Blog : Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 15)

This volume of my Favorite YouTube Videos is sad, but also heart warming. It starts with a eulogy for a nerdfighter who died too young, and goes on to some very amazing cinematography and then geeky/cool music and  and film making.

• The first video is John Green's eulogy for Esther Earl, who was a nerdfighter and a cool person who died of cancer at the age of 16. It's difficult to know what to say with this kind of video, but it's a good thing to have a time and a place (that they're on the internet makes no difference) to be able to go and say, yes this was a person who existed, who impacted us and who is gone now. I also think the advice at the heart of Johns message is very important, "Don't just do something, stand there."
• The second video is an accompaniment to a NPR RadioLab episode called Words. I haven't listened to the episode yet (and I really should't put things off this long), but the video stands strongly on its own and is a remarkable piece of film.
• The third and fourth videos are music videos by Charlie McDonnell doing acoustic covers of some of his songs from his Trock (Time Lord rock) group Chameleon Circuit. We also get the Charlies of two different periods, the first concerned with Weeping Angels and the second with the ongoing relationship between ... well actually I haven't watched enough Doctor Who, to know who's at war here, but it's certainly epic. 
• The final video is from my perennial favorites Pomplamoose, working together with generally awesome music person Ben Folds and novelist Nick Hornby. This was a bonus track for Ben and Nick's (can I call them that?) ... Mr. Folds and Mr. Hornby's album Lonely Avenue. It's a little more contemplative than some of the songs I've favorited, but it's still a very pleasant listen.

Blog : Cool Things on September 21, 2012

So I found some more cool things this week (and I even got some of my own work done). I'm please to share the cool things I found below.

Lectures

While I'm not able to find video from the talk (although it may materialize), this week I attended the seventh Richard and Louise Guy Lecture which this year was on the Mathematics of Doodling.

A view of the 7th Richard and Louise Guy Lecture.

The Department of Mathematics at University of Calgary has hosted this talk for several years now (arranged by Louise as a 90th birthday gift for Richard) and it is always informative and interesting without being bogged down. In pervious years the topic has ranged including areas such as knot theory and the mathematics of music and they have always left me more excited to explore than I was going in.

Sadly Louise passed away several years ago, but Richard continues to attend the lectures (and others, including some classes each year) and it is always encouraging to see his life long love of learning. (If one may be so hokey as to say it that way).

I hope the lectures serve as a model and that we can see more and more interesting talks that continue to inspire us to be better question askers and answer finders.

Blogs

One cool thing I found this week is Day[9]'s blog. Day[9] or Sean Plott (as the non-gaming world knows him), is a former pro Starcraft player and now pro Starcraft II shout caster (and host of the Day[9] Daily). Whether or not you're interested in e-sports and better ways to play Starcraft II, it's still worth taking the time to take a look at the blog. Day[9]'s interests go well beyond the realm of video games and he is a very astute and interesting speaker and writer. (Also you can watch him making a perfume with Felica Day on her Flog this week.)

Video

You might have seen this already given the names involved, but this week, for reasons only known to the deepest oldest minds of the universe the Nerdist manage to revive two things people haven't seen in a long time. Ben Folds Five and the Fraggles. Got something you don't want to do? "Do it anyway!" (Then watch the video.)

Former Five Awesome Girls Monday Kristina Horner and her housemates/co-star launched a new gaming channel called TeamHypercube. They're doing a mix of table-top gaming and video games and the first video game they've tackled Dokapon Kingdom is ... interesting to say the least.

Over the last few months the sports racers (are the viewers even still called that, duck fans maybe now) of a show have been working with Ze and Mr.Norman to put together a song and a video ... and this is it:

Wrap-up

Wanna know how Chris Hardwick managed to make muppetty goodness for us this year? Well now you will: