Video of Maz Jobrani Iranian Comedian

WATCH Maz Jabrani on YouTube »

Maz Jobrani was born in Iran and emigrated to the United States when he was six.  He was part of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour whose DVD is out.  He also do solo touring and has been on the Tonight Show as well.

He has some middle eastern comedy acts in his skits, but they are all done in good taste.  In fact, he wants to dispel some of the Middle Eastern stereo-types.  He says, just once he wants to see an Middle Easterner on TV doing regular things (like baking a cookie).

On NPR interview with Terry Gross, Maz talked about his acting career and how he was on the hit TV show “24”.  Maz Jobrani attended University of California at Berkeley and even enrolled in the PhD program in UCLA.  His mother had wanted him to become a doctor, lawyer — okay, or say car mechanic (instead of acting).

Maz is well-known enough to be on Wikipedia.  More about Maz Jobrani and his tour schedule on his website.

Movie: “Slumdog Millionaire”

The acclaimed movie Slumdog Millionaire depicts life in India as two orphan brothers (Jamal and Salim) grows up in the slum of Mumbai. Through a series of adventures in search for his love Latika, the protagonist Jamal ends up working at a call center and then ended up on the India’s version of the show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” — which he wins since he happens to know all the answers to through his previous adventures.

The other brother Salim was not so lucky as he got involved with gangsters — a by-product of the crime-ridden neighbor in which they grew up.

WATCH Trailer »

Slumdog Millionaire was winner of the 2009 Oscars for Best Picture, best Directing, best Music Song, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Cinematography, and Writing Adaptive Screenplay.

Director Danny Boyle talks about the film here.

Also hear interview of Danny Boyle on Fresh Air.

Hear another review of the movie here.

Video provides Humorous Way to Learn About Copyright Laws

The below video is a parody of Disney created by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University. It explains the U.S. copyright laws and the types of work that it protects such as music, film, dance, etc. It says that ideas can not be copyrighted. Only the form in which that idea is express is copyrighted. It talks about the duration of copyright and when a work goes into public domain when copyright expires. And finally it explains the copyright fair use doctrine.

Economist Kotlikoff Tells of United States Economic Future

Economist Laurence Kotlokoff paints a gloomy picture of United States economic future in the below talk at MIT and in his book The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future.

The aging United States demographics means that there will be more older people collecting Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid than there are young people generating enough money for these programs. This financial gap will get larger and larger the more time we wait. Kotlokoff says we need to do something immediately otherwise the fiscal system is headed for a meltdown. He has his own ideas as to what we should do. But will the politicians listen is a different story.

The talk was given on April 28, 2004 as part of the authors at MIT series.

“Did You Know” YouTube Video

Karl Fisch “Did You Know / Shift Happens” YouTube Video version 2.0 was announced on his blog back in June 2007 and which you can see here…

It puts into perspective how big the world is and how fast it is changing. Some of the statistics is amazing.

Since then, many other have re-mixed the presentation.

Here is another version …

with closing credits that says “Research and original design by Karl Fisch, Scott Mclood, Jeff Brenman”

With content based on Karl Fisch presentation, Jeff Brenman has a slide version of the presentation at uploaded to SideShare around 2006 which you can view here called ShiftHappens.

Now there is a “Did You Know 4.0″…

The people credited for this one are Scott McLeod, Karl Fisch, and Laura Bestler.

This one is nice in that is has credit and sources at the end and has a creativecommon license.