July 31, 2012

Charlie Rose Brain Series

One of the best free resources for learning about the brain on the internet is the Charlie Rose Brain Series available on streaming video through CharlieRose.com. For the past two years Charlie has been sitting down with Nobel Prize-winning psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel as they have explored pioneering discoveries of neuroscience. In each episode Charlie and Dr. Kandel sit down with a roundtable of leading brain scientists and researchers to explore an aspect of neuroscience. In the first year of the series they examine the major functions of the brain with special episodes on the emotional brain, the developing brain, the aging brain, the mentally ill brain, and other major areas of study in neuroscience. The 12-episode series works as an introductory course to learning about our brain complete with the latest discoveries and new areas of neuroscience research. In the second year of the series, Charlie and Dr. Kandel are examining neurological, psychiatric, and addictive brain disorders, as they sit down with experts and discuss disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other major brain disorders. Learn about your brain and the exciting field of neuroscience with this outstanding series of Charlie Rose special episodes.

Charlie Rose Brain Series – Year One:

Episode 1 – The Great Mysteries of the Human Brain – In this first episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, Charlie sits down with some of the top brain researchers and looks at big questions that brain science is currently addressing. This episode posits a lot of questions that will be addressed in depth throughout the series. Topics discussed include the relationship of genes vs. experience (nature vs. nuture) and how this interplay contributes to the brain in both its proper functions and malfunctions. American philosopher John Searle addresses his interest into how the brain produces consciousness. During this episode you also get a few visual explanations of the brain including a look at the cerebral cortex and the functions of its four lobes, and also a visual description of how neurons work. A lot of information is enthusiastically tossed around in this first episode and hopefully it will get you excited for the rest of the series.

Episode 2 – The Perceiving Brain – In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the brain expert roundtable looks at the sense of sight and visual perception. They show how the brain processes visual information and how it is different than a camera. Brain scientists have determined precise locations where the brain processes facial recognition, landscapes & places, and other objects, and we are shown how brain damage can impair certain types of vision. The panel also looks at the plasticity of sight and how blind people who’ve been given treatments to restore their vision can learn to see in the same way the developing brain does. It’s a good introduction to the key human sensation of sight.

Episode 3 – The Acting Brain – In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the group looks at the motor system which connects to the brain to produce the action of coordinate movement in the physical world. They discuss how movement is conducted in the nervous system in both conscious actions and reflexes. They also ponder the complexity of human movement and how robotics is far behind the human brain in this arena. Finally they discuss a few of the cases where this system of movement is damaged such as in stroke or in Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), and what are some of the latest findings for repairing or overcoming these types of damage to the brain’s motor system.

Episode 4 – The Social Brain – In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the group looks at the importance of social behavior in the human brain. The panel features one of the discoverers of mirror neurons, Giacomo Rizzolatti, and he discusses their importance in social learning and behavior. The panel also looks at autism and how this disorder affects social interaction. They also briefly discuss aggression and what factors contribute to anti-social behavior.

Episode 5 – The Developing Brain – In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, Eric Kandel and company discuss the developing brain focusing on infancy and childhood. They look at the remarkable capacity that children have for learning language and how it differs from the adult brain. They also take a look at numerous learning abilities that come at specific times in development and at some of the developmental disabilities that come along the way. Throughout the discussion they attempt to explain what development in innate and genetic versus what is learned and socialized in infants and children.

Episode 6 – The Aging Brain – In the Aging episode the panel discusses memory and Alzheimer’s disease. 91-year-old neuropsychologist Brenda Milner talks about her work with the famous patient known as H.M. who had surgery on specific brain areas to cure his epilepsy, but then lost his ability to turn short term memory into long term memory. This discovery and other related discoveries helped neuroscientists to learn that there are different types of memory in different areas of the brain such as motor memory, recognition of people and places, and memories involved in phobias. The group then looks at Alzheimer’s disease and its effects on memory, and how it can be prevented through exercise, socializing, and intellectual activity.

Episode 7 – The Emotional and Vulnerable Brain – In this episode the roundtable examines the emotional brain and focuses on the pleasure and reward system that involves the neurotransmitter dopamine. They discuss addiction and how it hijacks the dopaminergic system in the way that the addict needs more and more dopamine to feel normal as addiction progresses. Addiction is now viewed in the brain sciences as a chronic disease requiring ongoing treatment because of the risk of relapse, yet the health care system is reluctant to treat it as such. The panel finishes with pointing out that addictions involving dopaminergic activity aren’t limited to drugs & alcohol, but can also be involved in addictions to gambling, food, sex, and other risky behaviors.

Episode 8 – The Anxious Brain – In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the roundtable discusses fear, anxiety, and aggression and the brain mechanisms behind these phenomena. They look at the fight or flight response which humans share with the animal kingdom, and the unique ways in which human beings have adapted this response to the modern world. Neuropsychiatrist Eric Kandel points out initial insights coming from philosopher William James, in that the sequence of fear comes first with the bodily response and then the conscious feeling of fear. They examine the main brain structures involved in the fear response with emphasis placed on the amygdala. And they discuss anxiety and fear disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and methods for treating anxiety disorders. They close the talk with a look at aggression and the nature vs. nurture questions when it comes to aggression.

