The Costa Concordia Shipwreck Viewed from Outer Space

The search for sur­vivors still goes on near the Tus­can island of Giglio, where the Cos­ta Con­cor­dia hit rocks and list­ed help­less­ly to the side. The help­less­ness of the cruise ship has been cap­tured in a remark­able image tak­en by Dig­i­tal Globe from out­er space. Click here (or above) to see the image in a rather stun­ning, enlarged for­mat.

via Uni­verse Today

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What is Wrong with SOPA?

Some of the big web­sites are going black today to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Pira­cy Act, that has been wind­ing its way through Con­gress. We’re going to han­dle things in our own way — by illu­mi­nat­ing the mat­ter with a lit­tle intel­li­gent media.

Backed by the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca, SOPA is designed to debil­i­tate and effec­tive­ly shut down for­eign-based web­sites that sell pirat­ed movies, music and oth­er goods. That all sounds fine on the face of things. But the leg­is­la­tion, if enact­ed, would car­ry with it a series of unex­pect­ed con­se­quences that could change the inter­net as we know it. Among oth­er things, the law could be used to shut down Amer­i­can sites that unwit­ting­ly host or link to ille­gal con­tent — and with­out giv­ing the sites due process, a real day in court. Big sites like YouTube and Twit­ter could fall under pres­sure, and so could count­less small sites. Need­less to say, that could have a seri­ous chill­ing effect on the open­ness of the web and free speech.

To give a quick exam­ple: It could con­ceiv­ably be the case that Stan­ford might object to my fea­tur­ing their video above, file a claim, and shut the site down with­out giv­ing me notice and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to remove the mate­r­i­al (as exists under cur­rent law). It’s not like­ly. But it is pos­si­ble, and the risk increas­es with every post we write. If this law pass­es, the amount of mate­r­i­al we could tru­ly safe­ly cov­er would become ludi­crous­ly small, so much so that it would­n’t be worth run­ning the site and using the web as an edu­ca­tion­al medi­um.

The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion has come out against SOPA and PIPA, sidelin­ing the leg­is­la­tion for now. But you can almost guar­an­tee that revi­sions will be made, and the bills will return soon. So, while oth­er sites go black, we’re going to do what we do best. We’re fea­tur­ing video of an event held in Decem­ber by the Stan­ford Cen­ter for Inter­net and Soci­ety (SCIS). What’s Wrong with SOPA brings togeth­er a series of informed oppo­nents to SOPA, includ­ing Stan­ford law pro­fes­sors and busi­ness lead­ers with­in Sil­i­con Val­ley. (Find their bios below the jump.) Some of the most inci­sive com­ments are made by Fred von Lohmann, a Google lawyer, start­ing at the 19:10 mark.

Note: If you’re look­ing to under­stand the debate from the per­spec­tive of copy­right hold­ers, then we’d rec­om­mend you spend time watch­ing, Fol­low the Mon­ey: Who Prof­its from Pira­cy?, a video that tracks the theft of one movie, mak­ing it a micro­cosm of a larg­er prob­lem.

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Harvard Thinks Green: Big Ideas from 6 All-Star Environment Profs

On Decem­ber 8th, six “all-star envi­ron­men­tal pro­fes­sors” came togeth­er at an event called “Har­vard Thinks Green” and pre­sent­ed short, TED-style talks about the envi­ron­ment and strate­gies for revers­ing cli­mate change. The event start­ed with James McCarthy (Pro­fes­sor of Bio­log­i­cal Oceanog­ra­phy) ask­ing the ques­tion (see above), “Is it too late to avoid seri­ous impacts of cli­mate change?” A good ques­tion to ask giv­en that 2010 wit­nessed the biggest annu­al jump in glob­al car­bon emissions—5.9%. This set the stage for Richard Lazarus (Pro­fes­sor of Law) to dis­cuss ways that our polit­i­cal sys­tem could become more respon­sive to the cri­sis. (Did you know that Barack Oba­ma only men­tioned cli­mate change once in pub­lic last year? Just once?) And then Rebec­ca Hen­der­son (Co-Direc­tor of the Busi­ness and Envi­ron­ment Ini­tia­tive) tries to make the dif­fi­cult case that mon­ey-mak­ing and sav­ing the world can go hand-in-hand — that cap­i­tal­ism can become envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able. You can watch the remain­ing talks online here, or on iTunes here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Har­vard Thinks Big 2010

Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lec­tures from Occu­py Har­vard Teach-In Pro­vide Answers

Har­vard Presents Free Cours­es with the Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive

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Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lectures from Occupy Harvard Teach-In Provide Answers

Last Wednes­day, the Occu­py move­ment gained a lit­tle more intel­lec­tu­al momen­tum when eight fac­ul­ty mem­bers from Har­vard, Boston Col­lege, and N.Y.U. gath­ered in Cam­bridge to present a day­long Teach-In. In one talk, Archon Fung (Ford Foun­da­tion Pro­fes­sor of Democ­ra­cy and Cit­i­zen­ship and Co-Direc­tor of Trans­paren­cy Pol­i­cy Project at Har­vard) took a vague the­sis of the Occu­py move­ment — “Shit is Fucked Up and Bull­shit” — and gave it some aca­d­e­m­ic depth in a data-filled talk called “Why Has Inequal­i­ty Grown in Amer­i­ca? And What Should We Do About It?” The oth­er talks are avail­able on YouTube (see links below) or via audio stream:

Het­ero­dox Eco­nom­ics: Alter­na­tives to Manki­w’s Ide­ol­o­gy - Stephen Mar­glin, Wal­ter Bark­er Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Wall Street’s Role in the Euro­pean Finan­cial Cri­sis - Richard Park­er, Lec­tur­er in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and Senior Fel­low at the Shoren­stein Cen­ter, Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

The Occu­py Move­ment and Stu­dent Debt Refusal — Andrew Ross, Pro­fes­sor of Social and Cul­tur­al Analy­sis, New York Uni­ver­si­ty

Eco­nom­ics for the 99% — Juli­et Schor, Pro­fes­sor of Soci­ol­o­gy, Boston Col­lege

Booms and Busts: The Legal Dynam­ics of Mod­ern Mon­ey — Chris­tine Desan, Pro­fes­sor of Law, Har­vard Law School, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Fear and Pow­er — Brad Epps, Pro­fes­sor of Romance Lan­guages & Lit­er­a­tures and Depart­ment Chair for Stud­ies in Women, Gen­der, and Sex­u­al­i­ty, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Vig­i­lance, Inquiry, Alien­ation & Hope at Har­vard and in the USA - John Wom­ack, Robert Woods Bliss Pro­fes­sor of Latin Amer­i­can His­to­ry and Eco­nom­ics, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky at Occu­py Boston

Har­vard Thinks Big, a TED-Esque Event

Philip Glass & Lou Reed at Occupy Lincoln Center: An Artful View

Last week, com­pos­er Philip Glass and rock leg­end Lou Reed embraced the Occu­py Wall Street move­ment. Ini­tial video & audio clips cap­tur­ing their appear­ances were shod­dy at best. Now Jean Thevenin (who joined the protest at Lin­coln Cen­ter Plaza) has giv­en us a bet­ter view, pro­duc­ing a short, ele­gant film sim­ply called Vis­i­ble Shape. The accom­pa­ny­ing music is “Protest” from Satya­gra­ha, writ­ten by Philip Glass and per­formed by New York City Opera Orches­tra.

Crowded House: How the World’s Population Grew to 7 Billion People

This fall, the world’s pop­u­la­tion reached sev­en bil­lion. A sober­ing thought. How did we get to this point? Pro­duc­er Adam Cole and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mag­gie Star­bard of Nation­al Pub­lic Radio have put the world’s accel­er­at­ing pop­u­la­tion growth in per­spec­tive in a two-and-a-half minute video, above.

In those two and a half min­utes, 638 babies will be born world­wide, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau, and 265 peo­ple will die. That’s a net gain of 373 peo­ple, just while you watch the film. The biggest growth, accord­ing to NPR,  is hap­pen­ing in sub-Saha­ran Africa, where access to fam­i­ly plan­ning is low and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are high.

