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Wednesday, August 9th, 2017
| Time | Event |
| 7:16a | New Deep Learning Courses Released on Coursera, with Hope of Teaching Millions the Basics of Artificial Intelligence
FYI: If you follow edtech, you know the name Andrew Ng. He's the Stanford computer science professor, who co-founded MOOC-provider Coursera and later became chief scientist at Baidu. Since leaving Baidu, he's been working on three artificial intelligence projects, the first of which he unveiled yesterday. On Medium, he wrote:
Speaking to the MIT Technology Review, Ng elaborated: "The thing that really excites me today is building a new AI-powered society... I don’t think any one company could do all the work that needs to be done, so I think the only way to get there is if we teach millions of people to use these AI tools so they can go and invent the things that no large company, or company I could build, could do." Andrew's new 5-part series of courses on Deep Learning can be accessed here. Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and share intelligent media with your friends. Or better yet, sign up for our daily email and get a daily dose of Open Culture in your inbox. If you'd like to support Open Culture and our mission, please consider making a donation to our site. It's hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us provide the best free cultural and educational materials. Related Content: Google’s DeepMind AI Teaches Itself to Walk, and the Results Are Kooky, No Wait, Chilling Artificial Intelligence: A Free Online Course from MIT New Deep Learning Courses Released on Coursera, with Hope of Teaching Millions the Basics of Artificial Intelligence is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.  |
| 8:00a | The Nano Guitar: Discover the World’s Smallest, Playable Microscopic Guitar
In 1997, the Cornell Chronicle announced: "The world's smallest guitar -- carved out of crystalline silicon and no larger than a single cell -- has been made at Cornell University to demonstrate a new technology that could have a variety of uses in fiber optics, displays, sensors and electronics." Invented by Dustin W. Carr, the so-called "nanoguitar" measured 10 micrometers long--roughly the size of your average red blood cell. And it had six strings, each "about 50 nanometers wide, the width of about 100 atoms." According to The Guardian, the vintage 1997 nanoguitar was actually never played. That honor went to a 2003 edition of the nanoguitar, whose strings were plucked by miniature lasers operated with an atomic force microscope, creating "a 40 megahertz signal that is 130,000 times higher than the sound of a full-scale guitar." The human ear couldn't hear something at that frequency, and that's a problem not even a good amp--a Vox AC30, Fender Deluxe Reverb, etc.--could fix. Thus concludes today's adventure in nanotechnology. Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and share intelligent media with your friends. Or better yet, sign up for our daily email and get a daily dose of Open Culture in your inbox. If you'd like to support Open Culture and our mission, please consider making a donation to our site. It's hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us provide the best free cultural and educational materials. Related Content: Richard Feynman Introduces the World to Nanotechnology with Two Seminal Lectures (1959 & 1984) Stephen Fry Introduces the Strange New World of Nanoscience A Boy And His Atom: IBM Creates the World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film With Atoms The Nano Guitar: Discover the World’s Smallest, Playable Microscopic Guitar is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 11:00a | 25,000+ 78RPM Records Now Professionally Digitized & Streaming Online: A Treasure Trove of Early 20th Century Music
Every recording medium works as a metonym for its era: the term “LP” conjures up associations with a broad musical period of classic rock ‘n’ roll, soul, doo-wop, R&B, funk, jazz, disco etc.; we talk of the “CD era,” dominated by dance music and hip-hop; the 45 makes us think of jukeboxes, diners, and sock-hops; and the cassette, well... at least one subgenre of music, what John Peel called “shambling,” jangly, lo-fi pop, came to be known by the name “C86,” the title of an NME compilation, short for “Cassette, 1986.” (Readers of the magazine had to clip coupons and send money by postal mail to receive a copy of the tape.) Soon, however, fewer and fewer people will remember the age of the 78rpm record, the preferred vehicle for the music of the early 20th century. From classical and opera to blues, bluegrass, swing, ragtime, gospel, Hawaiian, and holiday novelties the 78 epitomizes the sounds of its heyday as much as any of the media mentioned above. While cassettes recently made a nostalgic comeback, and turntables are found in every big box store, we’re generally not equipped to play back 78s. These are brittle records made from shellac, a resin secreted by