List of Common Misconceptions: this is a great list of prevalent “common knowledge” that isn’t so.
8/19/2024
4/19/2024
Fishermen saved by ‘Help’ message on same tiny island where ‘SOS’ saved three others: palm fronds, good to know.
3/28/2024
Barbaras Rhababerbar: I think this is a comedy song about a villager named Barbara and her famous rhubarb cake. {via}
2/28/2024
LiMu Emu and Doug: hilarious sketch of an especially insufferable commercial.
1/25/2024
Most Canadians Live South of Seattle and Other Map Surprises: geographic ignorance is rampant.
12/12/2023
Car Manufacturing Process Overview: Toyota is such an amazing company and this is a very clear presentation.
11/17/2023
why do beds have to be so boring: yeah, sure, sure, pretty leaves. WHY ARE BEDS NOT ELEVATED FOR MAXIMAL STORAGE UNDERNEATH?
10/30/2023
The Impossible Drone Shot: I’m not sure exactly what makes it impossible but it’s certainly an impressive tracking video.
“NO CIG” is really just “INVISIBLE CGI”: this sort of exposé is exactly the sort of thing I love.
10/12/2023
The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge: quite an exhaustive journey to satisfy his curiosity but I get it.
9/26/2023
Out of the Trees: 1975 sitcom by Graham Chapman and Douglas Adams. {via}
9/20/2023
Boomhauer Performs Rap God: so good. The channel “There I Ruined It” is worth a few hours viewing.
9/15/2023
I’m a fake brand, in a fake world: gorgeous discussion
9/13/2023
Fictional Brands Archive: wonderful collection. {via}
5/9/2023
Ten Thousand Ways to Use Chopsticks: thorough exploration of chopstick holding options.
4/19/2023
The Art of Auto Engineering: it’s a steal at $25.
4/14/2023
Make Something Wonderful: beautiful, inspiring reminder of “too early.”
4/4/2023
Corn: words are fun.
My Pleasure: accurate.
1/31/2023
Wonders of Street View: quite a rabbit hole.
2/11/2022
Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band – Jaan Pehechan Ho: love this take!
2/8/2022
Your Brain-Gun: Turn the Safety Off: hilarious parody from The Onion in a series of parodies of TED Talks. “Shooting with intellectual blanks.” (More here.)
2/2/2022
GPS: fantastic, thorough, and interactive explanation.
1/26/2022
How Cell Service Actually Works: this is a clear and helpful explanation of a stupendously-complicated topic.
1/21/2022
Virtual Ancient Rome in 3D: impressive work! I enjoy the detail and expanse but it’s bereft of people—thus barren and lifeless. (One thing you notice is how much statuary there was.)
12/14/2021
Reddit Reads: what a resource! You can put in any subreddit and see what’s most talked about there, like /r/biology or /r/showerthoughts. {via}
4/30/2021
Disney Imagineering’s Project Kiwi is a free-walking robot that will make you believe in Groot: I don’t know if I’d go that far but it’s pretty damn sophisticated. {
3/12/2021
The Antikythera Mechanism: a series attempting to recreate the mysterious ancient Greek device. There’s also scholarly interest, of course.
Mercedes-Benz Museum: this really gives a sense of the space—though it’s far too rapid to replace a visit—and I look forward to this becoming a thing that happens regularly. {via}
2/26/2021
Iceberger: surprisingly satisfying.
2/24/2021
Watch real video of Perseverance’s Mars landing: so moving and impressive.
2/18/2021
5 to 9 by Dolly Parton: this is such a great commercial. It’s on brand, clever, and inspiring.
2/5/2021
Delightful Acapella Versions of Familiar Jingles: this is some acapella that doesn’t annoy me.
[UPDATE: Brand new one today!]
1/29/2021
Pee-Wee Park: exquisitely-crafted trailer—seamless to my eye.
10/16/2020
Charles Bridge Construction: 3D modeling of how the Charles Bridge in Prague was built from 1357 to 1402. Stunning, eye-opening animation.
