Unfortunately the republican party seems to excel at convincing a huge percentage of their membership to vote against their best interests. The less educated republican voters you refer to have been manipulated to benefit the 'club' that Beau talks about in the video.

This holds for education, but also for plenty of other subjects, like universal healthcare, taxation, and even foreign military policy.

My intuition says this could never work, but Brian McManus lends a hell of a lot of credibility to it in my book.

If it does work out, then hopefully lots of cheap small payloads in similar orbits won't cause too much space debris.

You think that's messed up? I see a woman making out with a horse!

This also wins the Noims award for best titled video in a long time. I didn't have a clue what to expect, and it was worth it.

@12:48 "One idea is to train crows and other corvids to pick up cigarette butts [...]"

What's to stop the more intelligent crows from just taking up smoking?

This is mostly ok, but from an Irish point of view there are a few things that made me cringe a little.

Firstly the term the 'British Isles' isn't universally recognised, but I admit any alternatives I've heard don't exactly trip off the tongue.

Secondly, a statement like Ireland "joining" the UK in 1801 glosses over some pretty important details.

Worst of all, though, is the way he pronounces Edinburgh. It's still making me squirm.

Part of this was posted here before, but I can't stay angry with Look Around You. Oh darling, you know I never stopped loving you!

Between climate change and modern politics, that oak's outlook is getting worse and worse.

I was so hoping for Azy to know the word for a book.

I know it wouldn't have made sense, but it's got 'ook' right there in the word!

You might find it funny that we had The Banana Splits in Ireland too, and it was one of my favourite shows. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I was singing the intro to my own son.

Damn right. Good thing Goggle's there's to protect us from all the tracking

In case you're interested, I use a plugin to redirect youtube, instagram, and a few others to alternative sources that at least claim to respect your privacy a bit more.

It doesn't work a significant percent of the time, but it works well enough for me.

The one I use is Privacy Redirect (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-redirect/pmcmeagblkinmogikoikkdjiligflglb?ucbcb=1) but I'm sure there are plenty of others.

I just wanted to say thanks for the updates. I hope you don't forget that there are plenty of people out here - online and off - whose lives you make better in small ways whether or not you know it, and we care about you for one reason or another.

i.e. as I'd say any of my friends face-to-face, get well soon you old bastard, we're counting on you.

Movember can be confusing that way.

Nice use of GEB specifically as a nod to the fantastic book Godel Escher Bach - my edition at least has exactly this shape on the cover.

Monty Python and The Muppets separately had sketches about animals trained/tuned to squeal at a particular pitch when hit. They were assembled into an instrument that allowed a sadist play tunes on them with hammers.

Between the timbre of the notes and the look of the 'keys', from start to finish I couldn't stop thinking of this instrument as the same, but using pleasure instead of pain (if you get my meaning).