beetles. They were often played on appliances that doubled as quality parlor furniture. Thanks now to the Internet Archive, that stalwart of digital cataloguing and curation, we can play twenty five thousand 78s and immerse ourselves in the early 20th century, whether for research purposes or pure enjoyment. Previous efforts at preservation have “restored or remastered… commercially viable recordings” on LP or CD, writes The Great 78 Project, the archive’s volunteer program to digitize musical history. The current effort seeks to go beyond popularity and collect everything, from the rarest and strangest to the already historic. “I want to know what the early 20th century sounded like,” writes Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle, “Midwest, different countries, different social classes, different immigrant communities and their loves and fears.” You can hear several selections here, and thousands more at this archive of 78s uploaded by audio-visual preservation company, George Blood, L.P. Other 78rpm archives from volunteer collectors and the ARChive of Contemporary Music are being digitized and uploaded as well. You’ll note the recordings are often submerged in crackle and hiss, and generally lack bass and treble (most playback systems of the time could not reproduce the lower and higher ends of the audible spectrum). “We have preserved the often very prominent surface noise and imperfections,” the Archive writes, “and included files generated by different sizes and shapes of stylus to facilitate different kinds of analysis.” Different playback systems could produce markedly different sounds, and the recordings were not always strictly 78rpm. [Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<div [...] http://cdn8.openculture.com/>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1040691" src="http://cdn8.openculture.com/2017/08/09115111/78project.jpg" alt="" srcset="http://cdn8.openculture.com/2017/08/09115111/78project.jpg 1024w, http://cdn8.openculture.com/2017/08/09115111/78project-150x49.jpg 150w, http://cdn8.openculture.com/2017/08/09115111/78project-300x98.jpg 300w, http://cdn8.openculture.com/2017/08/09115111/78project-768x251.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" width="320"/></p>
<p>Every recording medium works as a metonym for its era: the term “LP” conjures up associations with a broad musical period of classic rock ‘n’ roll, soul, doo-wop, R&B, funk, jazz, disco etc.; we talk of the “CD era,” dominated by dance music and hip-hop; the 45 makes us think of jukeboxes, diners, and sock-hops; and the cassette, well... at least one subgenre of music, what John Peel called “shambling,” jangly, lo-fi pop, came to be known by the name “C86,” the title of an <em>NME</em> compilation, short for “Cassette, 1986.” (Readers of the magazine had to clip coupons and send money by postal mail to receive a copy of the tape.)</p>
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<p>Soon, however, fewer and fewer people will remember the age of the 78rpm record, the preferred vehicle for the music of the early 20th century. From classical and opera to blues, bluegrass, swing, ragtime, gospel, Hawaiian, and holiday novelties the 78 epitomizes the sounds of its heyday as much as any of the media mentioned above.</p>
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<p>While cassettes recently made a nostalgic comeback, and turntables are found in every big box store, we’re generally not equipped to play back 78s. These are brittle records made from shellac, a resin secreted by beetles. They were often played on appliances that doubled as quality parlor furniture.</p>
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<p>Thanks now to the Internet Archive, that stalwart of digital cataloguing and curation, we can <a href="https://archive.org/details/georgeblood">play twenty five thousand 78s</a> and immerse ourselves in the early 20th century, whether for research purposes or pure enjoyment. Previous efforts at preservation have “restored or remastered… commercially viable recordings” on LP or CD, writes <a href="http://great78.archive.org">The Great 78 Project</a>, the archive’s volunteer program to digitize musical history. The current effort seeks to go beyond popularity and collect everything, from the rarest and strangest to the already historic. “I want to know what the early 20th century sounded like,” <a href="http://brewster.kahle.org/2017/06/09/the-great-78-project/">writes Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle</a>, “Midwest, different countries, different social classes, different immigrant communities and their loves and fears.”</p>
