Thursday, November 21, 2024 from Open Culture
Whatever set of religious or cultural traditions you come from, you’ve probably seen a Celtic cross before. Unlike a conventional cross, it has a circular ring, or “nimbus,” where its arms and stem intersect. The sole addition of that...Thursday, November 21, 2024 from Open Culture
I’ve always admired people who can successfully navigate what I refer to as “Kafka’s Castle,” a term of dread for the many government and corporate agencies that have an inordinate amount of power over our permanent records, and that...Wednesday, November 20, 2024 from Open Culture
In the trailer below for the world’s first 3D replica of St. Peter’s Basilica, Yves Ubelmann speaks of using “AI for Good,” which isn’t just an ideal, but also the name of a lab at Microsoft. Microsoft and Ubelman’s...Wednesday, November 20, 2024 from Open Culture
114 years ago today (November 20, 1910), Leo Tolstoy—the author who gave us two major Russian classics Anna Karenina and War & Peace—died at Astapovo, a small, remote train station in the heart of Russia. Pneumonia was the...Tuesday, November 19, 2024 from Open Culture
Pierre-Joseph Redouté made his name by painting flowers, an achievement impossible without a meticulousness that exceeds all bounds of normality. He published his three-volume collection Les Roses and his eight-volume...Tuesday, November 19, 2024 from Open Culture
In April, 1983, 50 million television viewers watched the illusionist David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, straight into thin air. If you’re north of 50, you perhaps remember the spectacle. How did he do it? 40 years...Monday, November 18, 2024 from Open Culture
There’s an eXodus taking place, and millions are finding a new home on Bluesky. In recent days, the decentralized social media platform has been gaining 10,000 new users every 10–15 minutes, or about 1 million new users per day. Open...Monday, November 18, 2024 from Open Culture
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell may have lived his long life concerned with big topics in logic, mathematics, politics, and society, but that didn’t keep him from thinking seriously about how to handle his...Monday, November 18, 2024 from Open Culture
In 1994, Jerry Beck edited the book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals, which challenged experts to create a ranking of the best short, cel animated cartoons ever made. To no one’s...What Victorian People Sounded Like: Hear Recordings of Florence Nightingale & Queen Victoria Herself
Friday, November 15, 2024 from Open Culture
More than 120 years after the end of the Victorian era, we might assume that we retain a more or less accurate cultural memory of the Victorians themselves: of their social mores, their aesthetic sensibilities, their ambitions great and...Thursday, November 14, 2024 from Open Culture
Burj Al Babas might have been constructed expressly to attract the attention of the internet. “Sitting near the Black Sea, the town is full of half-finished, fully abandoned mini castles — 587 of them to be exact,” write Architectural...Wednesday, November 13, 2024 from Open Culture
Along with Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy Magazine was one of the most important science fiction digests in 1950s America. Ray Bradbury wrote for it–including an early version of his...Wednesday, November 13, 2024 from Open Culture
A heads-up on a deal: Between today and December 2, 2024, Coursera is offering a 40% discount on its annual subscription plan called “Coursera Plus.” Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $239.40) gives you...Wednesday, November 13, 2024 from Open Culture
Photos on this page courtesy of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Few who hear the story of the Endurance could avoid reflecting on the aptness of the ship’s name. A year after setting out on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic...Wednesday, November 13, 2024 from Open Culture
Enter the Mushroom Color Atlas, and you can discover the “beautiful and subtle colors derived from dyeing with mushrooms.” Featuring 825 colors, each associated with different types of mushrooms, the interactive atlas lets you appreciate...Tuesday, November 12, 2024 from Open Culture
For 142 years now, Sagrada Família has been growing toward the sky. Or at least that’s what it seems to be doing, as its ongoing construction realizes ever more fully a host of forms that look and feel not quite of this earth. It makes a...