Tucked away in a valley in the Allegheny Mountains in West Virginia, is this: the Green Bank Radio Telescope, the largest steerable radio telescope in the world. And there are some rather special rules... continue reading
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 8 months 1 week ago • 589 views • 5:50Videos (141) | Sift Talk (0) | Blogs (0) | Comments (22) |
Inuktitut syllabics are brilliant. A writing system that's not an alphabet, but something really clever: an abugida, one designed from scratch for a language very unlike anything European. /YT
posted by notarobot 7 years 8 months 2 weeks ago • 84 views • 4:06Glaciologists will find this video obvious. Everyone else... well, maybe I slept through a bit of sixth-grade geography, but I didn't know this, and I reckon I should have done.
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 8 months 4 weeks ago • 504 views • 3:01At Qaanaaq, in Greenland, there's IS18: an infrasound station that's quietly listening for nuclear tests — or any other large bang. Here's what, why, and a few words the man who, for years, has been... continue reading
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 9 months ago • 222 views • 4:08There's a variety of visual problems and disturbances we all experience on a daily basis. Floaters! Blue entoptic phenomenon! Visual snow! Phosphenes! With simulations, Inés will run through all of them.
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 9 months 1 week ago • 1,089 views • 3:44In a laboratory at Oxford University sits the Oxford Electric Bell, which has spent 176 years constantly ringing. And no-one's quite sure what the battery that powers it is made of...
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 9 months 3 weeks ago • 625 views • 4:07YT: As the world switches to renewable energy - and we are switching - there's a problem you might not expect: balancing the grid. Rotational mass and system inertia are the things that keep your lights... continue reading
posted by Fantomas 7 years 9 months 3 weeks ago • 828 views • 4:06Near the village of Hanbury is RAF Fauld. Once it was a munitions dump: now it's a crater. Here's why.
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 10 months 1 week ago • 95 views • 4:42The inevitable Pokémon Go security video.
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 11 months ago • 213 views • 5:34Weather BOY!
posted by PlayhousePals 7 years 11 months 1 week ago • 93 views • 3:11YT: Victor Gruen is, according to history, the man who invented the shopping mall... but that wasn't quite what he was aiming for. And it seemed like an appropriate day to do a video about suburban sprawl.
posted by Fantomas 7 years 11 months 1 week ago • 575 views • 2:26Yes, it's only micrograms of difference, but it's still really weird: until 2018, the kilogram is defined as "the weight of this physical object". So what happens when that object changes?
posted by Mordhaus 7 years 11 months 2 weeks ago • 1,538 views • 3:45YT: In a small town with an unfortunate name, let's talk about filtering and innuendo. And use it as an excuse for as many visual jokes as possible.
posted by Fantomas 8 years ago • 51 views • 3:38YT: Your sports team wins. The confetti drops. And suddenly, the video quality falls apart. Why? Let's talk about interframe compression, bitrate, and unnecessary green screen effects.
posted by Fantomas 8 years 2 weeks ago • 168 views • 4:20Tom Scott: "Continuing the occasional Weird European Infrastructure Tour: an Italian lift that switches direction from horizontal to vertical. And honestly, until someone pointed it out to me, I could... continue reading
posted by blacklotus90 8 years 3 weeks ago • 704 views • 2:29The Most Dangerous Stretch of Water in the World: The Strid at Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire I know, I know, it's a clickbait title^. But I stand by it, because the water is so deceptive, and so pretty, and... continue reading
posted by eric3579 8 years 1 month ago • 3,374 views • 2:17YouTube description: Machine translation's a useful tool, don't get me wrong. But if you actually try to use it for regular conversation, it'll fall down really quickly. Why? What makes it so difficult? ... continue reading
posted by Aard Vark (oritteropo) 8 years 2 months 1 week ago • 559 views • 5:05In the middle of the Mojave desert lies California City, the largest city never built. It is now a vast network of roads carved into the sand for miles and miles with nothing but tumbleweeds and cacti... continue reading
posted by Mordhaus 8 years 6 months 1 week ago • 1,098 views • 4:55