anti-patterns

Alex Martelli's Google Developers Day talk on classic design patterns (creational, structural and behavioral) and how they appear in Python. He stresses that patterns must be studied in the context of the implementing language.

The classic 1980s anti-drug PSA in which a father confronts his son about drugs and is told 'I learned it by watching you'.

A one-minute animated commercial for the antidepressant Zoloft, described as the original that inspired later sequels and parodies.

The 1992 SIIA anti-piracy rap video Don't Copy That Floppy, warning kids against copying software, remastered and uploaded.

Michael Wesch's five-minute video about Web 2.0, showing how the read/write web, XML and user-generated content change how people create and share information.

Peter Norvig, then Director of Research at Google, talks at Startup School 2008 about leveraging large amounts of data and about technical challenges in Google projects such as image search. A central idea is that data can beat hand-written programming.

Short footage of a Sprint missile from the 1970s Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system launching. The uploader notes the video is not sped up and that this is how fast it takes off.

A spoof commercial by the Groen Brothers for a Star Wars-style laser defense system against mosquitoes.

A short clip of Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony in which he says it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. It comes from questioning about Monica Lewinsky.

A short animation reconstructing a planet's looping orbit using Ptolemy's epicycles and deferents, with the epicycles tracing out the face of Homer Simpson. It shows how enough circles can reproduce nearly any shape.

Apple's famous 1984 Macintosh television commercial, which casts the company as a rebel breaking a Big Brother-style conformity.

Robert Lustig of UCSF lectures on the biochemistry of sugar, arguing that fructose and lack of fiber drive the obesity epidemic via insulin. It is the widely viewed 90-minute talk that popularized the anti-sugar case.

Part 1 of a lecture by physicist Albert Bartlett on the exponential function and its consequences for population growth, resource use and energy. It argues that steady growth rates quickly lead to enormous quantities.

Masagin is a realtime demoscene production by Farbrausch and Neuro with music by paniq, using animated recursive SVG graphics made in Inkscape. It is a psychedelic, nested-dials audiovisual piece.

A score-following video of Iannis Xenakis's 1950s orchestral piece Metastasis, showing his graphic, mathematically derived notation as the music plays. It is a landmark of post-war modernist composition.

A 2006 Google Tech Talk by Robert Bussard on inertial electrostatic confinement (polywell) fusion as a cheap, clean alternative to conventional thermonuclear reactors. He argues it could be made viable with modest funding.

Neuroscientist Beau Lotto runs the audience through color and pattern illusions to show that perception is shaped by context and evolutionary history rather than being a direct readout of the world. The talk is playful and hands-on, and it argues that the brain interprets ambiguous signals.

The parody anti-piracy warning from The IT Crowd Series 2, Episode 3, a spoof of the 'you wouldn't steal a car' ads. It is a one-minute comedy sketch.

A Dutch parody commercial from the Groen Brothers for a supposed Star Wars style mosquito defense system. It mimics the style of infomercials with laser-armed anti-mosquito technology.

A short clip of Steve Ballmer at a Microsoft event chanting "developers" over and over. It became a lasting internet meme.

A one-minute Eddie Izzard comedy clip about how the British Empire claimed countries by planting flags. It riffs on the absurd rule of 'no flag, no country'.