Episode 9 – The Mentally Ill Brain – In this special episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, Charlie invites to the table two experts on mental illness that are also sufferers themselves. Elyn Saks is a professor and expert in mental health law, and she suffers from schizophrenia. Kay Redfield Jamison is a clinical psychologist and author who has suffered from bipolar disorder since her early adulthood. These two tell their personal stories of coping with their disease. The rest of the panel joins in to look at the brain science involved in depression, manic depression, and schizophrenia. They discuss the best available treatments including medication and psychotherapy, and ways that the stigma of mental illness can be confronted so that people will seek help more quickly and health care can be provided more adequately for sufferers.

Episode 10 – The Disordered Brain – This episode focuses on neurological disorders which neuroscientists have tremendous insight into including Parkinson’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease, stroke, and spinal cord injuries. The group discusses the localization of neurological diseases and how lesions in the brain can affect human behavior. They examine Parkinson’s disease which involves a dopamine deficiency in the basil ganglia of the brain, and how it has now been discovered that deep brain stimulation can be effective as a treatment.

Episode 11 – The Deciding Brain – This episode focuses on decision making. They look at the famous example of Phineas Gage who lost much of his frontal lobe in a construction accident in the 19th century. After this accident Gage lost much of ability involving practical decision-making which is a primary function of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The group takes a look at a variety of decisions such as economic decision-making and moral dilemmas. They discuss the famous “trolley problem” and how emotions play a major role in our decisions. It’s another fascinating episode on the role that the brain plays in our everyday decision making.

Episode 12 – The Creative Brain – This episode is probably the least interesting of the series as it has little to say about the brain science involved in creativity. Modern artists Richard Serra and Chuck Close talk about their own artistic careers and creative processes, and museum curator Ann Temkin further elaborates on the works of these two artists. Neurologist Oliver Sacks offers the most interesting insights into creativity and the brain, but the panel concludes that little is known about the neuroscience of creativity.

Charlie Rose Brain Series – Year Two:

And we’ve now watched all of Season Two of the Charlie Rose Brain Series covering neurological and psychiatric disorders. While these disorders and diseases can be devastating, the study of them has led to a much greater understanding of the brain. Watch as Charlie Rose and Dr. Eric Kandel lead us further on this exploration of the human brain.

Episode 1: Neurological, Psychiatric and Addictive Disorders

In the second season of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, they focus on neurological, psychiatric, and addictive disorders. In this first episode, a panel of scientists discuss a variety of brain disorders. They start out by covering the history of brain disorders, from the old perception of viewing them as moral disorders to the modern understanding of seeing these disorders as diseases of the brain. And while brain imaging, animal studies, and other scientific advancements have helped to gain a greater understanding of these disorders, we are still far from fully understanding or curing them. Different scientists on the panel discuss various neurological, psychiatric, and addictive disorders in that order. The panel also talks about how genetic factors influence brain disorders. Many other topics are touched upon in this opening episode of the series that seeks to explain the most complex organ in the body and maybe the universe: the human brain.

Episode 2: Consciousness and the Brain

In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, a group of scientists discuss some of the most challenging and important questions in neuroscience related to consciousness. They explore the range of consciousness from coma to sleep to ordinary waking consciousness. They touch upon the interplay between conscious and unconscious processes. It is noted that many aspects associated with consciousness also involve unconscious behaviors. References are made to Sigmund Freud and his essential contribution to understanding the unconscious. They point out the malleability of children’s brains, which can learn language much more effectively than adults or even adolescents. Charlie leads the roundtable, asking many interesting questions about consciousness in this free-ranging conversation.

Episode 3: Agnosias

In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the group of neuroscientists led by Dr. Eric Kandel take a look at the brain disorder known as agnosia. This rare disorder affects a person’s ability to recognize certain things visually or audibly. It is often brought about by brain injury or stroke. The curious aspects of agnosia have helped neuroscientists greatly in understanding the brain regarding sight and sound and how they are processed. The painter Chuck Close is part of the panel to explain his experiences with prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness.

Episode 4: Alzheimer’s Disease

In this hour of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, a roundtable of scientists examines Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. As the population ages, these diseases become increasingly common. The group analyzes the symptoms of these diseases, such as loss of memory and decline of inhibition. They discuss what is happening to the brain as these diseases progress. Charlie asks about treatments for these devastating diseases, and some progress has been made in identifying genes responsible for the diseases and also drugs that may help in their treatment. As more people live longer and more develop these diseases, the costs of treating this epidemic are enormous.

Episode 5: Schizophrenia

In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the roundtable focuses on the complex mental disorder of schizophrenia. They start out summarizing the devastating symptoms of schizophrenia, which can include hallucinations and delusions that are often of a paranoid nature. Schizophrenia affects a little less than one percent of the population worldwide, and the onset is typically when an individual is in their late teens or twenties. A person living with schizophrenia is on the program to detail the story of his life before and after the disorder. Certain antipsychotic medications have been helpful in reducing symptoms like hallucinations. The panel of scientists also discusses the importance of genetics in predicting the disorder and in terms of potential treatments. This episode is an informative overview of a mental disorder that is often stigmatized and misunderstood.

Episode 6: Autism

This episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series tackles autism. It was observed in children in the 1930s and has since risen to now be diagnosed in about 1 in 100 children. The panel discusses the autism spectrum, how it affects social interaction, and its relation to theory of mind. One of the panelists, Alison Singer, is now president of the Autism Science Foundation. She has a daughter with autism, and she describes the significant toll that raising a child with severe autism takes on the parents and the family. The panel also examines the genetic components of autism and the role genes play in the disorder. They also discuss some of the treatments available for dealing with autism.

