This is an extremely rare TV re-edit of Harald Reinl's "Chariots of the Gods", based on the book by Erich Von Daniken, produced by Alan Landsburg, and narrated by the one and only Rod Serling. This was a sort of pilot for the later "In Search Of" television series (which was narrated by Leonard Nimoy)
The ancient Maya civilization of Central America left behind a riddle: an intricate and mysterious hieroglyphic script carved on stone monuments and painted on pottery and bark books. Because the invading Spanish suppressed nearly all knowledge of how the script worked, unlocking its meaning posed one of archaeology's fiercest challenges. Until now.
Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali fought three times. Their first encounter aroused such anticipation it was dubbed the ""fight of the century"" before either boxer entered the ring. But it was their third and final confrontation on October 1, 1975, in the Philippines, that cemented their rivalry as one of history's greatest. By the late rounds, the fight had become a contest of pure will with both men on the verge of collapse. That momentwhen a fight becomes more important than life and deathexplains both the romance and the sickness of the sport. It wasnt a fight for a belt; it was a war. Whats remarkable about Thriller in Manila is how dramatically it conveys both the depths of this rivalry as well as the complex racial politics of the time.
edinburghmsc: via @jar: Peachbit - european community researching concepts of presence and digitally mediated interaction. http://www.peachbit.org/
This documentary looks over the invention of the tank and the weapons built into tanks. It also takes an interesting look at new inventions like the reactive armour/kinetic energy penetrator.
Are you an Obama supporter? Did you fall for the propaganda orchestrated by the mainstream media? If so, watch this film, and marvel at how easily you got duped...
Playing cards are an everyday object used for gambling and game playing the world over. But the familiar deck of cards conceals hidden meanings that have links to secret societies and the occult. Why are there four suits and why hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs? What is the significance of the picture cards? What is the meaning of the symbolism of the Tarot? We look beneath the surface of the playing card and reveal an intriguing journey from their much disputed roots in China, Persia, and Egypt. And we uncover the secrets of card design, investigating rumored Masonic links and the way the design has changed to mirror the cultures and beliefs of the people who used them through the ages. What emerges is an extraordinary story that reveals the mysteries and meanings of the humble playing card--a history that is intimately entwined with the occult, voodoo, and man's fascination with mystical beliefs.
edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: Wish that I had a class to disrupt! http://tinyurl.com/cc5axz
Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.
If you're a science teacher trying to explain magnetism, you could do a lot worse than showing this beautiful animated film produced for Channel 4 with Arts Council England. As the blurb says:
"Are we observing a series of scientific experiments, the universe in flux, or a documentary of a fictional world?"
Plenty of other vids for scientists, geographers, writers over on the Vimeo site.
Update: Worth reading the comments underneath, reiiterating why finding knowledge on, say, magnetism is increasingly easy but gaining a foot in the door of learning about this might still require a talented teacher with an inspiring vid to kick things off.
Exploring Islam's vast influence on Mathematics, and Science throughout Europe and the rest of the World.
A middle aged, over weight, man discovers he is losing his remaining vision. To help him cope, a natural competitive bodybuilder challenges him to take on a physical transformation and enter the world of competitive bodybuilding.
An entheogen ("creates god within") in the strictest sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious or shamanic context.
Our economy is in crisis, and our government says that bold action is required. So we're diving in head first to get things back on track. But... what are we diving into exactly? Take a closer look at the government response to our current economic crisis with narrator Nick Gillespie of ReasonTV. And please visit http://stopspendingourfuture.org for more information and to find out what you can do to help!
He was the greatest scientist of his day, perhaps of all time. But while Isaac Newton was busy discovering the universal law of gravitation, he was also searching out hidden meanings in the Bible and pursuing the covert art of alchemy. In this program, NOVA explores the strange and complex mind of Isaac Newton.
BC's illegal marijuana trade industry has evolved into a business giant, dubbed by some involved as 'The Union', Commanding upwards of $7 billion Canadian annually. With up to 85% of 'BC Bud' being exported to the United States, the trade has become an international issue. Follow filmmaker Adam Scorgie as he demystifies the underground market and brings to light how an industry can function while remaining illegal. Through growers, police officers, criminologists, economists, doctors, politicians and pop culture icons, Scorgie examines the cause and effect nature of the business - an industry that may be profiting more by being illegal.
At a research site in Fongoli, Senegal, a female chimpanzee breaks off a branch, chews the end to make it sharp, then uses this rudimentary spear to skewer a tasty bushbaby hiding inside a hollow tree. The footage represents an astonishing breakthrough for primate researchers: It's the first time anyone has documented a chimpanzee wielding a carefully prepared, preplanned weapon.