9/11/2020
Smashed Mouths – All Star Deepfake Smashup: not perfect but pretty darn close. {via}
8/21/2020
The Flying Train (1902): this is amazing footage and such an inspiring view of alternative modes of transportation from the past. {via}
[UPDATE: Someone colorized and 60fps’d the footage and it adds in some missing realism.]
8/20/2020
Landing on the Melbourne Citadel in Microsoft Flight Simulator: the backstory on this is someone mistakenly entered “212” into OpenStreetMap instead of “2” for the number of stories that a building in Melbourne, Australia had. Apparently, the information in OSM is used to generate maps and landmarks in Microsoft Flight Simulator, which just released a new version, and the monstrosity in this video was the result.
[UPDATE (8/21/2020): And the Washington Monument looks less accurate. Found an article with more examples.]
7/31/2020
SpongeBob Anime: wow. I’m not a fan of anime but this is an amazing effort. {via}
7/5/2020
How does ‘Hamilton,’ the non stop, hip-hop Broadway sensation tap rap’s master rhymes to blur musical lines?: very neat way to look at the complicated rhyme scheme of Hamilton and its influences.
5/15/2020
Unreal Engine 5 Revealed: this is nummy. {via}
4/24/2020
Barbie Of All Trades: in a different era, these would just be miniatures or dioramas. Still impressive! {via}
4/17/2020
ZoomerBackgrounds: oh, these are perfect!
4/14/2020
Engineering Vids: this is likely Just Another Aggregator but it is so compelling to watch.
4/10/2020
Project 88: a scene-by-scene, crowdsourced remake of Back to the Future 2 and here’s the result. {via}
3/7/2020
Disunited Nations Maps: excellent visualizations from an excellent geopolitical analyst.
2/24/2020
Gallium Metal 99.99% Pure 20 Grams: its melting point is 85° so it literally melts in your hand.
2/7/2020
SnowCrystals.com: wow, that is one passionate site. The guy literally wrote the book on snowflakes. This is the sort of thing that amazes me about the modern world: specialization is a wondrous thing! {via}
60 fps 4k version of 1896 movie from neural networks: very captivating. He describes the process in the YouTube description and has a colorized version as well.
@royalty_now_: what iconic faces from the past might look like today or in real life. They’re well crafted though obviously suspect.
10/21/2019
Rebel Alliance Life Insurance: yes, it’s a BYU sketch show but this is a solid premise and execution.
10/18/2019
Grouch: this is well done and funny.
8/30/2018
First Ever Life-Size and Drivable LEGO Technic Bugatti Chiron Is a Pioneering Piece of Engineering and Design: very impressive and repairs would be very cheap.
8/23/2018
6/22/2018
Office Classics – Classical Art in Modern Settings: sometimes Reddit is just wonderful.
6/16/2018
XM42-M Store: world’s most affordable flamethrower. I’m not sure who the target market is, though.
5/23/2018
Main Street Coalition: I sure hope this works because the progressive shareholder activism is aggressive and getting bigger.
5/10/2018
The RoboRoach Bundle: I had no idea this was so accessible. Read the ethics statement at the bottom for a laugh—it’s a freaking cockroach.
5/3/2018
Arrested Development – Star Wars with Ron Howard: nicely done!
4/30/2018
Zack Morris Is Trash: a bad guy on a bad show, but now definitively proven. (It’s also available on Amazon Prime Video, which is where I found it.)
4/20/2018
How to build a house alone: doesn’t look too difficult if you know what you’re doing. (I don’t have any idea what I’m doing.)
4/17/2018
The Cake Server: holy crap! I am in awe.
Trump vs Talking Heads: very well done.
Deluxe – My Game: simply amazing video by one of my favorite bands.
Paul McCartney Rabbit Hole: not into the Beatles or Sir Paul, but this is exceedingly well done. {via}
4/11/2018
Calvin County: I’m not a Calvin and Hobbes fan but I like the meshing of the styles. (Plus: Opus pisses himself.) {via}
4/5/2018
How It’s Made – Toilet Paper: mesmerizing. {via}
4/4/2018
eGenesis: a George Church company that’s working on growing virus-resistant human organs in pigs. (From an incredible interview he gave on a podcast.)
4/2/2018
AirFish 8: like a boat but without all that water drag. I’m amazed that it’s classified as a marine craft rather than an airplane. The corporate video is compelling.
