I was nominated in this viral fundraising scheme you may have heard about, and I did it my way.
Tag Archives: video
The Hitchhiker’s Guide, animated
I tweeted about this yesterday, but whatever. It’s lovely. The original incarnation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a BBC radio play; so, in the wake of a charming but ultimately rather flat attempt at a big-screen film adaptation a few years back, Nick Page has been animating the radio play!
Via io9.◼
John Maynard Smith, J.B.S. Haldane, and a car on fire
Hat-tip to Ian Holmes on Twitter.◼
Zombie skunk cabbage!
In a new episode of the botanical web-video series “Plants Are Cool, Too!” Chris Martine points out that skunk cabbage was a zombie long before zombies were cool.
Representative quote: “Smell that—smells just like skunk!” “Suurrre does!”◼
Battlestar Galactica, the late-90s sitcom
This doesn’t quite achieve the same degree of cognitive dissonance as the trailer for that romantic comedy Shining, but it’s not far off.
Blame the Mary Sue for dragging me back into this frakkin’ fandom.◼
Human evolution, animated
Yes, yes, evolutionary change occurs in populations, not individuals. But this animation does a rather nice job of illustrating those population-wide changes in the lineages closest to modern humans.
Via The Hairpin.◼
Plants are creepy, too
Christopher Martine’s web series about all things botanical, Plants are cool, too! (which I’ve mentioned before) has a new episode up just for Halloween. It’s on carnivorous plants, natch.
Elsewhere on the science-y web, Scicurious talks about real-life werewolves, and Kate Clancy offers a terrifying peek at her schedule. Happy trick-or-treat-ing, if you’re doing that sort of thing on a school night.◼
Rescued baby echidna
And, see, I did not previously know that the appropriate word for an echidna (or all monotremes?) at this stage of development is “puggle.” So this is totally an educational experience.
Via Grist.◼
“Redshirt”
So, John Scalzi’s forthcoming book, Redshirts is pretty excellent, from what I’ve seen of it. (The first four chapters are available online as a preview.) In a nutshell, it’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” but for Star Trek instead of “Hamlet.” So when Jonathan Coulton wrote a song to go with the book, it was only a matter of time before someone mashed it up with actual footage of redshirts* meeting their various and inevitable ends.
Anyway, if all that doesn’t make you immediately want to watch, or if you’re about to leave a comment asking what, exactly, is a “redshirt,” then you probably should just wait for the next post.
*Caution: that link also includes a video of Scalzi covering the song on a ukelele, for which I refuse to vouch.◼