Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 115)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go to school, learn some chemistry and get our axe ready for dancing.

• First, Laura Shigihara is ready for her first day of high school, singing the theme she wrote for the game High School Story.
• Next, we get a chance to watch 500 videos of Periodic Videos ... or at least to celebrate them.
• Finally, we get to listen to an instrumental piece created by the one and only Brentalfloss.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 114)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we take the day to give our cats the best and worst presents ever.

• First, Simon's Cat meets a spirit of Christmas terror, deals with it appropriately (I think) and then gets a prize! 
• Second, he puts his new found powers to less ... kind purposes.
• Third, he gets hold of the very best cat toy ever!

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos(Volume 113)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we mash, we rant and we sooth!

• First, Pomplamoose mashes their way into our hearts playing with Tupac, Lorde, Beck and themselves all at the same time.
• Next, Emma Blackery has some strong words to sing about one of Google's many failures to make us like using Google products ... or let us use to Google products that we like ... or just put the freaking videos in the subboxes ... ... ... (For the record this was the one where they forced everyone to sign up for Google+ to use YouTube, which managed to single-handedly double the number of YouTube accounts everyone needed and to this day freaks me out about once a quarter by logging me into that OTHER account...). Issues ... what issues?
• Finally, Laura Shigihara and Britaney Gaither calm things down with "Kaze no Toori Michi" from My Neighbour Totoro. Giant, furry forest spirits help make everything better. (As do awesome artists.)

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 112)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we look ourselves, and death in the face. Then we lighten up and vlog, then think about the most effective way to hit people with iron sticks.

• First, VSauce videos are always amazing, but this one leaves me stunned and speechless every time I watch it. Here, Michael looks at the immense power we are able to wield and how we wield it. It makes me want to be a better ape.
• Next, in a slightly lighter vein, Kevin Gisi returns. You may not have noticed he left, but that's mostly a side effect due to the time travel I'm making you do. Also don't worry about the bacon, thanks to the general effect of us travelling forward at one second per second we should be able to skip directly by the past that already happened... I think.
• Finally, Lindybeige has a point about sword pommels that we need to be aware of.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 111)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we meet the very interesting Lloyd "Lindybeige", so named because he's terribly fond of beige and the Lindy Hop. Beyond this he spends an awful lot of time thinking about things and also doing things. I don't always agree with the thoughts he thinks, but most are pretty interesting. Here are some of the things he's thought about:

• First, he has some thoughts about cloaks. Largely that they're terribly useful and possibly there is some reason that people used them for the most of human history.
• Next, he thinks about leg hold traps and how it's fairly likely that historians keep holding them upside down. I don't have any expertise to assess his theory, but I do have to say that it looks to me like Occam's Razor applies well here, what's the simplest way to use the object that doesn't require us to make up anything else to make it work.
• Finally, Lloyd thinks about quick draw bazookas ... or what people actually did with two-handed swords, when they actually used them.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 110)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we talk technology and learning, spiders and raindrops.

• First, on SciShow Talk Show, Hank Green talks to Professor Rick Hughes about education and technology. I particularly like the concept of the "Comfortable Consumer vs Competent Creator". I think it's difficult for students in Computer Science to distinguish between the things that are part of the underlying mathematics and logic of computation and the things that are part of the computational structure's people have created. It's also difficult then for students to know when they need to create new things for themselves and when they should use the tools that already exist.
• Next Simon's Cat encounters a spider, and comes out quite a bit better than Simon ... or the spider.
• Finally, Nataly Dawn does a beautiful cover of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." I think the cover is beautiful, but as a Calgarian, I'm a little confused by the song. Usually raindrops are hurled at my face by powerful wind or are snow. Still, this one makes me happy to listen (and makes me think of lemonade).