Good documentaries on Google video

Mark Frauenfelder:
Alf LaMont says: "I found that Google Video has full length episodes of Nova, including The Elegant Universe (A Personal Favorite), and Also full length versions of Richard Dawkins' THE GOD DELUSION. Both very powerful pro-science documentaties, and perfectly free." Link

Reader comments:

Andrew Tonkin says:

Thanks for that. You may wish to add that Richard Dawkins' video of "God Delusion" is actually part 2 of his "Root of All Evil?" documentary; Part 1 is entitled "The Virus of Faith." Users should search under the two episode titles, not "Root of All Evil?" which is misspelled on both clips.

In "The Virus of Faith," Dawkins challenges Pastor Ted Haggard of the New Life Church, the same Ted Haggard that resigned under sexual controversy recently. Interesting viewing.

Kane says:

You may be interested to know that google video also hosts a whole
bunch of good BBC documentaries, including all three parts of "The
Power of Nightmares"; "Tetris - From Russia With Love"; " Louis and
the Nazis" and "A War On Science (Intelligent Design and Dover)".

Eric says:

Do you have any idea how many full length documentaries are on google video? I've watched at least one every night for the last few months. I'm afraid they'll get pulled so I download them as well. Let me show you something.

That's just the beginning. I'm a slut for conspiracy theories... Google video has every conspiracy theory video you can possible imagine. From the most balls out bullshit you've ever heard (this is awesome) to all the 9/11 and peak oil stuff. Also, it appears that George Bush (daddy bush) killed Kennedy. No shit.

Right now I'm working through the UFO stuff, having already completed the free energy and Tesla archives. These last two turn up some UNBELIEVABLE stuff! I'm serious. I honest to god don't know what to make of some of the free energy stuff. Make sure you check out the Disclosure Project!

Google Patent Search launches

Xeni Jardin:

Link to Google Patent Search beta. Instant favorite new timehole. Fascinating, and infinitely better than the USPTO website (all data comes from USPTO, and results on Google do include links to the USPTO entries). No foreign patents for now, it seems, just US. Doesn't work for me in Firefox 2.0 on Mac, but IE and Safari in many variations seem to work just fine, and Firefox on PC or earlier iterations of Firefox on Mac may as well. (via Chris on Wayne's List)

Cactus building

Cory Doctorow:




Rotterdam's Urban Cactus housing project (UCX Architects) uses ingenious staggered terraces to make huge, sunny spaces, and a building profile that seems to have been parachuted in from 1945's future.

They placed the 98 residential units on 19 floors, using the pattern of outdoor spaces to determine the overall appearance of the project.

The slightly irregular pattern alternates these outdoor spaces to create what are in effect double-height spaces. Each unit then receives more sunlight than a typical stacked composition.

Link

(via Futurismic)

Geek Mafia - awesome nerdy caper novel

Cory Doctorow:

I've just finished Rick Dakan's debut self-published novel "G33k Mafia," and it was fantastic! G33k Mafia is the story of Paul Reynolds, a comic-book artist who has been forced out of the video-game company he co-founded, stabbed in the back by his partners. While drinking up his misery in a Silicon Valley bar, he meets a beautiful high-tech con artist, Chloe, who offers to help him get back at his betrayers. She introduces him to her crew of hacker con-artists, and helps him run a classic Big Con on his erstwhile partners, netting him a fortune in the process. Paul falls in with Chloe and her crew, becoming enmeshed in a series of baroque capers with a geeky twist, like forging rare comic books for sale on eBay, and on the way Paul reinvents himself as an outlaw.

The story is gripping as anything, and the characters are likable and funny and charming. I adore caper stories, and this stands with the best of them, a geeky version of The Sting.

The book is also flat-out great-looking too, the best-designed self-published book I've ever seen, thanks to Dakan's prodigious graphic design talents (he's definitely the kind of polymath that makes for excellent geekery -- he's the co-creator of City of Heroes, besides!). The entire text has been released under a Creative Commons license, so you can try before you buy, and starting today, Rick's slashed the price for the book to a mere $5 -- a real bargoon.

There's only one small niggle I have about this book and that's that it was very poorly copyedited and proofread. There's a clunker of a typo, grammatical error or malapropism on practically every page. Rick promises that this will be fixed in subsequent editions, and that he's going to get a better editor for the sequel, which he tells me he's almost finished with.

That said, this is one hell of a book. A smart publisher could do a lot worse than to get Rick under contract -- though given his smarts and marketing savvy, he may not want such a thing.

Link

Interplay Proposes Fallout MMO

Interplay might have had to sell Fallout 3 to stay in business, but it looks like they kept an ace up their sleeve, retaining rights to create a Fallout MMO. A proposal filed in late November with the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that the company hopes to raise $75 million dollars through various means, including sales of Interplay common stock in order to fund the massive project, with a target release of 2010.

Right now it is only a proposal, but Interplay predicts 1 million subscribers globally within the first year and revenue of $160 million after its first year in operation.

A Fallout MMO would be absolutely awesome. Just what the MMORPG market needs to escape the tried and true medieval setting and start fresh. Unfortunately it isn't up to us gamers, and Interplay's track record could very well drown out the fans' cries of joy in the ears of investors. Michael Fahey

Interplay Proposes $75M Fallout MMO?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission Filing

Radially expanding dinner table - AMAZING!

Radially expanding dinner table - AMAZING!

Cory Doctorow:



DB Fletcher's Capstan Tables are amazing, expanding round dinner-tables. When you spin them by the outer edges, they separate into sseveral pie-shaped radial slices, revealing more slives beneath that rise up to make a seamless, much larger surface. Spin the table-edge the other way and the table shrinks back again. The videos have to be seen to be believed.

Link

(Thanks, Brandon!)

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Bob Ross Game Still On, Folks

The dream is alive! Previously, we reported that the Bob Ross game was peril. Happy peril, but peril nonetheless. MTV's Stephen Totilo brings word that the game is still on. While things didn't work out with the title's previous developer, AGFRAG Entertainment Group, Bob Ross Inc. hasn't thrown in the paintbrush. Says the company's media director Jane Kowalski:

By hook or by crook there will be a game. There's no way we couldn't do a game because everybody wants one badly.

Yes, yes, hooks and crooks, YES!! So, what happened with those AGFRAG Entertainment what's-its-face?

I think they were sort of overwhelmed and they don't have the resources and the energy to tend to the huge demand that is needed. We are currently working on digging up the development team that has the swift enthusiasm to carry through.

Damn straight. This is Bob Ross, people. Publishers are swooping Bob Ross Inc. to make the title happen. The company is dead-set on getting it to the Wii and expects to make an update on progress shortly. Bring on those happy little trees. Brian Ashcraft

Bob Ross Game Back On [MTV]

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Tonight, Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins

Tonight, Tonight - Smashing Pumpkins

Wait! Before you watch, have you seen the film that this gives a very thankful nod to? A Trip to the Moon by Georges Melies, from 1902 was one of the first films to feature a plot, and it was most certainly Steampunk! So once you’ve seen that - this music video by the Smashing Pumpkins will seem even more charming, I think.

I’ve heard the music before - and I find it fairly agreeable, and indeed I think I’ve even seen clips from the video before - but many thanks go to Jesse Neninger for being so kind as to think of Brass Goggles and send the link in, as there’s no way I would have remembered it otherwise. It’s delightfully Steampunk - the costumes and set design are superb and if you look very closely at the steamship at the end, you may recognise the name - the father of Steampunk film.

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