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Taking a first glance at the Babylonian Map of the World, few of us could recognize it for what it is. But then again, few of us are anything like the British Museum Middle East department curator Irving Finkel, whose vast knowledge (and ability to share it compellingly) have made him a viewer favorite on […]
11 months ago

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More from Open Culture

The Only Painting van Gogh Ever Sold: Discover The Red Vineyard (1888)

It may have crossed your mind, while beholding paintings of Vincent van Gogh, that you’d like to own one yourself someday. If so, you’ll have to get in line with more than a few billionaires, and even they may never see one go up on the auction block. This would probably come as a surprise […]

20 hours ago 2 votes
How 16th-Century Artist Joris Hoefnagel Made Insects Beautiful—and Changed Science Forever

In English, most of the words we’d use to refer to insects sound off-putting at best and fearsome at worst, at least to those without an entomological bent. Dutch, close a linguistic relation though it may be, offers a more endearing alternative in beestjes, which refers to all these “little beasts” in which the artists […]

21 hours ago 2 votes
Iconic Animator Chuck Jones Creates an Oscar-Winning Animation About the Virtues of Universal Health Care (1949)

While our country looks like it might be coming apart at the seams, it’s good to revisit, every once in a while, moments when it did work. And that’s not so that we can feel nostalgic about a lost time, but so that we can remind ourselves how, given the right conditions, things could work […]

2 days ago 3 votes
A Visualization of the History of Technology: 1,889 Innovations Across Three Million Years

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So holds the third and most famous of the “three laws” originally articulated by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Even when it was first published in the late nineteen-sixties, Clarke’s third law would have felt true to any resident of the developed world, surrounded by and […]

3 days ago 3 votes
Hear Newly Rediscovered Music by Erik Satie on the 100th Anniversary of His Death

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0Video can’t be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: Satie: Discoveries (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kuFyuH6tvOjqf-ugVZ1RXulJtFUqnDPz0) If asked to name our favorite French composer of the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, most of us would reach straight for Erik Satie, being able to bring to mind only his most famous pieces, the Gymnopédies and perhaps the Gnossiennes. We may […]

3 days ago 2 votes

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How 16th-Century Artist Joris Hoefnagel Made Insects Beautiful—and Changed Science Forever

In English, most of the words we’d use to refer to insects sound off-putting at best and fearsome at worst, at least to those without an entomological bent. Dutch, close a linguistic relation though it may be, offers a more endearing alternative in beestjes, which refers to all these “little beasts” in which the artists […]

21 hours ago 2 votes
Productivity, AI and pushback

Typesetters did not like the laser printer. Wedding photographers still hate the iphone. And some musicians are outraged that AI is now making mediocre pop music. One group of esteemed authors is demanding that book publishers refuse to use AI in designing book covers, recording audiobooks or a range of other tasks. As always, this […]

20 hours ago 2 votes
Iconic Animator Chuck Jones Creates an Oscar-Winning Animation About the Virtues of Universal Health Care (1949)

While our country looks like it might be coming apart at the seams, it’s good to revisit, every once in a while, moments when it did work. And that’s not so that we can feel nostalgic about a lost time, but so that we can remind ourselves how, given the right conditions, things could work […]

2 days ago 3 votes
Daydream fatigue

Spend enough time inventing possible futures in your head and you won’t have any time to build the future we will all share. Time to get to work.

3 days ago 3 votes
A Visualization of the History of Technology: 1,889 Innovations Across Three Million Years

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3 days ago 3 votes