Episode 7: Depression

In this episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series, the panel of guests covers one of the most common mental illnesses in the world, which is depression. Neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel delivers a brief history of how the illness was viewed, from the Greek physician Hippocrates calling it melancholia, which in Greek means black bile, up to our contemporary understanding of major depressive disorder related to biology in the brain dealing with mood. The group does an excellent job of summarizing the symptoms of depression, separating unipolar from bipolar depression. Author Andrew Solomon, who wrote The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, describes his personal experience with major depression and the anxiety that often accompanies it. The neuroscientists weigh in on the areas of the brain involved with depression and some of the drugs that can be used to treat it. They also emphasize the importance of psychotherapy, which has proven effective in treating the disease. It’s an excellent hour-long look at a mental illness that afflicts an estimated 300 million people around the world.

Episode 8: Parkinson’s Disease and Huntington’s Disease

This episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series deals with Parkinson’s Disease and Huntington’s Disease. These diseases affect the motor system, often leading to tremors and other motor symptoms. They can also affect non-motor systems in the brain sometimes leading to dementia. The panel of scientists discusses the genetic component of the diseases, particularly Huntington’s disease. While neither disease is curable, there are treatments. For Parkinson’s disease, treatments related to dopamine have been effective. One of the guests on the panel has Parkinson’s disease, and another has Huntington’s disease, and they describe their experiences of living with these motor disorders. At the end of the program, the scientists are hopeful about how far they’ve come in understanding these diseases and that there may one day be a cure.

Episode 9: Multiple Sclerosis

This episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series covers multiple sclerosis. The panel of scientists covers the basics of this autoimmune disease, which affects nerve cells in the brain. They go over the symptoms of the disease, which can cause both physical and mental issues. A person who has multiple sclerosis is on the panel, and she discusses her experiences with it over the years. Much attention is paid to the treatments for multiple sclerosis, which have made significant progress in recent years. Early detection of the disease combined with current therapies can lead to significantly reduced symptoms, though the treatments also present their own risks. The panel ponders the mystery of why incidents of this disease are increasing and why it is more common in women than men.

Episode 10: Disorders of Motor Neurons – Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)

This episode of the Brain Series focuses on two motor disorders: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). ALS is more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease in the United States. Baseball player Lou Gehrig developed this neurodegenerative disease at the height of his career, which forced him to retire at age 36 and led to his death a year later. On the Charlie Rose panel is another baseball player who has ALS, and he describes his experiences with the disease. Also on the panel is a boy who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), which is another disease that affects motor neurons and usually has its onset in the very early years of life. SMA is passed on through genes, while the causes of ALS are primarily unknown. Strides have been made in understanding and managing these diseases, but there are currently no known cures.

Episode 11: Pain

One hundred million Americans suffer from chronic pain every year. In this episode, Charlie Rose and a group of scientists discuss pain and the brain. They start by pointing out the importance of pain in bodily injury. This inflammatory pain allows for reparative processes to take place. The program also focuses on neuropathic pain, which can spread to other parts of the body after an initial injury. The scientists discuss how pain is processed through the brain and often involves emotions. A college gymnast, Laurie Klein, joins the panel to describe her experiences with inflammatory pain and neuropathic pain and the many treatments she received before she got her pain under control. The panel discusses various treatments regarding the future of pain. While this program was recorded in 2012, the scientists weren’t able to predict the astonishing opioid epidemic that was about to skyrocket across the United States in the coming decade caused by the over-prescription of opioid medication.

Episode 12: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

This episode of the Charlie Rose Brain Series covers Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD as it is known. Neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel introduces the disorder and how it came to be recognized by psychiatry in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. It is now more widely acknowledged in the military and also encompasses traumatic events that happen in civilian life. The scientists on the panel take a look at the brain regions involved in PTSD and the fear response that accompanies it. After a traumatic event, an individual may become fearful of reliving the event, and this learned fear response may dominate their lives. Psychologists treating the disorder focus on unlearning the fear response through exposure therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. A U.S. Army Lt. Colonel is present on the panel to describe his battle with PTSD after serving several tours of duty in the Iraq War.

And after Season Two they did some ongoing episodes that you can access directly on Charlie Rose’s site below:

Charlie Rose Brain Series – Ongoing Episodes:

Episode 1: Obama’s BRAIN Initiative

Episode 2: Hearing Loss

Episode 3: Blindness

Episode 4: Aggression

Episode 5: Gender Identity

Episode 6: Sports-Induced Brain Trauma

March 29, 2012

Best Charlie Rose Guests

Charlie Rose has conducted over 4000 hours of interviews of guests to his Charlie Rose show which has aired on PBS stations since 1991. Charlie has interviewed many other great authors, entertainers, political figures, business leaders, and more. We’ve gone through Charlie Rose’s entire video archive on CharlieRose.com and picked out what we thought were the best guests and the best interviews. There are so many great ones to that we encourage you to go through all of the 350 interviews we’ve added:

350 of the Best Charlie Rose Guests on LearnOutLoud.com

He has interviewed many great film directors and actors which we featured in a previous blog post:

Top 10 Charlie Rose Interviews of Film Directors and Actors

We’ll now feature some of the best of the best guests that Charlie has interviewed over the years. We’ve separated these by Personal Growth Experts, Business Leaders, Political Figures, Writers, and Entertainers:

Personal Growth Experts:

A Conversation about Nutrition with Dr. Andrew Weil

A Conversation about the Science of Happiness with Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and others

A Conversation with Anthony Robbins

An Interview with Steven R. Covey

A Conversation about Health and Disease Prevention with Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen

Business Leaders:

An Hour with Jack and Suzy Welch

An Hour with Management Consultant Jim Collins

A Conversation with Business Guru Tom Peters

A Conversation with Lee Iacocca

A Conversation with Michael Milken & Muhammad Yunus

A Conversation with Jeff Bezos on Amazon.com

The Future with Eric Schmidt, Marc Andreessen, and Bill Gates

An Exclusive Conversation with Warren Buffett (at the start of the 2008 financial crisis)

Political Figures:

An Hour with Illinois Senator Barack Obama on Nov. 23, 2004

A Conversation with Guest Host Judy Woodruff and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

A Conversation with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

An Hour with Mikhail Gorbachev

A Talk with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

A Discussion on Abortion with Arianna Huffington and Laura Ingraham

A Conversation with Noam Chomsky

An Appreciation of William F. Buckley

Two Conversations with Filmmaker Michael Moore

A Conversation with Bill O’Reilly

Writers:

A Conversation with Author David McCullough

A Conversation with Author Tom Wolfe

A Conversation with Carl Sagan on Pale Blue Dot

Gore Vidal Discusses His Life

An Interview with David Foster Wallace

A Conversation with Author John Updike on The Greatest American Short Stories of This Century

Author Christopher Hitchens on Hitch-22

A Remembrance of Hunter S. Thompson

A Remembrance of Intellectual Susan Sontag

Entertainers:

A Conversation with Opera Singer Luciano Pavarotti

A Conversation with Radio Personality Garrison Keillor

A Conversation with Basketball Legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Julius Erving, and Bill Russell

A Conversation with Musician David Bowie

A Conversation with Comedian George Carlin

A Conversation with Rapper Kanye West

A Conversation with Julia Child

A Discussion of the Music Wars on the Internet with Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy

An Interview with Conan O’Brien on October 20, 1993

A Conversation with Mick Jagger

An Interview with Fred Rogers

An Interview with Terry Gross

Also at the turn of the century Charlie Rose conducted a series of interviews about some of the most important things in the 20th century with all-star guest panels discussing the most formative events, the most important person, the greatest minds, the most influential artists, and the greatest athletes of the 20th century. Here are those specials:

A Discussion about Formative Events of the 20th Century

A Panel Discussion about the Idea of the Most Important Person of the 20th Century

An Hour Panel Discussion about the Greatest Minds and Breakthroughs of the 20th Century

An Hour Panel Discussion about the Most Influential Artist of the 20th Century

A Discussion about the Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century

Enjoy these and many, many more great shows from the modern master of interviews, Mr. Charlie Rose:

350 of the Best Charlie Rose Guests on LearnOutLoud.com

January 8, 2012

Free Lecture Samples from The Great Courses

This is a dated blog post. Check out our latest comprehensive blog post on The Great Courses:

Check Out Our Blog Post Covering Over 70 Free Great Courses Lectures

The Great Courses (formerly The Teaching Company) has made many upgrades in the past year including a newly designed site, user reviews for every course, and the addition of video downloads for almost all of their video courses. You can check out all these additions on their site:

www.TheGreatCourses.com

And now they are starting to add some samples of their video lectures for certain courses to further aid their avid fans in deciding the next course to buy. They’ve launched a YouTube channel which contains all these videos samples:

www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatCourses

On the course pages for their courses on LearnOutLoud.com we’ve embedded these sample video lectures for each course. The free video samples generally run 5-10 minutes long and cover a specific point from a lecture in the course. Here are the courses that have samples on them. Note: You’ll need to scroll down below the course description to see the video sample.

Argumentation: The Study of Effective Reasoning

Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft

Change and Motion: Calculus Made Clear

Chaos

Economics

Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution

The Everyday Guide to Wine

Games People Play: Game Theory in Life, Business, and Beyond

History of Christian Theology

How to Listen to and Understand Great Music

Joy of Mathematics

Late Antiquity: Crisis and Transformation

Museum Masterpieces: The Louvre

Nature of Earth: An Introduction to Geology

The New Testament

What Are the Chances? Probability Made Clear

Enjoy these free video lecture samples. We’ll keep adding more here as The Great Courses keep releasing them. Hopefully they’ll help you decide which Great Course to buy next!

And if you haven’t yet, be sure to check out The Great Courses Plus. You can now sign up for a free one month trial on TheGreatCoursesPlus.com. For fans of The Great Courses it’s overwhelmingly awesome. You subscribe to The Great Courses Plus, and you can then watch 300 great courses and over 6,000 video lectures as much as you want, whenever you want!