3/29/2018
Introducing MARTY, Stanford’s self-driving, electric, drifting DeLorean: mmm, donuts. (More details here.)
3/26/2018
Lists of unsolved problems: this is a great survey of what we don’t know. (Or what we know we don’t know.)
3/22/2018
Train Buffs Are Traveling Cross-Country in Super Luxe Railcars Hitched to Amtrak Trains: they’re called “varnish” but I’d prefer to call them “rail yachts.” I can’t imagine preferring this over private jets though (and I’m definitely in the “train buff” category).
3/7/2018
The Politicization of the FBI: outstanding overview of the situation from a very-experienced source.
2/28/2018
Inching closer to a DNA-based file system: this is a fascinating glimpse at the future. The information storage density and self-replication ability of DNA makes it a compelling data storage platform.
2/8/2018
2/6/2018
Britain’s Giant Airship: I’ve read his book and it is wonderful. The writing is so compelling.
2/5/2018
MetPublications: free digital versions of their publications back to 1964. I found this Frank Lloyd Wright one and another on the sculptor Bernini.
The Fascinating Company That Tears Cars Apart To Find Out Exactly How They’re Built: this is an astounding amount of work. (I found out about this company when they revealed some Tesla Model 3 build issues. On that front, I suspect that the quality issues are due to the rumored hand assembly.)
2/4/2018
Ass Is The Most Complicated Word In The English Language: this is absolutely hilarious. {via}
Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle: this was presaged by the events in The Lost City of the Monkey God. Far from being a dead field, archaeology is going to have a boom soon just to deal with excavating the findings from LIDAR.
2/2/2018
Family fun with deepfakes: I particularly liked his closing paragraph imagining legitimate uses of the technology. (It’s so easy to think of the evil that can be done: Black Mirror‘s “Shut Up and Dance” episode but without having actually done the initial act.) {via}
1/23/2018
Map Showing Where Today’s Countries Would Be Located on Pangea: we’d still be having fights building the wall with Mauritania. {via}
#MeToo and the Taboo Topic of Nature: an informative perspective on the nature of gender. {via}
How McDonald’s Makes Its Fries: that explains why McDonald’s fries are so good and consistent. {via}
Rescue Drone Saves Two Boys from Drowning on Its First Day in Service=: sometimes you just need a good reminder of technology’s utility, especially if you’re a fan of Black Mirror. {via}
1/12/2018
Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories: these sorts of windows into things you take for granted are wonderful. I could watch Dirty Jobs and How It’s Made all day.
1/11/2018
Off the Wall Response to Rebecca Bright: Mike Rowe is an impressive man and Ms. Bright is the quintessential leftist.
12/20/2017
Google Maps’s Moat: this is an impressive insight into Google’s mapping efforts. (It’s also impressive in its depth—I’d highly recommend looking at his other essays.)
11/22/2017
Hooked On The Past – Exploring the history of architecture: the proprietor recreates demolished buildings digitally, providing a valuable service. The recreation of the Paulson house, for example, is so much more vivid than the elevations I had seen previously.
Pumped for the Future –
Fueling Up at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Visionary Gas Station: I had heard of this project, but had never seen it.
11/10/2017
Netflix Genre List: tens of thousands of genres, including Goofy Deep Sea Movies. {via}
10/22/2016
Mike Rowe Wears Trump’s Robe, Fights a Drone, and Solves the Labor Shortage: such a compelling person and a wonderful interview.
10/10/2016
Your Life in Numbers: gives you a little perspective.
3/7/2016
Kitbashed: holy moly this is comprehensive. For just one example, look at this exploration of the Millennium Falcon. There is so much there for the film geek.
2/24/2016
Atlas, The Next Generation: wow, but that guy’s a real jerk at 1’30”. Geesh.
2/22/2016
Ancient Rome: HBO’s Rome brought ancient Rome to life more, for me. But this is very captivating still. {via}
2/16/2016
Space Tourism Posters @NASAJPL: something tells me NASA isn’t the one to get us to this future, but they are beautiful.
2/12/2016
OK Go – Upside Down & Inside Out: if only I liked their music.