eric schmidt

A clip from the documentary American Tongues about the isolated Tangier Island, Virginia, whose dialect is among the most unusual in the US. It is often said to resemble speech from centuries ago.

A short Discovery nature clip from North America showing a red fox listening for field mice under the snow and then diving headfirst to catch them. The narration says the fox uses its hearing and the Earth's magnetic field to aim its jump.

A short Great Big Story piece on the Ocracoke Brogue, or Hoi Toider dialect, spoken on North Carolina's Outer Banks, which developed through centuries of isolation and traces back to the 1600s.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day tries to manufacture a grill scrubber entirely in the United States. Along the way he runs into missing supply chains, tooling and institutional manufacturing knowledge.

A long documentary-style video arguing that slavery in the US effectively continued through convict leasing and the prison system until around 1942. It covers the constitutional carveout and the history of neoslavery.

Machine Thinking tells the story of the Cold War Heavy Press Program, the giant forging presses that make parts for aircraft, missiles and turbines.

A Business Insider investigation into the US boom in AI data centers, mapping where they are, who owns them, and how much power and water they consume. It looks at the costs borne by communities, with a focus on Virginia.

A 1973 NBC News documentary on the US nerve gas arsenal, covering leaks in Okinawa, a Utah test that killed thousands of sheep, and the long-term hazards of storage sites. It won an Emmy.

Modern Vintage Gamer explains how Eric Chahi built Another World on the Amiga 500, using 2D polygons, rotoscoping and clever techniques to run well on a stock 7MHz machine.

The first part of a long two-part video series by historian Sean Munger arguing, with citations, that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy and acted alone. It goes through the provable historical facts and addresses conspiracy theories.

A one-hour 2019 KOMO News documentary hosted by Eric Johnson on Seattle's homelessness and drug crisis, with interviews and looks at proposed solutions including a drug court program in Rhode Island. It argues addiction and mental illness are at the core of the problem.

Official trailer for Eugene Jarecki's 2012 documentary The House I Live In, an investigative look at America's war on drugs and its effect on the criminal justice system. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Techmoan's 45-minute retrospective on Sony's MiniDisc, covering the first and last machines, ATRAC, MD-LP, Net-MD and HiMD. It argues the format deserves more credit than its US failure narrative suggests.

A 52-minute short version of the documentary The End of Suburbia, about peak oil and the end of cheap energy. It argues that American suburbs depend on cheap oil and may become the slums of the future.

A 1973 AT&T training film made for new employees at Bell Labs' Holmdel Computing Center, when Unix was in its third version and running at 16 computer centers in the Bell System. It shows how users submitted jobs and used the center's machines.

A short documentary about Eric Maundu's Arduino-controlled aquaponics setup in West Oakland, where contaminated soil rules out ordinary farming. Fish and circulating water grow plants without soil.

A Channel 4 Equinox documentary on the NK-33 engines built for the Soviet N1 moon rocket and how they ended up in the USA. It includes rare footage and interviews with veterans of the early Soviet space program.

A John Stossel special arguing that Americans can be criminalized for almost anything, with examples of overzealous prosecutors and regulators such as the EPA. It is a documentary on overcriminalization.

A 1996 documentary on the twentieth-century American decline of public transport and the role of car companies and the highway lobby in it. It is best known for its account of GM's streetcar buyouts.

A New York Times Op-Doc by Laura Poitras profiling William Binney, a 32-year NSA veteran who helped design a secret program he says collects Americans' personal data.