It may seem counter-intu­itive that pop­u­la­tion growth rates are high where infant sur­vival rates are low, but as Swedish glob­al health expert Hans Rosling put it dur­ing a recent TED talk, “Only by child sur­vival can we con­trol pop­u­la­tion growth.” Because pop­u­la­tion growth and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are both cor­re­lat­ed to pover­ty rates, he argues, elim­i­nat­ing pover­ty is the key to achiev­ing a sus­tain­able world pop­u­la­tion. You can learn more in our Novem­ber 1 fea­ture,  “Hans Rosling Uses IKEA Props to Explain World of 7 Bil­lion Peo­ple.”

Malcolm McLaren: The Quest for Authentic Creativity

In ear­ly Octo­ber of 2009, Mal­colm McLaren was near­ing death but did­n’t know it yet. He showed up at the 2009 Hand­held Learn­ing con­fer­ence feel­ing fatigued, but man­aged to deliv­er a provoca­tive and heart­felt speech titled, “Nev­er Mind the Bol­locks, Here’s the Txt Pis­tols,” in which he reflects on his life grow­ing up in post-World War II Eng­land and express­es dis­may over the rise of what he called “karaoke cul­ture.”

“All pop­u­lar cul­ture today,” said McLaren, “goes to great lengths to pro­mote the idea that it’s cool to be stu­pid.” He cham­pi­oned instead the “messy process of cre­ativ­i­ty” in which strug­gle, fail­ure and the acqui­si­tion of skill and knowl­edge are val­ued above instant fame. You can watch the com­plete speech above. A few days after it was giv­en, McLaren went into the hos­pi­tal and learned that he had can­cer. He died six months lat­er, on April 8, 2010. The next day Hand­held Learn­ing founder Gra­ham Brown-Mar­tin  wrote:

The talk from Mal­colm at the Hand­held Learn­ing Con­fer­ence 2009 will, I believe, stand the test of time. The speech does­n’t elab­o­rate about the peri­od of the Sex Pis­tols, New York Dolls, Vivi­enne West­wood, his impact on design, fash­ion and music cul­ture and many oth­er impor­tant achieve­ments of Mal­colm’s life that will be report­ed in obit­u­ar­ies over the com­ing days. Instead and in keep­ing with the theme of the con­fer­ence, Mal­colm dis­cuss­es in his inim­itable style–his life, learn­ing, authen­tic­i­ty vs karaoke cul­ture and what we gain from the expe­ri­ence of fail­ure. Iron­i­cal­ly, fail­ure was some­thing Mal­colm nev­er achieved. The talk was any­thing but ordi­nary, it polarised our audi­ence and instant­ly trend­ed glob­al­ly on Twit­ter but what else would you expect?

via TED/Best of the Web

Philip Glass, Lou Reed Speak At Occupy Lincoln Center

Last night, two Amer­i­can icons lent sup­port to the Occu­py Wall Street move­ment, speak­ing at a protest held out­side of Lin­coln Cen­ter in New York City.  After a per­for­mance of Satya­gra­ha at the Met, Philip Glass spoke to demon­stra­tors. Accord­ing to Alex Ross, the music crit­ic for the New York­er, Glass recit­ed the clos­ing lines of Satya­gra­ha (see around 3:00 minute mark in the video above), which come from the Bha­gavad Gita:

When right­eous­ness with­ers away and evil rules the land, we come into being, age after age, and take vis­i­ble shape, and move, a man among men, for the pro­tec­tion of good, thrust­ing back evil and set­ting virtue on her seat again.

He repeat­ed the say­ing sev­er­al times, and the “human micro­phone” ampli­fied the mes­sage for him.

Lou Reed was also in atten­dance and helped some­one crawl over a police bar­ri­cade at one point, then said: “I was born in Brook­lyn, and I’ve nev­er been more ashamed than to see the bar­ri­cades tonight. The police are our army. I want to be friends with them. And I wan­na occu­py Wall Street. I sup­port it.” A not-so-clear audio clip appears below:

via Gothamist and The Rest is Noise

More Occu­py Videos:

Noam Chom­sky at Occu­py Boston

Slavoj Zizek Takes the Stage at Occu­py Wall Street

Joseph Stiglitz and Lawrence Lessig at Occu­py Wall Street

David Cros­by & Gra­ham Nash at Occu­py Wall Street; Echoes of Wood­stock

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