VIDEO

Mister Rogers' Epic 9-Part, 4.5-Hour Interview

In 1999, Karen Herman interviewed Fred Rogers for the Archive of American Television. The resulting nine-part (roughly four-and-a-half hour) interview spans the career of the man we've come to know as Mister Rogers. Throughout, Rogers conveys the same g

The Late Movies: The First 7 Videos on MTV

MTV turns 31 today. It launched one minute past midnight on August 1, 1981, with footage of Space Shuttle Columbia and Apollo 11 launches, then the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," spoken by John Lack, one of the creators of MTV. An extended

How "The Power" Literally Rocked the House

Turbo B and Penny Ford, featured performers on "The Power" On July 5, 2011, the 39-story "Techno-Mart" mall in Seoul, South Korea shook for ten minutes, causing a two-day evacuation and an investigation. The cause of the tremors? Seismic experts conclu

The Autofrisk: All the Groping Action, Just 40 Pence

Cheeky engineer Tim Hunkin (of Secret Life of Machines fame) invented the Autofrisk, a device that gently gropes the user in exchange for a few coins. (In the U.K. apparently one cannot get this experience for free at local airports.) The Autofrisk is o

What's Happening on Saturn's Moons?

This 25-minute film explores what we've learned about Saturn's various moons via space probes. The data comes primarily from NASA's Cassini, though some is from the Voyager and Galileo missions. Nitrogen geysers, bizarre surface ridges, and real atmosph

11 Eye-Opening NASA Wakeup Calls

NASA has been waking up astronauts using music since the Apollo Program. Sometimes those wakeup calls get pretty weird. 1. STS-111 - "I Got You Babe" from Groundhog Day On June 19, 2002, the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour awoke to a tinny rendit

What's the Higgs Boson and Why Do We Care?

Researchers at CERN have announced a major finding that, while they're being cautious and cagey because they're conservative people, is clearly the first observation of the Higgs boson, popularly known as the "God particle." This is what the LHC (Large H

Pigs in Space!

Remember Pigs in Space? It was a series of sketches on The Muppet Show parodying Star Trek (and other 60s/70s space-themed TV shows), featuring the adventures of a crew of pigs aboard the Swinetrek. Pigs in Space became so popular that it was used to wa

Mercury + Sound = Kooky Mad Science Party

Now let's watch what happens when you take a blob of mercury and subject it to different audio frequencies. Spoiler alert: the mercury forms geometric shapes and appears to dance. This is slow-motion footage (with music added, not the tones the mercury

"Rainbow Connection," 33 Years Later

33 years ago yesterday, The Muppet Movie made its silver screen debut. Over the opening credits, Kermit played his banjo in the swamp, singing the now-iconic theme song, "Rainbow Connection." The song was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Glob

How Do We Create, Define, and Search for Life?

Christoph Adami makes "artificial life," effectively self-replicating computer programs. If you've heard of Tierra*, that's the kind of thing Adami does. In this TED Talk, Adami discusses his work, including a brief discussion of how we define life on E

A Brief History of Console Video Games

In the first 30 seconds, this video takes us from Pong through a series of 1970s and early 1980s arcade games, then into NES versions of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. In the remaining two and a half minutes, we're treated to a wild ride of bl

And Now, a Little Public Radio Humor

Last Thursday, This American Life LIVE played in movie theaters around the US, Canada, and Australia, beamed live via satellite from a stage performance in New York City. For public radio nerds, this is pure gold: two hours of This American Life perform

The Craziest Hall & Oates Video Ever

Sometimes there's a music video that changes everything -- a video that makes your bad day turn good, turns your frown upside down, and confuses the everliving hell out of you. Today, I bring you that video. In 1976 1973, Hall & Oates made a "promotiona

The Visual Poetry of Corrupt Video

In this five-minute video, we see portions of a Mad Men episode (episode 408, "The Summer Man") as it appears when incompletely downloaded via BitTorrent. The video is extraordinarily corrupt, showing strange artifacts like missing blocks of the picture,

What You're Missing at TED2012 Right Now

As you and I sit here like dopes in front of our computers, a swarm of alpha nerds are basking in the Long Beach sun and enjoying TED2012. Only two talks from the show have been released so far, and they have somewhat differing messages: Abundance is Ou

10 Screensavers of Yore

Here's a roundup of screensavers from the '90s, when they were delightfully corny, 3D graphics meant "the future," and flying toasters invaded our dreams. Enjoy!

8 of Adlai Stevenson's Awful 1952 TV Campaign Ads

Are you sick of attack ads, Super PAC ads, and even ads in color? Then let's turn to a cornier, gentler time -- the election of 1952, when the original "Egghead" Adlai Stevenson ran against Eisenhower, running a series of remarkably unremarkable TV ads.

A First-Person Elevator Simulator (FINALLY)

What's the best setting for drama, awkwardness, and first-person online video games? Yes, an elevator. If you don't have a real elevator available, why not play Elevator: Source, a "co-op elevator experience" in which a group of players hang out in an e

Tonight: Trek Nation on Science Channel

Set your DRVs for "Trek Nation" tonight (November 30, 2011) at 8pm ET/PT on the Science Channel. If you're going to watch one documentary about Star Trek, it should be Trekkies. But if you're going to watch two, the second should be Trek Nation, premi

"Cosmos" as Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

Accountant and Cosmos aficionado Callum Sutherland has remixed the landmark Carl Sagan documentary Cosmos into a "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" style video series called Imagination. You have to have Flash installed, and YouTube Annotations enabled for it t

A Year of San Francisco Sky in One Video

This year-long time lapse video (compressed to five minutes) shows the sky above the Exploratorium in San Francisco, as the sun rises, clouds float by, and night falls. This video is special because it shows the days in a grid, in chronological order (st

What's Wrong With PROTECT IP and SOPA?

You may have heard about some new bills making their way through the U.S. Congress, related to piracy on the internet. But what are they and what's the big deal? Here's a simple guide to what the laws are and why so many internet nerds (like myself) are

11 Free Documentaries Available on YouTube

YouTube isn't just for copyright infringement -- here are 11 documentary films legally available on YouTube in their entirety. They're funded with ads, and are shown in roughly DVD (480p) quality. Be aware that some films move in and out of the free cat

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