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<p>You can hear several selections here, and thousands more at <a href="https://archive.org/details/georgeblood">this archive of 78s</a> uploaded by audio-visual preservation company, <a href="http://www.georgeblood.com/">George Blood, L.P.</a> Other 78rpm archives from volunteer collectors and the <a href="http://arcmusic.org/">ARChive of Contemporary Music</a> are being digitized and uploaded as well. You’ll note the recordings are often submerged in crackle and hiss, and generally lack bass and treble (most playback systems of the time could not reproduce the lower and higher ends of the audible spectrum). “We have preserved the often very prominent surface noise and imperfections,” the Archive writes, “and included files generated by different sizes and shapes of stylus to facilitate different kinds of analysis.” Different playback systems could produce markedly different sounds, and the recordings were not always strictly 78rpm.</p>
<div class="minusbottommargin125"http://cdn8.openculture.com/>
<p>These conditions of the transfer ensure that we roughly hear what the first audiences heard, though the records’ age and our penchant for 7 speaker audio systems introduce some new variables. None of these recordings were even made in stereo. The 78 period, <a href="https://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/historyof78rpms.htm">notes Yale Library</a>, lasted between 1898 and the late 1950’s, when the 33 1/2 rpm long-playing record fully edged out the older model. For approximately fifty years, these records carried recorded music, sound, and speech into homes around the world. “What is this?” Kahle asks of this formidable digitization project. “A reference collection? A collector’s dream? A discovery radio station? The soundtrack of the early 20th century?” All of the above. To learn more about The Great 78 Project, including the technical details of the transfer and how you can carefully package up and mail in your own 78rpm records, visit their <a href="http://great78.archive.org/preservation/">Preservation page</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Ferdinand1977">h/t @Ferdinand77</a></p>
<p><strong>Related Content:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/bbc_launches_world_music_archive.html">BBC Launches World Music Archive</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.openculture.com/2016/05/the-british-librarys-sounds-archive-presents-80000-free-audio-recordings.html">The British Library’s “Sounds” Archive Presents 80,000 Free Audio Recordings: World & Classical Music, Interviews, Nature Sounds & More</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.openculture.com/2017/08/dcs-legendary-punk-label-dischord-makes-its-entire-music-catalog-free-to-stream-online.html">DC’s Legendary Punk Label Dischord Records Makes Its Entire Music Catalog Free to Stream Online</a></p>
<p><em><a href="http://about.me/jonesjoshua">Josh Jones</a> is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at <a href="https://twitter.com/jdmagness">@jdmagness</a></em></p>
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| 5:33p | The Roland TR-808, the Drum Machine That Changed Music Forever, Is Back! And It’s Now Affordable & Compact
You don’t have to be a gearhead to instantly recognize the sound of the Roland TR-808. Introduced in 1980, the legendary drum machine is all over the 80s, 90s, and the retro 2000s, from dance progenitors like Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” to formative Def Jam releases like Run DMC’s debut and the Beastie Boy’s Licensed to Ill (one of the original machines used on such classics recently went on sale). The 808 provides the backbeat for Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” New Order’s “Shellshock,” and LL Cool J’s “Going Back to Cali”... track after era-defining track pulses with the iconic drum machine’s deep, thudding kick drum and comically synthetic congas, claves, maracas, handclaps, and cowbells.
The 808 inspired a tribute celebration around the world on August 8th (8/08) and stars in its own full-length documentary, “a nerdy love letter" to the electric instrument, writes Slate. You can buy 808 Adidas that actually play beats, play with a virtual TR-808 in your browser, and enjoy the sounds of Kanye West’s oddly influential 2008 album 808s and Heartbreak. With all this renewed attention, you might think it’s a good time for Japan’s Roland to bring the device back into production, just as Moog briefly reissued its Minimoog Model D (since discontinued) amidst a swirl of renewed mainstream interest in analog synthesizers. Roland has obviously felt the pop cultural winds blowing its way. Yesterday, on 808 Day, the company announced a new iteration, now called the TR-08, as part of its Boutique line. (A previous revival, the TR-8, saw Roland combine the 808 with the classic 909, renowned in rave circles.) The video at the top features some of the 808’s original adopters—producer Jimmy Jam, rapper Marley Marl, and DJs Jazzy Jeff and Juan Atkins—marveling over the new product. Just above, in case you’ve somehow forgotten, we have a demonstration of famous TR-808 beats from tracks like “Planet Rock” and Cybotron’s “Clear,” songs that made innovative use of samples and which themselves became choice material for dozens of sample-based productions.
