I could explain this video, but I prefer the way Mr. Kottke did:

The video feels like a dream sequence in a movie, a movie where some evil wizard turns the boys of Dogtown into shadows.

Alternate title: Why Humans Would Lose the Robot Wars

Seriously, these things are impressive. Like, scary impressive. The presentation style is dry, but the last few demonstrations are awesome. (And again, a little disturbing.)

(via Waxy)

Holy cow this Kottke post is awesome! A very well made video, and a very interesting piece of relevant information that’s not in the video.

A two-minute diversion that just may teach you something you don’t know about the state that’s currently all over American news.

(via r/videos)

This essay, delivered as a video, is an uncommon idea explained with great clarity. I implore you to look past the from — someone monologuing to the camera for 15 minutes makes me very likely to turn away — and give her amazingly rare points a hearing.

(vía /r/videos)

I’m increasingly aware of how much I like random bits of non-conclusive pondering. It’s not that it’s better than a conclusion, it’s that it’s more interactive. In that spirit, I enjoyed Sam Anderson’s essay about reaction videos:

It’s no accident that all of this started on YouTube in 2007 — at a moment when, and in a place where, human experience was beginning very visibly to splinter. Watching thousands of people react identically to “2 Girls 1 Cup” (“Come on!” they invariably shout, and “Why!?”) feels like a comforting restoration of order and unity. Which means that the most disgusting and offensive video ever to go viral was ultimately, oddly, a force of togetherness.

That’s the collective noun for a group of starlings (a type of bird). This breathtaking video reminds me of something Reggie Watts was once quoted as saying (very last paragraph):

If you pay attention to the world, it’s an amazing place. If you don’t it’s whatever you think it is.

(via MeFi; I got that exceptional quotation from @colinmarshall)

I don’t love this TEDx talk from Nick Crocker, but I like it. It does a good job bringing together most of my disparate thoughts about how you can successfully change your life, a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last dozen months. Among other faults though, is that I currently bristle at any mention of “the marshmallow experiment” (though in fairness, Crocker talked about it better than many).

(via Stellar)

I wouldn’t be linking this unless I literally LOL’ed five times while watching it. And I did.

Also, wanted to make sure you’d heard of planking.

(via Vulture)

“Mesmerizing” raves Jason Kottke.

Sound advice. And addictive. Literally watched it 20 times.

(via Waxy Links)

Or: how mild (racial) preference can, in time, cause near complete segregation. This concept was new to me, and Tim Hartford’s video explains it beautifully.

(via Wehr, twice actually)

Inspired by this post from John Gruber, I searched for the title of one of Carl Sagan’s books and came up with multiple amazing things.

My two favorites are from different parts of the text. One from palebluefilms — which uses the same audio as most videos this search yields — is about our significance, the one from thelostproductionsUS — that Gruber highlighted — is about our potential.

Got an hour to kill? “Greg Rutter’s Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something” can expand to fill any amount of down time.

Some of the best things I’d not seen:

• George Lucas in Love
• Winnebago Man
• Who Needs a Video?

I’d always figured that the making of hot dogs was one thing better left unseen, but the unsavoriness of the watery “meat” is just incredible.

(via Kottke)

This pool has been around for a while, but it wasn’t until today that I spent over an hour watching them. A worthy distraction.

This is unquestionably the greatest “watch me change over time” video I’ve seen.

(via Heading East)

Also, Kottke points to Dan Hanna’s description of how he took the pictures for the video.

The Wired Science blog has a cool compilation of the relevant Digg bait.