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kottke.org posts about video

i’m on my datamosh, glitchin up vide0000ooos

Not even going to try to explain this one. Ok, I’ll try a little…this is Yung Jake singing about datamoshing and making animated gifs and such.

you think it’s connection you think it’s your bandwidth
but its me. i’ll steal your bitch like a bandit
see me on YouTube. fucking with video
find me on world star. find me on Vimeo
im not on PhotoBooth. that shit’s different
cuz dey told me to step out of the frame but i didnt

(via ★philgyford)


Delia Derbyshire, the first DJ

Lovely short film clip of BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s Delia Derbyshire demonstrating how to make electronic music using tape loops. Look at the beat matching!

It was Derbyshire who gave the original Doctor Who theme its distinctive sound. (via ★danielpunkass)


The boy with the backwards leg

Instead of amputating entirely, doctors removed the cancer from Dugan Smith’s leg and put it back on backwards.

Backwards leg

Now Smith wears a prosthesis, uses his ankle as a knee, and plays sports.


Hot! Origami! Capillary! Action!

Watch as pieces of micro-origami unfold on water through capillary action.

(via constant seige)


Movie references in Kill Bill

Following on from the Kill Bill section of episode 2 of Everything is a Remix, this video contains what feels like an exhaustive look at the movies that Tarantino referenced in Kill Bill.

(via @kbandersen)


Noisy fruit and veggies

Synesthesia is a short film by Terri Timely that attempts in an artful way to give the viewer a sense of what synesthesia (“the blending or mixing of senses”) is like.


Original ending of Election found at flea market

In this version, Tracy Flick tries to buy a car from Mr McAllister.

I bought a box of old VHS tapes at the Farmers Market in Wilmington, DE for $5 on Mothers Day. I had no idea that this working print was included in the box when I purchased it.

(via @kombuchakamp)


Pendulum waves

Mesmerizing video of a series of pendulums moving in an out of sync with each other until at the end…well, I won’t spoil it.

(thx, john)


I wonder what happens when Wooden Flip Switch Box gets really angry?

This wooden box has a switch on it. When the switch is flipped on, the box flips it off again. On, off. On, off. On….off. And then the box gets more creative in making sure the switch remains off.

(via @davidfg)

Update: Claude Shannon had such a box on his desk, although probably not so aggro as the one above. It was called the Ultimate Machine. (thx, @joshu)


Angry Birds theme, covered by Pomplamoose

Angry Birds is still the top paid app in the App Store. And Pomplamoose is still twee and adorable. (via ★glass)


OS X Inception

For those of you who are still confused about what happened to whom and in whose mind, here’s a 1-minute silent explanation of Inception using only the OS X Finder.

(via stellar)


Graffiti is a crime

From the NYC transit authority, a 1988 video about the consequences of painting graffiti in the subway.

Intense! (via ★vuokko)


Spider attack!

Watch as a spider quickly subdues an ant in its web…and then something unexpected happens.

This is the Sixth Sense of spider nature videos.


How to make a magazine

A fun little video about how Bloomberg Businessweek gets made.


Your taste is why your own work disappoints you

I love this observation about taste and creative work from Ira Glass:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.

The quote is an abridged version of the transcript from this video interview with Glass:


It takes four minutes to disassemble and then reassemble a Jeep

Two in a row from Product by Process, but I can’t resist this video of a group of Canadian Army engineers taking a Jeep apart and putting it back together again in less than four minutes total.

See also the Royal Navy Field Gun Competition. (via product by process)


How to make a Model T

Footage from a Ford factory of assembly line workers making Model T cars.

(via product by process)


How an hourglass is made

A three-minute film on how an hourglass is made.

Each hand made hourglass comprises highly durable borosilicate glass and millions of stainless steel nanoballs, and is available in a 10 or 60 minute timer.

(via ★robinsloan)


Concept camera with detactable lens

The WVIL (Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) is a concept camera that uncouples the lens from the viewfinder. Here’s a 60-second demo:

I imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult to make something similar to control a dSLR with an iPhone app via Bluetooth. (via ★pb)


Speed climbing tall mountains

The first ascent of the north face of Eiger, a mountain in the Swiss Alps (13,025 feet tall), happened in 1938 and took three days. Watch as Ueli Steck climbs it in 2 hours, 47 minutes, and 33 seconds.

The whole thing is pretty much insane, but you’ll really want to start paying attention around the 2:15 mark. He’s running up that mountain! (via devour)


Google Video, RIP

On April 29th, Google is shutting down playback at Google Video. Instead of transitioning everything over to YouTube (which would seemingly make a lot of sense), they’re just shutting it down with two weeks notice. If you’re comfortable with the command line (can’t they make this easier?), you can help archive.org save some of the best of Google Video. (via waxy)


Human Planet: The Douche

Pitch-perfect take-off of BBC’s Human Planet nature series. The subject is The Douche, an urban-dwelling bottom feeder.

Among the progressive forward-thinking citizens, there stands a great cancer, a type of human that is not evolved like the rest of the race: The Douche. For the poor Douche, hunting is still its main priority. This type of human does not hunt for food; they are consistently trying to find their own self esteem.

Human Planet is a pretty great show, but I would love to see an entire series like this: Soccer Moms, The Hipster, Nerds, Trophy Wives, Eurotrash, The Academic, etc. (via devour)


Jookin with Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma

Spike Jonze caught a collaboration between dancer Lil Buck and cellist Yo-Yo Ma on video the other day:

The style of dancing is called jookin and is very similar to what these fellows and David Elsewhere. (via @veen)


A dramatic reading of Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook

As my friend Adriana said, “to explain this would be to spoil it”.

(via meg)


Inventor of the digital camera

As part of his inventor portrait series, David Friedman profiled Steven Sasson, inventor of the digital camera.


Unicode, all of it

This movie shows all displayable Unicode characters (49000+ characters), one per frame, for more than 33 minutes.

(via waxy)


Machine’s waltz

The motions of a Brazilian textile plant set to a classical music soundtrack.

(via stellar)


Hilarious fake TLC promo

Turns out there’s not so much learning on The Learning Channel anymore.

Fake shows from the video: 12 Wives, 12 Problems; Dwarf Hoarders; Uterus Cannon; and Hasty Home Surgery.

Real TLC shows: 19 Kids and Counting; Strange Sex; Extreme Couponing; and I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. (via ★dansays)


Country version of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way

Lady Gaga released a country version of her latest single, Born This Way. This isn’t a remix or cover…it’s an official release by Gaga.

I don’t care for country music much, but this really makes me smile. (via ★capndesign)


First person Super Mario

Here’s what playing the original Super Mario Bros would look like from a first-person perspective.

(via devour)