1. Sesame Street’s YouTube channel was hacked over the weekend, and all of its content was taken down and replaced with a 7-minute hardcore porn. [via The Daily What]
2. If you’ve ever fantasized about Lady Gaga giving Bill and Hillary Clinton a Marilyn Monroe-style serenade, then it’s your lucky day. Watch a… Read More
Rhett and Link are best known for their hilarious local commercials that have earned them their own show on IFC, but these boys are just plain funny no matter what they are working on. In this video, the pair uses YouTube’s closed captioning tool to translate a video with a simple script into a pile of mush. Then they take the transcript from that video to make an even more nonsensical video. While the end result is hilarious, it also makes us feel bad for the hearing impaired people who actually have to rely on this terrible captioning tool to watch any YouTube videos. … Read More
UC Berkeley researchers, whose work was published in a study in the journal Current Biology on Thursday, have created a computer program that may allow us to view the images in another person’s brain. Using an MRI machine to record the brain signals of three subjects as they watched videos on YouTube, the team then took the recorded signals and ran them through their computer program’s database of 18-million-seconds of random YouTube clips, not including the ones the subjects had actually been watching. Their program was able to reconstruct muddy composites of the movies that the subject had been viewing from the random information they were given, to a bizarrely accurate extent, capturing movement, shape, color, even text.
“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.” It’s true — moving images have never been captured in this way before, and this technology seems to be the first step towards getting a glimpse into the mind of a person in a coma, or being about to record and watch your own dreams — or at least a visual approximation of them. Click through to see a side-by-side video of the original footage watched by the subject and the composite the Berkeley researchers’ computer created and prepare to be amazed. … Read More
Just in case you need something to do today: Yoko Ono has posted Bed Peace, a 70-minute documentary about the famous 1969 Bed-Ins she staged with John Lennon to protest the Vietnam war, on YouTube for free viewing this weekend only. To be honest, we’re not sure why the time limit has been enforced, especially in an age when so much is available for free on the internet all the time, albeit perhaps via suspect channels. However, if you’ve got an extra hour on this rainy Sunday morning, we think this is a good opportunity to watch the film and maybe stay in bed just a little longer. Click through to read Yoko’s letter to her viewers and see the video, and be sure to let us know what you think of the film and of the stunt in general in the comments! … Read More
When you kicked up your high tops to watch Saved By The Bell after school let out, did you ever wish you could reach in and tell Zack the right thing to do to solve all his problems? Starting with a haircut? Well, now you can — well, er, maybe not the haircut part, but we’ll let that go. Designers Benny & Rafi Fine have created an ingenious interactive Saved By The Bell YouTube game, which we discovered straight on the heels of this distressing (and bloody) SBTB-themed short. But instead of watching everyone die, with the Fine Brothers’ retro styled game you can take control of Zack and battle all the annoying forces at Bayside High. Click through to start playing! … Read More
Last year, director Kevin Macdonald and producer Ridley Scott teamed up for an ambitious, globe-spanning undertaking. They challenged people all over the world to film a video snapshot of their life on a specific day — July 24, 2010 — and submit it via YouTube for potential inclusion in what would become the feature-length Life in a Day. More than 80,000 clips were sent in for the documentary, with 1,125 chosen for inclusion in the final product.
The result is a breathtaking overview of existence on Earth in the 21st century, spanning cultures, countries, and individual outlooks. Following its Sundance premiere this January, the film is going into limited release in theaters starting July 29; but prior to that, it will receive a one-night only premiere in cinemas all over the country this Sunday, July 24. Click through to watch the trailer, learn more about the film, and find where Life in a Day is screening near you. … Read More
1. The sale of Borders was officially approved yesterday, and as Gizmodo says, reading the 40-year-old book retailer’s goodbye email “is like watching Old Yeller in slow motion.”
2. Some exciting news for music lovers who hate to travel: YouTube announced today that it’s planning to live stream both Lollapalooza (August 5-7) and… Read More
Over the years Worth 1000 has challenged designers to Photoshop modern products into vintage ads in a series of contests, and for some reason we’re just stumbling upon a few of the fantastic submissions now. Luckily, they still hold up today. Click through to see how old-school ad men may have hawked everything from YouTube to the Nintendo Wii — if only the technology had existed way back then. Is it just us, or could you see some of these faux advertisements working better for companies than their modern-day counterparts? … Read More
1. Feminist punk legend Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex (aka Marianne Elliot Said) has died after a battle with breast cancer. She was only 53. [via NME]
2. Flavorpill favorite Sam Lipsyte has a new short story in this week’s New Yorker. Read it in full here.
3. In other New… Read More
For anyone who’s ever wondered what’s behind their favorite websites – no, really, behind, like on the opposite side, comes irreverent new Tumblr Back of a Webpage, which aims to show off, well, the backs of webpages. Some designs are more literal than others, but we have to say we like the cheeky ones the best (obviously). The entire project is an interesting comment on the lack of physicality in the digital world, and what we might think of to try and ground it in our desire for 3D consciousness. Click through to see some of our favorites, and they take submissions, so get to designing your own! … Read More
'The Simpsons'' Most Memorable Interactions With the Real World
Flavorwire Exclusive: Manuel Gonzales on His Favorite Short Story
The Gay Bechdel Test: Why Hollywood Needs to Expand Its Representation of LGBT Characters
The 50 Albums Everyone Needs to Own, 1963-2013
Incredible Reading Rooms Around the World
A Brief Survey of Naughty Public Art
The Best and Worst of Last Night’s ‘SNL’ with Ben Affleck
43 Great Tina Fey Quotes for Her 43rd Birthday