Colin asks on 38minutes whether good design could save newspapers, having spent six minutes watching Jacek Utko's TED Talk about his own redesign revolution throughout Eastern Europe. But the talk raises another, more widely applicable point in creativity: working alone is often better than working as a team.
Utko's principle point is that by handing power over to the designers, newspapers can change their whole recipe, from writing and editorial to the type of person, the demographic, that reads the paper. But he also makes an interesting point, particularly interesting for me in the light of the two posts I've recently written on the processes for encouraging and management of creativity:
The idea that the best creative thought can come from not working in a team, from not working collaboratively, but is derived from solitude and being headstrong with one's peers, pushing one's own ideas through regardless of whether "the team" feels comfortable with it is, in many education circles (and professional ones), treated as a selfish, dirty, shameful notion to possess.
Yet, it's not the first time I'm hearing this. John Cleese makes the point that we all need to carve out private time for creative thought, free from the distraction of naysayers and, er, Twitter. And last year, as I worked my way through Gordon Torr's Managing Creative People, I was well aware that throughout history the best creative solutions to challenging problems have come from individuals working in isolation or skunkwork groups working away from the main part of an organisation.
All too often we fall for groupthink, a magnolia shade of creativity where everyone is happy with the outcome. What one ends up with can often be the result of a process with which everyone was delighted, but a result which is vaguely unsatisfactory for all concerned.
Consultation and speaking with others is important, but often when it comes down to the execution of an idea it's the solitary craft of creativity that makes something exciting, groundbreaking and, yes, something which someone, somewhere won't like.
Many people think that those who like change are diseased with neophilia, instead of concentrating on the things that matter in the here and now. On the face of it they're right. Most new ideas fail. But Mark Earls' PSFK presentation last month puts forward a very good case for why ever-seeking change is a Good Thing.
Earlier, I blogged a short talk from John Cleese outlining the physical and emotional conditions of coming up with great ideas. Here, Mark concentrates more on processes you can employ all the time, strategies even for your organisation or yourself.
Even small changes end up normally taking generations to happen. Heinz took 123 years to turn the label on their bottle around to the 'right' way - because we need to store our bottle on its lid to get any out [compare the old bottle with the current one]. They had spent many creative conversations debating it, but had never turned that into action.
New ideas help us test our old ideas
The lesson here for me is that we need to test out our own ideas first, before convincing people that they might be worth trying. Just do it, rather than think about stuff in the abstract. Mark picks up on an interaction between Lloyds' innovation blokey and the peer-to-peer lending bank, Zopa. The Lloyds man asked: "Would my market be changed by peer-to-peer banking?" This wasn't the first thought of the guys creating Zopa, who saw banking as about people, money as a means to be entertained and live better, money as a social experience. The man from Lloyds, when thinking about Zopa, saw it as a bottom-line business. He missed the point and as a result missed an opportunity to see the real threat to their business: not understanding how people relate to each other around money, as well as how they relate with money itself.
Explore the future
Ogilvy's website runs with a tagline from their founder:
They run Ogilvy Labs where they can play with unknown stuff and let their clients see what could happen. This is all done on the basis that you won't know what they future might hold until you play. It's the concept I've battled to get across with naysayers of new technologies (and pedagogies) in the education world: "You don't know what you don't know you don't know."
Everything's hacked
It is now rare or unlikely altogether that there is such a thing as an original. 90% of products fail in their first year in the UK and given that most new products are modeled on old ones, this will not change any time soon. There are two main things to bear in mind when hacking someone else's stuff:
Embrace opportunities when they come up
We sit on opportunities, keep them secret instead of doing something to get it out there. One of the hardest things to do is make quick decisions when subject to an overwhelming (and often limitless) choice. Delve into 20 minutes of Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice to understand this one. Yet, when a photographer is faced with 20-50 versions of the 'same shot', they are uncannily quick at ascertaining which shot is 'the' shot. Try it yourself - lots. Like a photographer, quick innovative thought takes practice (and occasionally getting it wrong) before being a creative bone you can rely on.
Entrepreneurs in this way have "memories of the future" - things feel familiar the first time you see them because you're constantly thinking about change.
Make your company more interesting
Change is fascinating, challenging, interesting. Making your workplace interesting will make people want to work there more and better. Logical, really.
Creative next steps
When you're faced with a challenge, a potential outside change, a new idea, ask yourself the following questions, and ask those around you, too: