Posted by Shane Becker on
<p>quite awhile back i read on <a href="http://www.codingmonkeys.de/map/">Martin Pittenauer's</a> <a href="http://www.codingmonkeys.de/map/log/">blog</a> about a documentary called "<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/">The Elegant Universe</a>" that originally aired on <a href="http://www.pbs.org/">PBS</a>' <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/">Nova</a>. i was pretty stoked to hear about it, because way back a few years ago when i lived in missouri (aka the state of misery) i remember seeing commercials for it and wanting to watch it, but then missing it. ah, you've got to love the internet.</p>
<p>just as he noted, the whole thing is <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html" rel="bookmark">viewable online</a>. but the annoying thing was that all videos were wrapped up in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integration_Language">.smil</a> file. in short that means, i'd have to stream it al and watch it while i had internet access and hope that there weren't any hiccups in network status. so after asking him how he watched it, he wrote me back with a copy of the smil and advice that now seems obvious. if you open the smil file in a <a href="http://codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/index.html">text</a> <a href="http://www.macromates.com/">editor</a>, you can see the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier">URI</a> of all the movies chapters.</p>
<p>i did you the favor of busting the links out so you don't have to look at an ugly ugly <code>smil</code>.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://a388.g.akamai.net/5/388/142/3f9e93f2/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c01_hi_100.mov">A Theory of Everything?</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1572.g.akamai.net/5/1572/142/3f9e693c/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c02_hi_100.mov">Newton's Embarassing Secret</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1204.g.akamai.net/5/1204/142/3f9e68c5/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c03_hi_100.mov">A New Picture of Gravity</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a28.g.akamai.net/5/28/142/3f9e6ac5/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c04_hi_100.mov">A Strange New World</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1652.g.akamai.net/5/1652/142/3f9e6b39/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c05_hi_100.mov">The Quantum Cafe</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1420.g.akamai.net/5/1420/142/3f9e6982/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c06_hi_100.mov">Gravity - The Odd Man Out</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a920.g.akamai.net/5/920/142/3f9e6a34/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c07_hi_100.mov">Strings to the Rescue</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a16.g.akamai.net/5/16/142/3f9e6a87/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3012c08_hi_100.mov">Science or Philosophy?</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1988.g.akamai.net/5/1988/142/3f9e74cf/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c01_hi_100.mov">The Conflicting Sets of Laws</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a352.g.akamai.net/5/352/142/3f9e7c11/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c02_hi_100.mov">One Master Equation</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a376.g.akamai.net/5/376/142/3f9e7b6b/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c03_hi_100.mov">The Birth of String Theory</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1640.g.akamai.net/5/1640/142/3f9e7581/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c04_hi_100.mov">The Standard Model</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a176.g.akamai.net/5/176/142/3f9e7807/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c05_hi_100.mov">Wrestling With String Theory</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1740.g.akamai.net/5/1740/142/3f9e76b1/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c06_hi_100.mov">The Theory of Everything</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1920.g.akamai.net/5/1920/142/3f9e760c/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c07_hi_100.mov">Multiple Dimensions</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a576.g.akamai.net/5/576/142/3f9e7a62/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3013c08_hi_100.mov">Five Flavors of String Theory</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a500.g.akamai.net/5/500/142/3fa7ef34/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c01_hi_100.mov">The Wild West of Physics</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a2044.g.akamai.net/5/2044/142/3fa7f007/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c02_hi_100.mov">The Potential of Strings</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1716.g.akamai.net/5/1716/142/3fa7fd44/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c03_hi_100.mov">Getting to One Theory</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a612.g.akamai.net/5/612/142/3fa7edcc/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c04_hi_100.mov">Parallel Universes</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1040.g.akamai.net/5/1040/142/3fa7ece4/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c05_hi_100.mov">Escaping Gravity</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1168.g.akamai.net/5/1168/142/3fa7eae4/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c06_hi_100.mov">Riddle of the Big Bang</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a1096.g.akamai.net/5/1096/142/3fa8fd67/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c07_hi_100.mov">Signs of Strings</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://a304.g.akamai.net/5/304/142/3fa7dc5e/1a1a1afb6ae049ae214fc034aad839a91985ea187bea5786f362d841a61948bf2688f01f87fb6fdf0e7ceb61c22186fb/nova_eu_3014c08_hi_100.mov">Too Elegant to be Wrong?</a>
</li>
</ul>
<p>go forth and nerd it up.</p>
<p>Currently playing in iTunes: <em>Simple Song</em> by Avail</p>