Thursday, June 30, 2011

Say hi to Debbie

Tonight's dating site video bio:




(By the way, it's a spoof). :)

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Thunderstorms

Tonight's time-lapse video, from the Hector Thunderstorm Project in Northern Australia:

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Fooling Penn & Teller

Tonight's magic trick:

Monday, June 27, 2011

Lip dub

Tonight's musical interlude lib-dub, from Grand Rapids, MI:

From the video's description:
"The Grand Rapids LipDub Video was filmed May 22nd, with 5,000 people, and involved a major shutdown of downtown Grand Rapids, which was filled with marching bands, parades, weddings, motorcades, bridges on fire, and helicopter take offs. It is the largest and longest LipDub video, to date.

This video was created as an official response to the Newsweek article calling Grand Rapids a "dying city." We disagreed strongly, and wanted to create a video that encompasses the passion and energy we all feel is growing exponentially, in this great city. We felt Don McLean's "American Pie," a song about death, was in the end, triumphant and filled to the brim with life and hope." - Rob Bliss, Director & Executive Producer

*Note: The "NEW WORLD RECORD" designation refers to size and scope, not duration. Storyboards and concept art by Greg Oberle. ...

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Will you marry me?

Tonight's marriage proposal:

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude - Gimme Shelter, by the Playing for Change project:

Friday, June 24, 2011

Automotive long jump

Tonight's car jump - from the video's description:
The Yellow Driver of Team Hot Wheels breaks the world record for distance jump in a four-wheeled vehicle at the Indianapolis 500 on May 29th 2011. Watch as the Yellow Driver, Tanner Foust, drops 10 stories down 90 feet of orange track and soars 332 feet through the air. ...

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Not your usual garage door

Tonight's garage video:

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Senior mobility

Tonight's custom golf cart video:

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude - Gregorian's Angels:



Monday, June 20, 2011

The difference between men and women

Tonight's gender differences video, tennis edition:

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Close call

Tonight's bicyclist close call, from the UK:

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Makeup

Tonight's power of makeup video:

Friday, June 17, 2011

Miniature race

Tonight's not-your-average-RC-toy video - from the 2008 1/10th TV world RC car championship, from Bangkok Thailand. These little cars are fast!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Racing the otter

Tonight's otter race:

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The difference between the boss' office and yours

Tonight's clever ad:

It's kind of like Capture the Flag

Tonight's asian twist on capture the flag, except the objective seems to be to tear the flagpole down:

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Sexy girls have it easy

Tonight's, uh, hard-hitting documentary, from the UK:

Monday, June 13, 2011

Lifeguard, Elephant Edition

Tonight's it's-not-exactly-Baywatch video - female elephants rescue a baby elephant from a watering hole in Africa:

Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Domino Domino Effect

Tonight's domino effect - domino shapes made of dominos do what dominoes do:

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Takeoff

Tonight's airport video - time-lapse of planes taking off from Boston's Logan airport - about an hour and 10 minutes of elapsed time, compressed into less than 3 minutes:

Friday, June 10, 2011

Blooper

Tonight's Who Wants to be a Millionaire blooper:

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Teasing the doggie

Tonight's talking doggie video:

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Good catch

Tonight's quick reflexes - Tampa Bay Rays player Evan Longoria makes a quick catch:

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Musical interlude

Tonight's a capella musical interlude - The Nylons perform The Lion Sleeps Tonight:



Monday, June 6, 2011

How it works, LCD monitor edtion

Tonight's technology explanation:

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude - Carrie Underwood sings How Great Thou Art:



Four myths about the Crusades

Today's myth-debunking:
In 2001, former president Bill Clinton delivered a speech at Georgetown University in which he discussed the West’s response to the recent terrorist attacks of September 11. The speech contained a short but significant reference to the crusades. Mr. Clinton observed that “when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem [in 1099], they . . . proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple Mount.” He cited the “contemporaneous descriptions of the event” as describing “soldiers walking on the Temple Mount . . . with blood running up to their knees.” This story, Mr. Clinton said emphatically, was “still being told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.”

This view of the crusades is not unusual. It pervades textbooks as well as popular literature. One otherwise generally reliable Western civilization textbook claims that “the Crusades fused three characteristic medieval impulses: piety, pugnacity, and greed. All three were essential.”1 The film Kingdom of Heaven (2005) depicts crusaders as boorish bigots, the best of whom were torn between remorse for their excesses and lust to continue them. Even the historical supplements for role-playing games—drawing on supposedly more reliable sources—contain statements such as “The soldiers of the First Crusade appeared basically without warning, storming into the Holy Land with the avowed—literally—task of slaughtering unbelievers”;2 “The Crusades were an early sort of imperialism”;3 and “Confrontation with Islam gave birth to a period of religious fanaticism that spawned the terrible Inquisition and the religious wars that ravaged Europe during the Elizabethan era.”4 The most famous semipopular historian of the crusades, Sir Steven Runciman, ended his three volumes of magnificent prose with the judgment that the crusades were “nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost.”5

The verdict seems unanimous. From presidential speeches to role-playing games, the crusades are depicted as a deplorably violent episode in which thuggish Westerners trundled off, unprovoked, to murder and pillage peace-loving, sophisticated Muslims, laying down patterns of outrageous oppression that would be repeated throughout subsequent history. In many corners of the Western world today, this view is too commonplace and apparently obvious even to be challenged.

But unanimity is not a guarantee of accuracy. What everyone “knows” about the crusades may not, in fact, be true. From the many popular notions about the crusades, let us pick four and see if they bear close examination. ...
Read the whole thing here.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

What a planker

Tonight's useless news story:

Friday, June 3, 2011

Playing with fire

Tonight's fire and water video:

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Musical interlude

Tonight's musical interlude - Spandau Ballet's True:



Wednesday, June 1, 2011

How it works, Smoke Detector edition

Tonight's technology explanation: