Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 21)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos contains some thoughtfulness, some music, some video games and some laughs.

• The first video in this volume is from Corning, and (this might shock you) it's about glass. On the one hand it's a pretty standard corporate puff piece about how awesome they'll make your future, but I was mostly interested in it because it's a pretty good illustration (in my opinion) of how our technology should work for us over the next 20 years. I favorited this one because I thought the concepts were really interesting.
• The next video is by vlogger/designer Karen Kavett. These are her reflections on her time at RISD as she graduates. It's a cool, well produced video with a lot of heart and interesting reflections on her time as a student. It's nice to see someone who's education went so well and was so in line with where they wanted their life to go. 
• The third video in this volume is composer/pianist Laura Shigihara playing an improvised arraignment of music from Secret of Mana. It's a very restful piece and Secret of Mana's music always makes the hair on my arms stand up.
• The next video is a recording of a panel from the Calgary Comic Expo 2011, featuring the voices of the childhood of anyone of my generation, Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche and Jess Harnell. I was lucky enough to attend this panel and I thoroughly enjoyed it and am glad the chance exists to relive it through YouTube.
• The final video for this volume is another video song from Pomplamoose, their original song River Shiver. 

Blog: Cool Things I Never Mentioned

So I decided not to keep going with the weekly Cool Things posts. I either had too many or too few things to post and then keeping cool things for a week doesn't make much sense. So from now on cool things will show up on my Twitter feed (and I might post a round up here from time to time).

I have a pretty big list of videos left over that I didn't post and I'm going to post a list of them here (just as links since I don't think any of us need a 40 video long post).

• Team Wheaton's 2012 Wiggle Waggle Walk
• God's Number and Rubik's Cube - Numberphile
• Archdukes, Cynicism, and World War I: Crash Course World History #36
• What To Do With Your Life
• Talking About Tape
• Hot Metal! (Megaman 2 Medley) - Ferdk16 and Laura Shigihara
• Tengami GameMaker Video - IndieCade 2012 Nominee
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown | Tactical Role-Playing Game Review
• Soundz
• Inside Adam Savage's Cave: Geeking Out about Bits and Bytes
• 6 Episodes of SciShow
• Hey It's Pomplamoose - Theme Song
• IDTIMWYTIM: Stochasticity - THAT'S Random
• HOME FOR A REST - Ukulele Cover by Fruity Ukuladies
• "BEN" (Official Trailer)
• Leslie - From Nataly Dawn's Upcoming Album "How I Knew Her"
• Problems with Zero - Numberphile
• Notes on Friendship
• How To Make a Mechanical Pumpkin
• Infographic Trick or Treat Bags - Halloween Craft Series #5
• Tested vs. The Slow Motion Camera
• For those of you who enjoy discovering cool new music...
• Mean Kitty Fight Training
• More Magnets - Sixty Symbols
• REMEMBER, REMEMBER [NOV.05.12 DAY 740]
• Hack To Power, Brian
• Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project - Video Games - 11/20/2012
• John Green: The Paper Town Academy
• Penn and Teller - Fool Us S01E01

Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 19)

This is another musical volume of my favorite youtube videos (for the most part) inclues some interesting Pomplamoose, some home made music from Zelda and then an interesting play though of a fan-made hack of Chrono Trigger.

• The first video in this set is Pomplamoose's cover of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing." As with many songs Pomplamoose covers, I think this one is far superior to the original and it's always fun to watch Jack play with any instrument he can get his hands on.
• The second video is a version of the "Saria's Song" (from the "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time") by Sp0ntanius. While this isn't may favorite of the songs from Zelda, the video song on blown bottles style is really creative and fun.
• The third video is by the always interesting, cool and creative ukulele wielding Molly Lewis. This is her open letter to Mr. Stephen Fry suggesting that if he ever wants to carry his genetic line on, she'd be happy to help.
• The fourth video in this volume is an interesting one. It's the first video in a play through of a game called "Crimson Echos." This probably isn't a game you've played since it was a fan made sequel to "Chrono Trigger," made by hacking the "Chrono Trigger" ROM. It was however hit by a cease and desist letter as it was nearing completion and so the people working on it stopped and put out this replay (which goes on for hundreds of parts) to show what they had done. 
  
  It's an interesting project with a lot of creativity that would have made a really interesting game. A lot of the music is new and the concept of the game is an interesting extension of the ideas laid out in "Chrono Trigger" (plus it's very fun to see new things in the "Chrono Trigger" universe). That said I also feel that it's a bit of a waste that all the tallent used on this project didn't go to something newly created. While this was just in the fan microcosm, I think that's probably true for a lot of the game development community.
• Finally we have a collaboration between Pomplamoose and Louis Cole & Genevieve Artadi. Very cool experimental sound and video.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 17)

Welcome to the 17th volume of my favorite YouTube Videos. This volume has a lot of music and a little bit of thought about design.

• Have you listened to a good book lately? The first video in the volume is a video song for Hank Green's "This is Not Harry Potter." Harry Potter has always been an important touch stone in Nerdfighteria, and Hank puts out an annual song with sometime to do with Harry to celebrate that link. I always enjoy the one voice and guitar style and I think this is one of my favorite song Wednesday songs.
• The second video is the video for Janelle Monáe's song Tightrope. I noticed this song because it was in a car commercial and was hearing it 20-30 times a day (thanks YouTube/network television). When I looked the song up I discovered the video had a great concept (as I guess does the whole album, although I must confess that I haven't listened to it in its entirety), was really visually compelling and just a lot of fun.
• The third video is from designer and nerdfighter Karen Kavett. She plays an exciting game of "what if" with YouTube. As you might have guessed by now I spend quite a bit of time on YouTube so I find this pretty cool. Some of the ideas she has have since been taken up by YouTube and some of them are kinda crazy, but it's really refreshing to stop and think about how websites we use all the time are simply products of design.
• The last two videos in this volume are from Pomplamoose (are you surprised, I can tell that you are). The first is a great cover of Deck the Halls, complete with crazy exuberance  the thing I'm calling the "Pomplamoose Key Change" and one of the back up Natalies even smiling! The second is not only a great song but also a great story, which I'll let them tell you at the end of the video.

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: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 11)

Welcome to the eleventh volume of my favorite YouTube videos. This week our musical journey is interrupted by the arrival of a new species of video, the vlog. *Play ominous music now* At least we'll start with a vlogger rapping to make our transition.

• The first video of the volume is yet another song by the perennially appearing Brentalfloss. Rather than his usual video game fair, this one is an awesome moment of thanks for a teacher.
• The second video is another video song from Pomplamoose. As with "If you think you need some lovin" this is one of their earlier original pieces. Always fun to see the exuberance vs the cool chick.
• The next three videos are the arival of the vlogbrothers into my favorites list. For the uninitatied the vlogbrothers are brothers (surprise) Hank and John Green, who started out with a project many years ago called brotherhood2.0. In brotherhood2.0, they set out to spend a year without communicating with each other textually. This morphed over time into the vlogbrothers and the community surrounding them nerdfightaria. One of the nicest aspects of their videos (aside from the fact that they're awesome) is that most of them are under 4 minutes in length.
  These three come from three different time periods in vlogbrother history. I think the first one comes just after I started watching, although that seems far too recent (after I started watching the vlogbrothers I went back and watch all their videos through (at least twice) so my sense of time is a little mushed where when their videos actually happened). The first video is Hank's wootstock rap and pretty much explains itself (but it starts with a reason for me to use the wheaton fawning tag) The second is further back, but deals with the important concept of braincrack (and gigantic blue penises) and the third is from brotherhood 2.0 days and is one of the first book club videos (and a demonstration of how slow John used to talk). As I've said before the vloggers are coming and this is their vanguard.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 10)

Welcome to the 10th volume of my favorite YouTube videos. This volume is another music episode and will be an introduction to the coolest band you'll meet on YouTube.

• The first video is from OK Go, whom you may know from their treadmills.  This video involves one of my favorite things on earth Rube Goldberg machines. This is a pretty incredible video and as with some of the ones last week keeps surprising you with more and more cool things.

• The next three videos are by the group Pomplamoose. These early videos are "Video Songs" which have two rules (from the video description)

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).

Their early music was a mix of covers and original music. I have really enjoyed their covers, and I find when I hear the original versions of Telephone or Single Ladies I think of them as the dance covers. If You Think You Need Some Loving is also an amazing example of Natalie's cool and Jack's exuberance. I hope you enjoy them because there will be a lot more from them in the future.

The final video in this volume is from Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. I don't think I've heard a track of their's that I haven't loved and the only reason this is the first video to show up in this project is that I upgraded a bunch of my earlier favorites to their better quality versions and so those videos are further down the favorites list for now.