After the initial free month, the price is only $19.99/month now! A bargain considering all the great courses you get access to. And if you sign up for a full year the price breaks down to only $14.99/month. We’ve gone through their entire catalog and there are so many courses and individual lectures we want to watch. You can browse all these courses by category on their website as well:

Browse Over 300 Courses Currently Offered Through the The Great Courses Plus
We’ve updated a blog post that lays out The Great Courses Plus in more detail and lists all the current courses:

Watch 300 Great Courses on the Great Courses Plus Updated Blog Post

January 5, 2012

2011 Best Videos from FORA.tv

Sorry, but the FORA.tv video library was taken down as of August 31, 2018, so these videos are no longer available, unless you can find them on YouTube.

FORA.tv now offers over 10,000 videos from 100s of partners who offer recordings of their conferences, events, and lectures. FORA.tv just put out their top 10 videos on their site from 2011 and they picked some good ones. Their criterion for selecting the videos was as follows: “The Best of FORA.tv 2011 videos were selected using measures both objective and subjective: view counts, interactions and comments, as well as feedback from out Facebook, Twitter, and blog pages”. Here at LearnOutLoud.com we’ve checked out all of these top 10 videos and written up some reviews of them to let you know what they’re all about. Note that the #10 and the #8 videos are not free, but can be purchased on FORA.tv. Enjoy this intelligent top ten list from FORA.tv!

10. Walter Isaacson: ‘Nice’ Not an Adjective to Describe Steve Jobs

This is a short video preview of the video of biographer Walter Isaacson’s talk on Steve Jobs. For the full video you’ll need to pay $4.95. Isaacson describes why in his biography Steve Jobs he didn’t convey Jobs as a “nice” man.

9. Michael Moore: Here Comes Trouble

In this 2-hour video author & filmmaker Michael Moore speaks at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue about the state of contemporary politics and he reads from his new memoir Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life. Moore voices his support for the Occupy Wall Street movement and expresses his dismay with the wealthy in America, along with President Barack Obama and the Democrats in the past three years. He tells many stories from his life and then reads from his memoir providing an entertaining story about flying to Germany to protest a Nazi funeral. He answers many questions and closes with a passionate cry against the greed of the richest 400 Americans who have now accumulated more wealth than 150 million of the poorest U.S. households combined. Enjoy this talk by Michael Moore.

8. Richard Dawkins: There Never Was a First Homo Sapiens

This is a short video preview of the video of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkin’s talk with Henry Finder at the New Yorker Festival. For the full video you’ll need to pay $9.95. Dawkin’s briefly answers the question “Who was the first person?” which he addresses his latest book The Magic of Reality. He says that there never was a first person but if we go back 185 million generations ago there is slow, gradual continuum of evolution from fish to human. He says it’s like asking when did a child become an adult and that the change is so gradual that one cannot pinpoint it.

7. Debate: The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion

In this lively debate from Intelligence Squared U.S., four speakers argue whether or not the World would be better without religion. On the faith-based side of the aisle, Dinesh D’Souza and Rabbi David Wolpe point out several strong cases for how religion has provided human beings with a framework for moral action and meaning. Countering these claims are Matthew Chapman and A.C. Grayling, both of whom enumerate on the historically negative social influence of religious belief and do not necessarily agree that faith is synonymous with ethical living.

6. Slavoj Zizek: Catastrophic But Not Serious

Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher who works in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. We didn’t get a chance to watch this one yet, but feel free to dive in if you’d like.

5. Steven Pinker: Language as a Window into Human Nature

In this 15-minute RSA animated lecture Steven Pinker takes a look at using overt language vs. innuendo. He takes a look at a few examples from the movies Fargo and `When Harry Met Sally to illustrate his point. He uses anthropologist Alan Fiske’s idea of three relationship types: dominance, communality, and reciprocity. When these relationships cross over they often lead to awkwardness. Through indirectness we can help bridge the gap between these relationships. We can also use innuendo in a relationship to avoid awkwardness. If we are overt with our language we can’t take it back and there is common knowledge about what is said, but if we use innuendo then there is no mutual knowledge and we can maintain the fiction of our current relationship.

4. Robert Sapolsky: Are Humans Just Another Primate?

Primatologist and neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky speaks at the California Academy of Sciences on the differences between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. He dispels many myths about the uniqueness of humans such as we are the only violent species, we are the only species capable of altruism, and we are the only species that uses tools. And while our DNA and genes are 98.6% similar to chimpanzees, we do have bigger brains with many more neurons than they have. And with these bigger brains we have developed the capacity for symbolic culture and language, the ability to take pleasure in delayed gratification, the capacity for morality that goes far beyond the basic reciprocity of primates, and many more interesting unique qualities which Sapolsky addresses in this hour-long talk. At the end he answers some great questions from the audience.

3. Roger McNamee Says Google Is Done

Roger McNamee is the founding partner of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners which has $1.9 billion of assets under management. In this talk delivered at the Churchill Club McNamee makes some bold predictions about the future of business on the Internet. Most notably he feels that Google and their domination of the web through Internet search is on its way out as new players in search have entered the space (Wikipedia, Facebook, Yelp, etc.) and Apple has revolutionized the web with the iPhone and the iPad and their new model of apps. McNamee also feels that the new web language of HTML 5 is going to dramatically change the web by making the creative tools of generating great web apps much easier and more affordable. And as a member of the band the Flying Other Brothers, he gives his thoughts on the future of the music industry during the Q&A period.

2. WikiLeaks: Why It Matters. Why It Doesn’t?

With this roundtable hosted by the Churchill Club, the Wikileaks scandal serves as a jumping off point for a discussion on how we access government secrets. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, internet law commentator Jonathan Zittrain, and other notable pundits within the tech sector survey how Julian Assange’s work to make classified documents available on a broader scale has redefined journalism and put pressure on 4th amendment rights. They also explore new tools governments are utilizing to supress information, keep tabs on citizenry, and control behavior in a rapidly changing global exchange of information.

1. Christopher Hitchens: Some Confessions and Contradictions

Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens passed away a few weeks ago on December 15, 2011 at the age of 62. In this most watched video from FORA.tv in the year 2011, Christopher Hitchens sits down with Paul Holdengraber, Director of Public Programs at the New York Public Library, and Hitchens discusses his life with stories from his memoir Hitch-22. Hitchens covers a great deal in this 90 minute interview from his parents to his heroes to his political beliefs over the years. It’s an excellent look into the life of this popular writer and public intellectual whose work spanned the last four decades.

Watch the most popular intelligent videos from FORA.tv!

September 20, 2011

LearnOutLoud.com on YouTube

We recently launched our LearnOutLoud.com YouTube channel!

www.youtube.com/learnoutloud

On the channel we’ll be posting videos you can learn from along with recommending other great learning videos and educational channels on YouTube. Please watch some videos, rate and comment on them, and subscribe!

To kick off our YouTube channel we’ve taken the audio from our audio book Art Masterpieces and combined it with HD videos of the artworks themselves so you can learn about some of the greatest paintings of all time! We feature over 20 videos of different paintings and all the videos can be played in high definition so you can blow them up full screen and look at a high quality image of the painting while you listen and learn about the painting (select 720p in the bottom right of the video in order to view it in HD).

We plan to do a lot more with our YouTube video in the near future so please subscribe if you have a YouTube account or bookmark the channel and stay tuned!

October 17, 2008

John McCain on Charlie Rose: 1997-2007

NOTE: Google Video is no longer and neither are these interviews. Oh well.

Senator John McCain has been interviewed over a dozen times by Charlie Rose since 1997. We’ve select the 10 most significant interviews and featured them here. This set of videos provides an excellent portrait of McCain over the past 10 years. Here are some of the key interviews:

-In the 06/03/1997 interview, McCain told a riveting story of his experiences as a soldier and POW in Vietnam.

-In the 07/28/1999 interview, McCain laid forth his 2000 presidential campaign platform addressing political cynicism and corruption, and how to rid Washington of the special interests that contribute to both Democratic & Republican parties and control the American political process.

-In the 09/17/2001 interview, McCain discussed preparations for a war with Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

-In the 09/24/2002 interview, McCain gave his reasons for supporting the upcoming war with Iraq.

-In the 04/19/2004 interview, McCain spoke with Charlie Rose about the difficulties of the Iraq War.

-In the 08/20/2007 interview, McCain laid forth his platform for his 2008 presidential campaign, focusing on fighting Islamic terrorism, winning the war in Iraq, cutting government spending, and dealing with climate change.

These interviews provide an interesting history of the changes in American politics over the past 10 years and how Senator John McCain has confronted these changes. These streaming videos are made available through CharlieRose.com and Google Video.

A discussion with John McCain
06/03/1997

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, speaks to Charlie about his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam and his support for the Head Start program, a federally funded program focusing on providing early stage education for children from low-income families.

A conversation with Senator John McCain
07/28/1999

Senator John McCain of Arizona discusses his run for the Republican nomination for president in the 2000 elections, his main Republican opposition, George W. Bush, and outlines his policy platform. McCain addresses political cynicism and corruption, and curbing the special interests that contribute to both Democratic & Republican parties.

An interview with John McCain
09/13/1999

Senator of Arizona and Presidential candidate John McCain talks about his new book “Faith of My Fathers”, about the significance of his time spent in the military and as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

An interview with John McCain
12/13/1999

An hour with Republican senator from Arizona and presidential candidate, John McCain. McCain responds to the feedback about the recent debates among Republican candidates, discusses formative life experiences that have contributed to his desire to run for the presidency, and shares his policy platform.

A conversation about the preparation for war with Senator John McCain
09/17/2001

A conversation with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona about preparations for war after the 9/11 attacks and President Bush’s plan of action.

An interview with John McCain
09/24/2002

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and author of the book “Worth Fighting For”, discusses America’s failure to keep the peace and rebuild in Afghanistan following the 2001 invasion. He also talks about mounting tensions with Iraq.

A conversation with Senator John McCain
04/19/2004

A conversation with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona about his book “Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life”. McCain also discusses the war in Iraq.

An hour with Republican Senator John McCain
10/31/2005

An hour conversation with Senator John McCain about his views regarding President Bush, the platform and future of the Republican Party and his own possible run for the presidency in 2008.

A conversation with Sen. John McCain
08/20/2007

A conversation with Senator John McCain about his Presidential campaign. McCain talks about combatting Islamic extremism, the rise of China, and other foreign policy issues.

Charlie Rose Special Edition: The Candidate – John McCain
11/27/2007

Charlie Rose Special Edition: The Candidates featuring an hour with John McCain. McCain covers most of the platform upon which he is running in 2008 as he talks about Iraq, health care, education, immigration, and other issues.

