosted by the Center for Middle East Studies at University of Denver. John traces the history and evolution of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and it is a good reminder not to treat such organizations as monolith or stuck in time. Couple of years ago I had plugged John's book, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (See Sayyid Qutb liked "Gone with the Wind?). Now here is John Calvert talking about The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (p.s. this talk is, I think, is from last February, and there is a question in the end about Turkey serving as model for democracy for Egypt. Interesting, that in just a couple of months, the Turkey question now seems a bit awkward):

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by Salman Hameed

Here are three astrophysicists talking about why astronomers take astronomical photographs, how they process them, and what do these photographs tell us about the universe (tip from Open Culture).

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by Salman Hameed

From this past March, here is Glenn Greenwald talking about 'endless war' and growing Presidential powers in the US. The first part of the talk is about 40 minutes, and then he sits down for a discussion with Hampshire College faculty member, Falguni Sheth. The whole session is fantastic - but his discussion of Wikileaks is particularly worthwhile. For our purposes, there is a discussion of how the narrative of endless war allows the government to expand its power and how such things become normalized (for example, for many young adults, they don't even know pre-9/11 US). In any case, here is the talk:

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by Salman Hameed

Our long lost cousins. Here is a fantastic NOVA episode on new genetic and archaeological discoveries about the Neanderthals.

Enjoy!

Watch Decoding Neanderthals on PBS. See more from NOVA.

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by Salman Hameed

This is commencement time. If you have 10 minutes (and yes, you do), watch this video dramatizing the 2005 commencement speech by the late David Foster Wallace. This is an abridged version but you  can read the full speech here. It is really fantastic and I also love the imagery used in the video. But ultimately, it is about how you create - or ought to - create meaning.

Do check this out.

Enjoy! (tip from Open Culture)

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by Salman Hameed

This is very cool! As part of a tribute to Dave Brubeck, Lahore's Sachel Studio plays the jazz classic, "Take Five", with an arrangement that includes a sitar and a tabla. You have to check this out.


From Open Culture:

Here we have The Sachal Studios Orchestra, based in Lahore, Pakistan, playing an innovative cover of “Take Five,” the jazz standard written by Paul Desmond and performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1959. Before he died last year, Brubeck called it the “most interesting” version he had ever heard. Once you watch the performance above, you’ll know why. 

According to The Guardian, The Sachal Studios Orchestra was created by Izzat Majeed, a philanthropist based in London. When Pakistan fell under the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq during the 1980s, Pakistan’s classical music scene fell on hard times. Many musicians were forced into professions they had never imagined — selling clothes, electrical parts, vegetables, etc. Whatever was necessary to get by. Today, many of these musicians have come together in a 60-person orchestra that plays in a state-of-the-art studio, designed partly by Abbey Road sound engineers. 

You can purchase their album, Sachal Jazz: Interpretations of Jazz Standards & Bossa Nova, on Amazon and iTunes. It includes versions of “Take Five” and “The Girl from Ipanema.”

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by Salman Hameed

I hope you were able to avoid the sequels, but the original Matrix was quite spectacular. Here is an hour long video on Philosophy and the Matrix. From Open Culture:

Apotheosis of cyberpunk culture, 1999’s The Matrix and its less-successful sequels introduced a generation of fanboys and girls to the most stylish expression of some age-old idealist thought experiments: the Hindu concept of Maya, Plato’s cave, Descartes’ evil demon, Hilary Putnam’s Brain in a Vat—all notions about the nature of reality that ask whether what we experience isn’t instead an elaborate illusion, concealing a “real” world outside of our perceptual grasp. In some versions—such as those of certain Buddhists and Christian Gnostics, whose ideas The Matrix directors borrowed liberally—one can awaken from the dream. In others, such as Kant’s or Jacques Lacan’s, that prospect is unlikely, if impossible. These questions about the nature of reality versus appearance are mainstays of intro philosophy courses and stereotypical stoner sessions. But they’re also perennially relevant to philosophers and neuroscientists, which is why such academic luminaries as Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers continue to address them in their work on the nature and problem of consciousness. 

Dennett, Chalmers, the always captivating scholar/theologian/activist Cornel West, and a host of other academic thinkers, appear in the documentary above, Philosophy and the Matrix: Return to the Source. Part of the sprawling box-set The Ultimate Matrix Collection, the film comments on how The Matrix does much more than dramatize an undergraduate thesis; it takes on questions about religious revelation and authority, parapsychology, free will and determinism, and the nature of personal identity in ways that no dry philosophical text or arcane mystical system has before, thanks to its hip veneer and pioneering use of CGI. 

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by Salman Hameed

Now that the Higgs Boson has been confirmed, here are two NOVA segments that explain the physics as well as cover the preliminary announcement from last year (note that the top video is from 2011 - and talks about the future discovery of Higgs Boson). Also check out this excellent New York Times special on the Higgs Boson from last week.

Enjoy!

Watch The Higgs Particle Matters on PBS. See more from NOVA.

Watch Higgs Boson Revealed on PBS. See more from NOVA.

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by Salman Hameed

Sometimes it is best to just sit back and admire how much we can know simply by observing light! This is from a couple of years ago, but it is still very cool that we have confirmed detection of methane in the atmosphere of one of the extrasolar planets (though not because of cows...). It is too hot on this planet to have much hope for life, at the kind we are familiar with. Nevertheless, it is cool that astronomers can measure composition of these extrasolar planets. Here is a short 5-minute Hubblecast:


Hubblecast 14: Hubble finds first organic molecule on extrasolar planet from HubbleESA on Vimeo.

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by Salman Hameed

You can say a lot even in less than 8 minutes. Here is a fascinating short film, Grounded, about an astronaut landing on an extrasolar planet. What do you think is going on in here?

t

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by Salman Hameed

It is a topic that is finally being discusses more broadly in the US press. I usually find Chris Hayes a bit smug, but here is a good discussion from last week that includes couple of lawyers, an ACLU activist, and the filmmaker behind the new documentary, Dirty Wars: The World as a Battlefield. One of the interesting comments made in the discussion is that fact that legally, one cannot distinguish between US and non-US citizens when it comes to the access of due-process (in reality, of course, courts have made distinctions). Here is the full program:

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