The 808 was the choice of drum machine for tinkerers. Its sound was “crowd-sourced,” writes Chris Norris, “with artists building on one another’s modifications of the device. One of the first major innovations came about in 1984,” with the “fine tuning of the 808’s low frequencies and further widening of its bass kick drum to create the sound of an underground nuke test” heard on producer Strafe’s club hit “Set it Off.” The new TR-08 has a much smaller footprint and expands the machine’s capabilities with contemporary features like an LED screen, controls over gain and tuning, battery or USB power, and audio or MIDI through a USB connection. Arguably “one of the most impactful pieces of modern music hardware,” writes The Verge, upon its debut the 808 “received mixed reviews and was considered a commercial failure as its analog circuitry didn’t create the ‘traditional’ drum sounds” most producers expected. This meant that 808s could be picked up relatively cheaply by bedroom producers and local DJs. As a result, “the trembling feeling of that sound,” Norris writes, “booming down boulevards in Oakland, the Bronx, and Detroit are part of America’s cultural DNA, the ghost of Reagan-era blight” and the renaissance of creativity born in its midst. To get a sense of the breadth of the 808’s musical contributions, listen to the playlist above, with everyone from Talking Heads to 2 LIVE CREW, Phil Collins, and Whitney Houston putting in an appearance. Related Content: All Hail the Beat: How the 1980 Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Changed Pop Music The “Amen Break”: The Most Famous 6-Second Drum Loop & How It Spawned a Sampling Revolution Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness The Roland TR-808, the Drum Machine That Changed Music Forever, Is Back! And It’s Now Affordable & Compact is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
| 6:30p | Take a Free Crash Course in Design Thinking from Stanford’s Design School
If you ask a few of today's youngsters what they want to do when they grow up, the word "design" will almost certainly come up more than once. Ask them what design itself means to them, and you'll get a variety of answers from the vaguely general to the ultra-specialized. The concept of design — and of designing, and of being a designer — clearly holds a strong appeal, but how to define it in a useful way that still applies in as many cases as possible? One set of answers comes from the 90-minute "Crash Course in Design Thinking" above, a production of Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, or d.school. The Interaction Design Foundation defines design thinking as "an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions we might have, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding." In a brief history of the subject there, Rikke Dam and Teo Siang write that "business analysts, engineers, scientists and creative individuals have been focused on the methods and processes of innovation for decades." Stanford comes into the picture in the early 1990s, with the formation of the Design Thinking-oriented firm IDEO and its " design process modelled on the work developed at the Stanford Design School." In other words, someone using design thinking, on the job at IDEO or elsewhere, knows how to approach new, vague, or otherwise tricky problems in various sectors and work step-by-step toward solutions. D.school, with their mission to "build on methods from across the field of design to create learning experiences that help people unlock their creative potential and apply it to the world," aims to instill the principles of design thinking in its students. And this crash course, through an activity called "The Gift-Giving Project," offers a glimpse of how they do it. You can just watch the video and get a sense of the "design cycle" as d.school teaches it, or you can get hands-on by assembling the simple required materials and a group of your fellow design enthusiasts (make sure you add up to an even number). Youngster or otherwise, you may well emerge from the experience, a mere hour and a half later, with not just new problem-solving habits of mind but a newfound zeal for design, however you define it. "Crash Course in Design Thinking" will be added to our collection, 1,250 Free Online Courses from Top Universities Related Content: Download 20 Free eBooks on Design from O’Reilly Media Saul Bass’ Advice for Designers: Make Something Beautiful and Don’t Worry About the Money Bauhaus, Modernism & Other Design Movements Explained by New Animated Video Series Abstract: Netflix’s New Documentary Series About “the Art of Design” Premieres Today Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. He’s at work on the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. Take a Free Crash Course in Design Thinking from Stanford’s Design School is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs. |
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