Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread
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@kazitor said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
It’s not like pop-sci-type youtube personalities are renowned for rigorously getting all of their facts in order, mind you (linked almost solely for the title alone).
Hey, linking to your own articles does not count as a reference.
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@topspin said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
I don't really have a problem with the content of his videos.
I didn't until this one. It's one thing to have clickbait title as a lure to a good video, it's anothrr if the video itself is grossly misleading on its main points.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31inAimBX1Q
Loading a tram.
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Making music with a laser: (Warning: potential earworm song)
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I love Max Headroom!
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What a fucking liar. "I was not suggesting the lightbulb lights at any current value" my ass.
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When I finally become rich and powerful I'm going to daily one of these just for the flex
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This post is deleted!
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@blek Meh. It's in Snowrunner DLC 5. Got stuck in the first mud patch right out the gate, had to be rescued with the 537
Obviously the game's utterly shit driving model couldn't have had anything to do with it
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
I love Max Headroom!
Same here.
That said: the video can be summed up as "tell me you don't understand Max Headroom without telling me you don't understand Max Headroom".
Also, while I agree that a modern day Max Headroom would be a great vehicle for satire, I don't think Space Feather realises just what needs satirising the most these days...
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@GOG I dunno, I think Space Feather almost got it right a few times, or more frequently right but for the wrong deconstructed reason.
But I think a non-trivial part of that is that Max Headroom was, amongst other things, very much tapping into the contemporous zeitgeist, just as the original Matrix did - no-one who watches it now for the first time will see it the way we did back then because so much has changed and it's impossible to see it now with the perspectives of then.
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@Arantor The big thing I found missing - almost hilariously so - was the fact that Max Headroom speaks the truth.
This is the major theme in the TV show: Max is fundamentally truthful, perhaps in spite of himself, and that's why he's popular with the kids.
It's a combination of several things: Max is an AI, and is therefore stupid in a lot of ways ("stupid" as opposed to "wise", rather than "intelligent"). For much the same reason, he doesn't really give a fuck, because he lives on the network; he can ruffle feathers, because there's nothing you can do about it. He doesn't have feelings, as humans do, so he straight out says what he thinks (which, given his personality profile, comes out the way it does).
Max isn't just a satire on late-night hosts, or celebrity culture, he's an exploration of media culture in general. The fundamental theme (again, I'm talking about the series, first and foremost) of corporate (and political) interests controlling what people think by means of what information they receive is as - if not more - valid today than it was back in the '80s. Max is the talking head that will, through incompetence, if nothing else, stumble onto the exact topic his guest won't want to discuss. He is the pirate broadcaster that tells you what the powers that be don't want you to know. He is the seedy underside of mass media ripped open for everyone to see.
I won't be terribly surprised if someone finally cottons to the idea of remaking Max Headroom (we're really close to scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is), and I expect it to be terrible. Rather than using the character to satirise and expose propaganda from all corners (as he should), he will be used as a straight up propaganda vehicle for one side - and I strongly suspect that Space Feather would applaud it, without even realising that it is propaganda. (Space Feather doesn't strike me as particularly politically savvy.)
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@GOG said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
The big thing I found missing - almost hilariously so - was the fact that Max Headroom speaks the truth.
This is the major theme in the TV show: Max is fundamentally truthful, perhaps in spite of himself, and that's why he's popular with the kids.I wonder if Space Feather misunderstands what satire is on a fundamental level: satire is one method of speaking the truth by pointing out its inherent stupidity, and as you say that's why Max works because he is speaking his truth which at the same time is 'our truth' exposed in a painfully satirical way.
I also think you're completely correct that someone will remake Max Headroom and get it wrong.
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@GOG said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
I won't be terribly surprised if someone finally cottons to the idea of remaking Max Headroom (we're really close to scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is), and I expect it to be terrible.
Very much so. They'll try to remake for nostalgia and miss from another galaxy...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJnWp1tAdU
It's a series of 9 videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjHf9jaFs8XWoGULb2HQRvhzBclS1yimW
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The usual suspects are still milking this thing.
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Take a circle, and a random chord of that circle (that is, a random line connecting two points on the circle). What is the probability the length of that line is more than sqrt(3)
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@PleegWat Not dumb indeed. I'm slightly sad that there isn't a method that yields a probability of 1/π or 1/e, just for maximum weirdness.
(ETA: fixed numbers so that they're ≤1 )
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@remi said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
(ETA: fixed numbers so that they're ≤1 )
Hey, you're reducing the weirdness!
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@Zecc You'll get eleventy Internetzz Pointz from me if you can find something (anything) that generates a probability of i.
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@remi I'm going to on that, in any case Internet Pointzzz11!! are imaginary.
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This should not be news to anyone here. But still.
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Not really random (for me, anyway), but I don't think it quite fits in cool stuff, either, so I'll put it here anyway. Ignore the click-bait title; the author has bought into the idea that provocative titles are necessary in order to get people to watch your videos. He's an excellent pilot and has nerves of steel to fly in and out of some of these airstrips. The third one is only 994 feet (303 meters) long and has a 20% slope.
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@HardwareGeek Ugh. Distracting editing and background music.
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@Zecc Yeah, I didn't much care for the music, either. His regular videos, where he explains what he's doing, why this airstrip is tricky to land on, how strong the wind is, occasionally why he's going to report this strip as out-of-service due to maintenance issues, etc., are better, but I didn't think this was too bad for a short compilation video. It would have been better if the name/length/slope of each airstrip was included in the video; it's in the description, but you don't have that if you're watching the video embedded in another site.
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Kind of a toss-up whether the Dumb or Not Dumb thread. I guess it's not dumb if you're into this sort of thing.
https://www.tumblr.com/video/do-you-have-a-flag/673405496467816448/500/
Hmm, screenshot because it doesn't embed:
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@HardwareGeek guess what I did.
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@HardwareGeek also - would be way more impressive if it actually used the Windows sounds, and not just make an entire musical scale out of them by messing with pitch and applying other transformations. As it is it's just an electronic keyboard with extra steps.
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@Gąska said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
@HardwareGeek guess what I did.
I'm going to guess you did what I just did.
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@Polygeekery said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
It appears the creeper video was staged/is a hoax. The guy who posted it is an aspiring actor who now promotes a movie that vaguely follows that storyline as far as I can tell. There's also almost no primary sources that picked up the story.
But stuff like this has happened. Quite a lot.
https://m.qt.com.au/news/woman-finds-stranger-living-her-attic-hiding-her-c/3206542/
Good luck sleeping tonight.
There have also been cases where the creeper murdered the people living there.
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Maybe a little dumb and too rich in sponsored content, but if somebody catches you trying it then you can claim "I'm just practicing for a nose swab test":
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@JBert If I saw someone do this trick around me, I'd probably go all "um, excuse me, I think you've got something in your nose".
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Modern dance to music of 1740 (L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, by George Frideric Handel, based on poetry of John Milton)
Mostly posted for the video title:
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The vertical TikTok format is dumb, but other than that, interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mB3j-p7vzmU
And it looks like embeds aren't working again, at least this one isn't, for me, at this time. YMMV.
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Some more satisfying than others
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@JBert I have absolutely no experience with any kind of visual work, but somehow I feel this isn't where you're supposed to put your camera when using those lights? (I love that the caption at this point says "try to avoid shadows")
Bonus portrait-in-landscape-in-portrait-in-... chain!
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@remi It's a method of avoiding shadows, I guess? I don't think it's a good method of avoiding shadows because it seems like it'll just wash out the colour of whatever is being photographed.
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I feel like there is a serious disrespect of going on in this video. The intro is great, though.
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@Arantor said in Random but Not Dumb Videos Thread:
@remi It's a method of avoiding shadows, I guess? I don't think it's a good method of avoiding shadows because it seems like it'll just wash out the colour of whatever is being photographed.
Ring lights are a common way of giving very flat, even, shadowless lighting. The light won't wash out the color (unless it's too bright), but it will wash out any surface texture or detail. However, the camera is supposed to be in the center of the ring, not in front of it, because then you will get a shadow of the camera — a very soft, diffuse shadow, but still a shadow — which rather defeats the purpose of using the ring light.