Meredith Bull finds weird and wonderful animal sounds, then performs catchy little tunes accompanied by delightful creatures. "I Don't Wanna Be Touched" features a furious feline who seems to be emphatically making this point about being touched.
The luga-luga-lugaleh cat song was so popular that she released a full-length masterpiece that has been in my head since May.
Image: YouTube / Meredith Bull
High winds at Snetterton Race Circuit in Norfolk, England allowed this lovely kestrel to hover in place. What's remarkable is how still the bird's head stays while it is hovering.
There's also a cool nest cam channel that shows how many nest raids these poor birds have to deal with. Owls, jackdaws, and other birds do their best to eat the eggs and chicks.
Images: YouTube / ViralHog
Despite years of huge successes on film and TV, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray did not meet Johnny Carson until the 1984 press tour for Ghostbusters. The clip starts with Aykroyd doing a delightfully odd show-and-tell about paranormal research that sucks all the air out of the room, then Murray comes out halfway through and tries to save the segment to Carson's great relief. It's hard to imagine the pace of this 13-minute segment flying on network TV today.
Fun fact: the Zener cards used at the top of Ghostbusters is one of many references to the Duke University Parapsychology Lab, an official part of Duke's psychology department that was eventually moved off campus and is now the Rhine Center. Ghostbusters was based in part on the work of J.B. Rhine and his wife at Duke, and as an independent research facility later.
Image: YouTube / The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Watch a Barnsley fern and other cool patterns emerge from plotting random dice rolls on paper or onscreen. Mathematician Ben Sparks explains the chaos game with a few variants.
If that's your bag, you might also like Rob's post on the related Sierpinsky triangles.
Ben Sparks sat down with the folks and Numberphile to discuss some of his other interests:
Image: YouTube / Numberphile
It's hard to pinpoint what makes this so satisfying: the balancing trick, the high production values of the camera, the music, the art-directed set with the rose and the pistachios. For my money, it's the triumphant look to camera once he has demonstrated his impressive skill, but it's the combination that makes this a wonderful thing.
Israel-based Eviation demonstrated its all-electric plane Alice in Paris before the pandemic. This great overview explains the challenges of all-electric planes that are not retrofits of existing models.
It's unlikely these planes will replace cross country or international travel by gas-powered jets, mainly because battery weight reduces number of potential passengers. It also has about half the air speed of a gas-powered jet.
Image: YouTube / Tech Insider
Rus Khasanov (previously) continues to experiment with blending pigments, this time in ways that mimic the complexity of the colorful iris of many eyes. The effect seems to be related to pareidolia, but it also puts in mind how DeepDream sees eyes everywhere.
More examples on his Instagram:
Image: Vimeo / Rus Khasanov via Behance
Iuli Gerbase's film "The Pink Cloud" tells of a community forced into quarantine by a deadly pink cloud. Some interesting parallels with humanity's current predicament.
Written in 2017 and shot in 2019, it's part of the 2021 Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
Image: YouTube / VT News
For something touting concrete-infused canvas that unrolls like carpet, this ad really pulls at the heartstrings. You'll be moved to use it for channel , culvert, and bund lining, slope protection, weed suppression, concrete remediation, even gabion reinforcement.
Here's a more quotidian demo showing installation of these Geosynthetic Cementitious Composite Mats (GCCMs):
If you're wondering, that ad is set to The Cinematic Orchestra's lovely "To Build a Home," which is what we call in the ad biz "borrowed interest."
Image: YouTuve / Concrete Canvas
Smarter Every Day announced a series on going to the moon, and the first intallment looks at the logistics and engineering problems that had to be solved to make it work:
We're going back to the moon, and we're going to need to train Astronauts how to land. This video is the result of trying to understand that control problem better. in the next video of this series, I'll show you footage from an actual NASA Lunar Lander software test I participated in many years ago.
Image: YouTube / Smarter Every Day
As part of his Half-Life series, Kyle Hill looks at one of the most controversial moments in the history of nuclear weapons: the Castle Bravo atmospheric thermonuclear test detonated over Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. It was dubbed the "Second Hiroshima" by Japan and others outraged by the test.
The blast and fallout radii were both larger than expected, and the incident continues to be the subject of litigation (previously).
Image: YouTube / Kyle Hill
Pindrop is a new Veritasium series that explores Earth's features that are visible via Google Earth, starting with these mysterious pools in the Utah desert. It's really well done!
What are these electric blue ponds in the middle of the Utah desert? And why do they keep changing color? Join Derek Muller (Veritasium) as he looks into the weird, bizarre, and seemingly inexplicable images found on Google Earth to discover what on Earth they actually are. It's a travel vlog, documentary, and science show wrapped into one. It's Pindrop.
Image: Veritasium
In this interesting documentary, noted street artist Julian Beever talks with other artists and shows how they ply their trade. It's framed by his creation of a Big Ben illusion in London.
Image: YouTube / TRACKS
Skating legend Rodney Mullen showed a Japanese crowd what the most cutting-edge freestyle looked like in 1984.
One of the best docs on his heyday is Bones Brigade: An Autobiography:
Here Rodney talks about his days with the Bones Brigade:
Image: YouTube / RodneyMullenNet
The video for "Institutionalized" and the film Repo Man which featured it on the soundtrack has that funny, angry, ironic Gen X vibe nailed, so I thought someone else might need to see it right now. If you think there's a better one, put it in the comments.
I don't do a lot of memberberries posts like these, but a Rodney Mullen skating video I just posted about put me in mind of my favorite song of that era.
I also recommend Amanda Palmer's terrific cover:
Image: youTube / BlankTV
Kathleen Ryan created these large sculptures of fruit and covered them with beading of various sizes and colors to emulate rottenness. Here are some more examples, which also include an encrusted chunk of car and other delights.
Image: YouTube / ERIC MINH SWENSON
Quebec filmmakers Thoroughbread Pictures created this unexpectedly deep short that seems like an ad at times, but is way too philosophical. They note:
FYI: we are not in anyway affiliated with Old Grand or Beam Suntory. Saw the bottle you see here in Alabama in 2014 and it has never left my mind. (But if you ask me, "A Pleasant Orange Hue" has a lot of potential as a slogan).
Image: Vimeo / Thoroughbread Pictures
James Cutler showed via his own home on a wooded hillside that houses don't need to be contiguous. He also shows off a gorgeous seaside home that hews to the same philosophy, allowing occupants to be more connected with their surroundings.
Image: YouTube / Kirsten Dirksen
YouTuber BrickVault reviews the 756-piece Flower Bouquet set and the 878-piece Bonsai set. Given that everyone is stuck at home more, why not spruce up the place with a lovely LEGO plant or two?
Image: YouTube / BrickVault
Simon Rohrick and friends take Society for Creative Anachronism to the next level with real fights in real armor with real weapons, like this one-on-one axe fight.
They also do last man standing gang fights, which seem even scarier.
No thanks!
Image: YouTube / Simon Rohrich
