Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

OpenCulture pointed to an interesting article at the Telegraph “110 Best Books: The Perfect Library.” I’m sure you’ll agree and disagree, but it’s a solid list nonetheless and one could do worse than following their advice for a nice bit of self-education.

The Illiad and The Odyssey
Homer

Set during the Trojan War, The Iliad combines battle scenes with a debate about heroism; Odysseus’ thwarted attempts to return to Ithaca when the war ends form The Odyssey. Its symbolic evocation of human life as an epic journey homewards has inspired everything from James Joyce’s Ulysses to the Coen brothers’ film, O Brother Where Art Thou?.

iPodNN | iTunes U adds new PBS material, more

Certainly worth noting.

Many of you probably have distance learning programs at your universities, but some colleges have pushed that a little further into the media age with broadcasting their entire courses on YouTube and the like.

OpenCulture has a great post today regarding some of the university collections on YouTube (and has previously detailed some of the available options.) So far I’ve not seen any classes I’m interested in, but you should take a look!Some of the previous posts in this vein (worth looking at):

• OpenCulture’s YouTube Playlist
• 10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube

Happy Monday!

Watch Your Language: What Our Words Reveal About Our Minds, But Not About the World - A fascinating article about linguistics and linguist Steven Pinker.

Saving Whales and the International System -Military systems being tested are driving whales to their deaths

The Jews Invent Vowels - As a both a Jew and a Religious Studies major I found this terribly interesting. (From Jewschool)

Slow news day, I gotta say.