easter eggs

A short screen recording of the flight simulator Easter egg hidden in Excel 97, with the steps to trigger it. The uploader notes the mouse controls are hard to handle.

A one-minute National Geographic clip of researchers Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo testing a theory that Easter Islanders used ropes to rock the moai statues upright to walk them to their platforms.

A short Coding Secrets episode explaining why hitting a Sonic 3D cartridge triggers a hidden level select. The cause was a custom crash handler that redirected CPU error interrupts to the level select screen.

A clip from The Simpsons episode 'Krusty Gets Kancelled' showing 'Worker and Parasite', an Eastern European take on Itchy and Scratchy. It is reportedly one of Matt Groening's favorite moments from the show.

Austin Meyer, developer of the X-Plane flight simulator, explains how he was sued by a patent troll over a trivial claim about an app's license server. He walks through how the shell-company litigation works and why ignoring the suit makes things worse.

The first class of Timothy Snyder's Yale course on the making of modern Ukraine. It introduces the course and asks what it means for a nation to exist in light of the Russian invasion.

In this American Masters clip, Jacques Pepin shows two different techniques for making a perfect omelet, a dish he is famous for teaching America.

A panel at The National WWII Museum on the Battle of Kursk, moderated by Keith Huxen with historians Robert Citino and John Parshal. The discussion covers the armored engagement and the German, Soviet and US approaches to tank production.

Jacques Pepin makes a classic French omelette in a short uncut demonstration. The video contrasts it with the American style.

The first part of Extra History's series on the Bronze Age Collapse, introducing the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, and Mycenaeans and their interlinked system of trade, agriculture, and war before the Sea Peoples arrive.

A short animated excerpt of Alan Watts describing 'prickles' (rigorous, scientific types) and 'goo' (soft, spiritual types). He argues the real division is between prickly goo and gooey prickles.

An episode of Fall of Civilizations on the Late Bronze Age Collapse around 1100 BC, when many Eastern Mediterranean societies were destroyed in a short span. It explores the Sea Peoples and the lessons for modern globalised societies.

Jan Vitek of Northeastern University gives a meetup talk on the challenges of making the R language run fast. He explains what in R's semantics makes it hard to optimize and to build a JIT compiler for.

A 1997 Noam Chomsky talk at Northeastern University about the gap between free-market rhetoric and practice. He argues that business relies heavily on state intervention, and he discusses trade, NAFTA and labour versus capital mobility.

A short BBC HARDtalk clip from 2014 in which Senator John McCain says Putin aims to rebuild the Russian empire, starting with eastern Ukraine and then Moldova and the Baltics. He also criticizes Obama for not arming Ukraine.

Writer and artist James Bridle shows how strange and disturbing children's videos on YouTube, from surprise eggs to algorithmic mashups, are produced for ad revenue. He argues they reveal problems in a data-driven internet.