Another great free collection from the Internet Archive — this time an audio collection instead of images. Dig in and enjoy! — Douglas
Through the Great 78 Project, the Internet Archive has been digitizing the audio from 78rpm records produced from 1898 to the 1950s. Over 25,000 high-quality recordings are currently available from artists like Edith Piaf, Irving Berlin, Lena Horne, and Duke Ellington. This preservation is important because the discs are fragile:
Watch this classic from the very beginning of film. — Douglas
Released on September 15th, 1914. Sometimes called the world’s oldest cartoon (erroneously), it is still the first to be created using keyframe animation. This movie required Winsor McCay and his assistant John A. Fitzsimmons (who traced the backgrounds) to create 10,000 drawings, which they inked on rice paper and mounted on cardboard.
Gertie is a dinosaur based on the Brontosaurus (nowadays known as Apatosaurus) skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History. McCay’s employer, William Randolph Hearst, was displeased with McCay’s success outside of the newspapers, and used his contractual power to reduce McCay’s stage activities.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
Improve your skills on your own, effectively and enjoyably, by watching films and series in the language you study.
Build your listening comprehension with thousands of hours of authentic language in context. After installation, you will have additional features for language learning when you watch videos on the Netflix website.
• Subtitles are shown in two languages, allowing you to compare the original audio and text with a translation in your language. • The extension allows you to listen to subtitles one at a time, and to change the playback speed. • There’s a pop-up dictionary, and the extension suggest the most important words for you to learn.
I love fireworks and I love vintage books and catalogs, so this is near-perfect find and yet another amazing collection to delve into. — Douglas
In the early 20th-century English fireworks company C.R. Brock and Company (now known as Brocks Fireworks) published colorful catalogs displaying designs from Japanese companies such as Hirayama Fireworks and Yokoi Fireworks. Six catalogs of diverse pyrotechnic diagrams have been digitized and made available for download thanks to the city of Yokohama’s public library. If you don’t read Japanese, you can download each publication’s PDF by visiting their website, clicking one of the book’s English titles near the bottom of the page, and then clicking “本体PDF画像” link below the image. Each catalog is a tremendous and varied selection of the firework shapes and colors of the time, with several designs you might recognize no matter where you view contemporary fireworks displays. (via Open Culture)
Amazing puppets in this short Great Big Story video. I am always amazed at the power of puppets and how puppeteers can bring them to life even when they remain visible in controlling their creations. — Douglas
Puppets—they’re child’s play, right? Spend five minutes watching Barnaby Dixon and you’ll surely disagree. At first, it might seem strange for a 26-year-old to be hand-building puppets in his bedroom and shooting videos of his performances for a living, but the puppet prodigy’s creations are completely original and totally addicting to watch. Barnaby started his career solely to make YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/barnabyd…), but recently hit it big after winning a 50,000 Euro grand prize on the German puppet talent show, “Die Puppenstars.”
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Books available at the LA Public Library
I have a smaller bluetooth speaker that I specifically was gifted for kitchen use. I love listening to podcasts and music while I cook and the little speaker did a perfectly good job. That said, due to the noise of running water, food processors and others, it would be nice to have a speaker with a bit more oomph. The BOOM 2 series of speakers is just one such speaker, but it was included in many other gift guides on the internet and will likely be my, more powerful, replacement for the kitchen and garden.
Insanely good, loud 360degree sound with deep bass
Portable design so you can bring the music anywhere
Waterproof*, shockproof, designed for adventure (* IPX7 rated waterproof up to 30 minutes and a depth of one meter)
15hour battery life and 100 ft. Bluetooth wireless range (Actual battery life will vary with use, settings and environmental conditions. Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles)
Maximum Sound Level: 90dBA. Frequency Range: 90Hz – 20kHz. Drivers: two 45mm (1 3/4″) active drivers and two 45mm X 80mm (1 3/4″ x 3″) passive radiators.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
While I was intrigued by the Amazon Echo, I couldn’t really make a case for buying one. That said, when a friend offered me their Echo Dot, which they didn’t want, I quickly jumped for it. I had been wanting to play around with the technology and see what it could do.
So far, for me, the Echo Dot has been used for listening to music from Pandora.com, providing weather and commute traffic info for my wife and sun each morning, game playing with Jeopardy, Lie Swatter, Sing Quiz and Screen Test Movie Quote Quiz and it also interferes with the Etekcity switches and Hook I mentioned earlier in the Gift Guide. I have been very happy with my Dot and, knowing what I know now, I probably would spend my own money to get one — perhaps to expand Alexa into other parts of the home.
The new Echo Plus looks neat due to its added capabilities as a smart home hub for many available systems.
09 Amazon Echo, Echo Plus, Echo Dot
You can save a few dollars if you want to buy a couple of Echo units or by buying factory refurbished units.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
Another in a long line of mystery shows I love, The Doctor Blake Mysteries comes from Australia. The show follows the life of Dr. Lucian Blake, recently returned to Australia after living — and working in intelligence in Shanghai during World War II. His life there was thrown into turmoil when he was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned, losing touch with this his Chinese wife and young daughter.
Dr. Blake is a bit unconventional for the small, Gold Rush town of Ballarat in the 1950s. He works as a police surgeon for the local force, but find himself often in conflict with his coworkers and townspeople. The stories, acting, writing, and production are top-notch.
Season 5 of the series (its last) is currently airing in Australia, but Seasons 1-3 are available via Netflix and 1-4 available for sale on Amazon. The Dr. Blake Mysteries also airs on many public television stations in the US.
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I have a smaller bluetooth speaker that I specifically was gifted for kitchen use. I love listening to podcasts and music while I cook and the little speaker did a perfectly good job. That said, due to the noise of running water, food processors and others, it would be nice to have a speaker with a bit more oomph. The BOOM 2 series of speakers is just one such speaker, but it was included in many other gift guides on the internet and will likely be my, more powerful, replacement for the kitchen and garden.
