Tildes Video Thread

Sentiment here really seemed to turn against GeoWizard after I posted his straight line mission across Wales videos a few years ago, so I haven't posted any since then. People's concerns were totally understandable and valid, since Tom does illegally trespass while doing them, occasionally does dangerous stuff (like crossing train tracks and highways), and does sometimes cause very minor property damage when climbing over farmer's barbwire fencing and going through hedge rows. But I still very much enjoy them, and for anyone else that does too, I wanted to share this recent video series by STORROR (a group of UK parkour experts), who collaborated with GeoWizard to do their own 26 mile straight line mission:

Straight Line MARATHON Challenge - STORROR vs GeoWizard 🇬🇧

Our TOUGHEST Challenge yet! - Straight Line Marathon Pt.2 (STORROR vs GeoWizard) 🇬🇧

Just fair warning that if you have issues with GeoWizard's straight line mission videos, you will definitely have even more with these ones, since the STORROR boys cause more minor property damage than Tom ever has, and trespass into even more dangerous areas (like an active Quarry) too.

But if you're fine with that, I think this series is also a great watch. It shows just how insanely difficult the straight line missions actually are, and how tough Tom actually is for having done several of them (often over even more difficult terrain). The STORROR boys are incredible athletes, but they really really struggled during this mission, and by the end the ones that actually made it all the way (not all of them did!) looked absolutely dead on their feet.

I'm sure its old news by now, but I watched the Roblox OOF video and wow. Even if you don't care about Roblox it is almost a good tale of one man, and how credit can be "washed away" over time if you just lie about things.

Shout out to @cfabbro for this thread: https://tildes.net/~science/153n/prince_ruperts_drop_exploding_in_molten_glass

It really is the best video I've watched from SmarterEveryDay. It's super super inspiring seeing these glass artists at work.

I really enjoyed this video about that weird switch which nobody could figure out - 'beat cut', especially their presenting and editing style which really hit a lot of "educational video shown when a teacher was off sick" kind of vibes for me, with just enough self-awareness to suggest they knew exactly what they were doing.

The Witch Trials of J K Rowling. Another feature-length essay by Contrapoints. Some interesting history here that I didn't know about, and quality analysis to go with it.

They Should Have Asked my Husband by Pam Ayres. Ayres is, in my opinion, one of the best poets of her generation. Cosy, but sharp as a razor and hilarious with it. (see also: The Ballard of Barry and Freda from the incomparable Victoria Wood)

IBM Selectric typewriter review. Yeah, I don't know why this is such a nice video but it is. Awesome mechanical technology too.

I have sent this video about beans on 'toast' by Adam Ragusea to the UK authorities and he will be detained at the border should he attempt entry to the country.

This guy's videography and music is incredible and his passion for the tiniest little details in life always astounds me, I was going to post him here because I thought his channel was still criminally underwatched but he appears to have blown up since I last checked, posting it anyways:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6iD1yf0mqc

This video about light and hot water interacting is my favorite by him, but he does a lot of videos about old 80s/90s tech like VFD displays, old software, etc. All of them are immaculately produced.

I've been watching a deluge of biking videos and so here is a dump of my absolute favorites! It does feel like biking is having a moment on youtube with so much great content. For me, these biking videos have two distinct flavors mountain biking and bikepacking. Also, last call out that I can get stuck in is watching too many videos and not spending enough time in the saddle. Like even right now I'm putting off a ride to post this.

First, I love Global Mountain Bike Network, particularly any video hosted by Blake Samson. This one in particular is probably my favorite. I just love Olly Wilkins and Brendan Fairclough as well.

While I'm not so happy that Pink Bike was purchased by Outside, who seem to be snapping up all the outdoor media/apps I enjoy, their video series are pretty spectacular. Ben Cathro is by far and away my favorite person atop a bike. He is fun, lighthearted, and incredibly knowledgable. He is also a lanky noodle boy like myself so there may be some bias. He has a really great series on managing the Pink Bike team for the world cup and another phenomenal series on learning/refining MTB skills.

The other commentators I really love from Pink Bike are Christina Chappetta and Tom Bradshaw.

For bikepacking, my far and away favorite person to watch is Lael Wilcox. She is incredible. The amount of strength and her amazing attitude make her cycling videos a little too easy to binge.

Other than Lael, there are a few I've come across recently I really enjoy. This one from the arctic circle, this one on the Pictish Trail in Wales, this one on the Al Haja in Oman, and finally this one in Connemara in Ireland. Unlike the others I've actually done Connemara and it always gives me slight pause for the others because while they had great weather, we got dumped on with high winds for our whole trek.

Lastly, I'll share another two wheeled adventure that is not bike related. Revzilla does fun motorcycle trips sometimes so here is one from Alaska. And lastly, FortNine does some fun series on motorbikes. I have an old KLR so I love this one

How SCP Infected the Internet
From funny meme monsters to thoughtful commentaries on bureaucratic failures

It's Eurovision season, and Overthinking It are as usual overthinking some of this year's songs. Funny and sometimes educational and thought provoking.

Here's Conan O'Brien acting out a hilarious sexual fantasy with Elizabeth Holmes. Enjoy ;)

The Kneesovertoesguy | How to Start Improving Bad Knees Right Now

Came across this pretty randomly, and he had me sold in the first five seconds.

Math Hoffa (My Expert Opinion podcast) | 3 THINGS I WOULD NEVER DO AGAIN.......... MUST WATCH!!

While it's clearly one of the better hip-hop-centered interview platforms, I didn't understand why fans rooted for this show so much until I first watched this episode a few months ago. I came back to it this week after having a conversation that reminded me of a comment someone left on another video - that the show strikes a chord because there isn't much mainstream exposure to, or representation of, black men having the type of respectful, mature discussions that are taken for granted in any other community and that would challenge or at least add nuance to prevailing stereotypes.

I think this episode is perhaps the best they've made, and IMO it's not coincidental that it's not an interview nor even really about music. Some useful perspectives here.

Stumbled upon a The Making Of short documentary about Dumb and Dumber I've never seen before if anyone needs to spend a fun 17 minutes in nostalgia.

Also Almost Friday TV makes incredible videos about well...contemporary small problems but they're so damn well made and enthralling that it's hard to look away.

Here's just a couple to begin with:

He scrolled to deep...

TRAPPED

A Tortured Mind | Ep 1 - Pitt vs DiCaprio

A Unifying Framework For Memory and Abstraction

the Tolman-Eichenbaum Machine (TEM) [is] a computational model of a hippocampal formation, which unifies memory and spatial navigation under a common framework.

[...] the Tolman-Eichenbaum Machine we've seen today is actually very similar to a Transformer architecture a type of neural network that is at the core of modern machine learning. In fact with one little modification we can turn this similarity into a precise mathematical equivalence [...]