May 22, 2008

Best of FORA.tv

Sorry, but the FORA.tv video library was taken down as of August 31, 2018, so these videos are no longer available, unless you can find them on YouTube.

FORA.tv offers over 2000 free videos from over 115 different partners covering the world’s most interesting political, social and cultural issues. Their partners include bookstores, think tanks, colleges, institutes, and many other public forums (the word fora is simply the plural of “forum”). At LearnOutLoud we combed through these free resources and picked out 500 of the top titles that FORA.tv offers.

We’ve added these 500 free titles to our site and have embedded the videos onto our pages so you can watch them directly on LearnOutLoud.com. FORA.tv has also provided the ability to download the audio of their videos on MP3 for almost all of their titles, making it easy to take FORA.tv programs with you. On our product pages we’ve provided links to the FORA.tv pages where you can download the MP3 files.

We’ve divided the FORA.tv titles up according to their providers. Here are the top providers you can browse with some highlights of the titles they offer:

Asia Society:

Henry Kissinger

Joseph Stiglitz: The Economics of Information

President’s Forum with Thich Nhat Hanh

Aspen Institute:

The Clash Between Faith and Reason by Sam Harris

A Conversation with Lance Armstrong

A Conversation with Richard Branson

Karl Rove in Conversation with Walter Isaacson

Book Passage:

Death Experiences: Stan Grof and Scott Eberle

John Gray: Why Mars and Venus Collide

Joyce Carol Oates: The Gravedigger’s Daughter

Madeleine Albright: The Mighty and The Almighty

Books Inc.:

The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong

Calvin Trillin

Made to Stick by Chip Heath

A Portrait of Harper Lee

Brookings Institution:

Immigration Reform: Prospects and Possibilities

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

A World Free of Nuclear Weapons?

Cato Institute:

Andrew Sullivan: The Conservative Soul

The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End

John McCain: The Myth of a Maverick

Chatham House:

Ban Ki-moon: Why the UN Matters Today

Chautauqua Institution:

Boosting the Brain’s Power Into Old Age by Dharma Singh Khalsa

Music: Heart, Soul and Dollar – Robert Greenberg

Nutrition and Physical Activity for a Lifetime by Christina Economos

City Arts & Lectures:

Chris Elliott in Conversation with Dave Eggers

Eric Schlosser, Author of Fast Food Nation

Jared and Susan Diamond in Conversation

Cody’s Books:

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood

Ralph Nader: The Good Fight

Shelby Steele on Why Barack Obama Cannot Win

Council on Foreign Relations:

A Conversation with Benazir Bhutto

Hillary Rodham Clinton at Council on Foreign Relations

C-SPAN:

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

Gay Marriage Debate with David Blankenhorn & Evan Wolfson

The Joke’s Over: Ralph Steadman on Hunter S. Thompson

Noam Chomsky: Hegemony or Survival

President George W. Bush at the NAACP

Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion

Tom Wolfe: What’s Southern Today?

Heritage Foundation:

The President, The Pope and The Prime Minister by John O’Sullivan

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: U.S. Policy in Northeast Asia

Hoover Institution:

Harvey Mansfield: Anger and Self-Importance

Norman Podhoretz: World War IV

Steps Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

Institute of Ideas:

Battle of Ideas: Debating Darwin

Debating Matters: Human Genetic Engineering

LinkTV:

$100 Laptop – NetSquared 2006

Sen. Barbara Boxer

Long Now Foundation:

Bruce Sterling on The Singularity

Francis Fukuyama: The End Of History Revisited

Will Wright and Brian Eno

New School:

An Evening with John Pilger and Amy Goodman

Film Historian David Thomson on Hollywood

Politics and Prose:

Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far)

Tom Brokaw: Boom! Voices of the Sixties

Transatlantic Institute:

Hamas and the National Unity Government

World Affairs Council:

A Conversation with Ted Turner

George Lucas

Histories of Burma by Thant Myint-U

Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem

Journeys of a Passionate Traveller by Frances Mayes

And about 120 titles from their other providers we’ve consolidated under the publisher FORA.tv:

FORA.tv:

The 20th Century on Trial: Norman Mailer

Al Gore: The Global Environmental Crisis

Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens Debate

Bill Clinton: A Call to Action

Dan Gediman: This I Believe

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman

Fritjof Capra: The Science of Leonardo

Garrison Keillor on Life, Cheerfulness and Aging

Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Malcolm X: Address to the Ford Hall Forum

Mind Set! Reset Your Thinking and See the Future by John Naisbitt

Oliver Sacks: Musicophilia

Salman Rushdie

Vietnam and the Rise of the New Left by Michael Medved

Enjoy the offerings from this brilliant ideas network for discourse and debate.

October 12, 2007

10Things.tv is Live

A while back I blogged about micro-learning which I think is going to be an increasingly strong trend in the world of education. In short, micro-learning is breaking up learning modules into bite-sized chunks that can consumed in isolation or in series. It’s respecting the fact that people are busier than ever and that the population is becoming more ADD-ish in its media consumption habits.

To that extent, we’ve recently launched a side project called 10Things.tv. It’s a series of short instructional videos for learning languages. The initial videos teach Spanish but eventually we’ll be adding other languages. It’s a great way to pick up a bit of Spanish before you head off on a trip or to whet your appetite to learn more. Take a look at videos below and if you like them visit 10Things.tv for more.

April 13, 2007

Infinite Mind’s Last Interview w/ Kurt Vonnegut

This Wednesday, April 11th American author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. passed away at the age of 84. Watch one of his last interviews which was conducted by John Hockenberry of the The Infinite Mind series, and recorded live in the virtual on-line community Second Life. It’s an entertaining interview with questions from the Second Life audience and Vonnegut’s thoughts on America towards the end of his life. He also discusses his final work which is a collection of essays entitled A Man Without a Country.

The Infinite Mind is produced by Lichtenstein Creative Media which focuses on mental health, human rights and other social issues. LearnOutLoud features over 40 audio downloads from The Infinite Mind.

For audio books from Vonnegut check out:

Slaughterhouse-Five
Breakfast of Champions
Essential Vonnegut Interviews
A Man Without a Country

October 9, 2006

GoogTube is Official – Who will be YouTube 2?

So the Google-You Tube deal is official. Only time will tell whether this deal will be a good one or not. Perhaps this will be another MySpace-type deal where a year from now everyone will marvel at how much Google underpaid. Or maybe it’ll be another Broadcast.com where the big winners will end up being Chad Hurley and the rest of the YouTube founders.

But here’s one thing that’s interesting. I’m pretty sure that we’ll start to see an eradication of a big chunk of the copyrighted content on YouTube. And this is really important because it opens up the door for something that is all about inevitable…YouTube 2. Part of the beauty of YouTube is the Web 2.0-nature of the site. Miss the Daily Show yesterday? Find it on YouTube (for free) tomorrow. I’m guessing those days are numbered…at least for YouTube 1.

So I decided to put together a list of the companies that have a chance to become YouTube 2. It’s tough to say who this will be and of course it’s impossible to gauge whether this will end up becoming just like the P2P systems where these sites end up having to face the choice of going legit or shutting down (a la Napster-Grokster-Kazaa). But I think a few things will decide who the next YouTube will be:

1. The company will need to be relatively independent. It can be venture-funded but can’t already be in bed with a big media/tech company. This disqualifies Netscape, Grouper, iFilm, etc.

2. The company will have to have some funding and a good foundation already in place. The race to be YT2 will happen quickly. It’s unlikely that a company that is under-capitalized or that is just getting going will have a chance to win this race.

3. The company will have to have an interface at least somewhat simliar to YouTube. When the teenage crew finds they can’t post their copyrighted stuff on YouTube anymore they are going to look for an alternative and if the next best thing seems pretty much like the last best thing it’ll have a good shot of getting their content.

So here are the candidates (in alphabetical order) along with Vegas-style odds that they’ll become YouTube 2:

blip.tv – Blip just closed an angel funding round and has a lot of similarities to YouTube. While they haven’t generated a lot of traction yet their position as a relative independent gives them a shot. Plus they have Amanda Congdon! (Alexa ranking = 10,685)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 9:1

Clipshack – Clipshack hasn’t gotten a ton of traction but recently raised $2 million and has a site that could best be described as a “poor man’s YouTube.” They don’t seem to have a lot of copyrighted material (a search on “Jon Stewart” yielded almost nothing) so they might be actively policing that. Possible that they try to become YT2 but unlikely. (Alexa ranking = 23,389)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 30:1

Metacafe – This will be an interesting one to watch. They’ve received $15 million in funding and have a lot of traction. While their tune is only to serve the world’s “best videos” I wonder if that might change post-GoogTube given the opportunity that’s out there for them to be a fast follower in this race. (Alexa ranking = 143)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 3:1

motionbox – While they seem to focusing much more on their toolset than on becoming a portal since Arrington thinks they’re the best video sharing site maybe they’ve got a chance. Seriously though it’s highly unlikely given their focus. (Alexa ranking = 62,721)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 100:1

Revver – When it became apparent that they weren’t going to win the video portal game Revver shifted gears to focus on video distribution. It’s a smart move on their part but shifting back to becoming a portal so quickly is probably not going to happen. (Alexa ranking = 2,853)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 40:1

Veoh – Veoh has raised a lot of money ($12.5 million) but given who they’ve raised it from (Eisner, Time Warner, etc.) it’s unlikely they’ll be the next YouTube despite the fact that their site is a virtual clone. If it wasn’t for their investors I’d say they’d be the ones to be YT2. (Alexa ranking = 3,877)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 50:1

vSocial – vSocial has raised some money and doesn’t seem gun-shy about featuring copyrighted videos on their homepage. They don’t have quite as much traction as Metacafe but could become “the deuce” if Metacafe doesn’t take the throne. (Alexa ranking = 3,611)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 6:1

Vimeo – Another possible contender although their layot is decidedly un-YouTube-like, not all their videos are Flash and I couldn’t seem to find anything on their funding situation. A long shot at best. (Alexa ranking = 8,895)

Likelihood of becoming YouTube 2 – 75:1

It’ll be an interesting race to watch. If YouTube was worth $1.6 billion then what is YT2 going to be worth? Probably not nearly as much because there will be increasing pressure on them to go legit and they won’t be able to fly under the radar (relatively speaking) as long as YouTube did while building up an audience. Still, if they can manage to pull a lot of YouTubers over much the same way MySpace did to Friendster and much the same as what happened with the P2P networks then it’s quite possible they could build up a huge audience very quickly.

YouTube wanna-bes start your engines…the race has begun!