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Stargate Studios' 2009 virtual backlot reel shows before-and-after shots in which green screen and compositing replace locations in ordinary TV dramas and comedies. It shows how much of a seemingly real show is computer generated.

Clifford Stoll's energetic TED talk, a wandering mix of anecdotes, a science experiment and thoughts on curiosity, education and technology. He is the author of The Cuckoo's Egg.

A binaural audio demo, the 'Virtual Barber Shop', that places a barber moving around your head. It works best with headphones and closed eyes.

A player piano is made to reproduce human speech, here reciting a European Environmental Criminal Court proclamation in German at the 2009 World Venice Forum. This upload adds subtitles so the words become understandable.

A three-minute clip of magician Ricky Jay performing a card manipulation routine, including table faro shuffles. The routine builds in intensity and ends with a surprising finish.

A one-minute clip of Slavoj Zizek showing what he calls the official geographical limit between the Balkans and Central Europe, standing at a river in Ljubljana. It is a short, absurd and funny piece of cultural geography.

Arthur Ganson's kinetic sculpture chains twelve 1:50 worm gear reductions so the final gear, embedded in concrete, would take over two trillion years to turn once.

Honda's 2003 'Cog' commercial for the Accord, a two-minute Rube Goldberg chain reaction of car parts. It was filmed practically rather than with CGI.

A one-minute clip of Alexander Overwijk drawing a near-perfect freehand circle, one metre across, in under a second on a chalkboard. He is a repeat winner of the World Freehand Circle Drawing Championship.

Penn and Teller help Rob Pike and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs play a prank on Nobel-winning physicist Arno Penzias. The clip shows the gag and its setup.

A short clip of a jet-powered flying lawnmower, the Sky Cutter, and related RC flying lawnmowers.

A roughly one-minute TV clip in which a guest accidentally breaks a rare, one-of-a-kind wax cylinder recording on camera.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz argues in this TED talk that abundant choice makes people more paralyzed and dissatisfied rather than freer and happier.

Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs, shares stories from messy real-world jobs in this TED talk. He argues that hard work has been unjustly degraded in society.

Sir Ken Robinson argues, with humor and stories such as that of choreographer Gillian Lynne, that education systems undermine creativity and should be changed. It is one of the most viewed TED talks.

Cindy Gallop gives a 4-minute TED2009 talk arguing hardcore pornography has distorted how young men think about sex. She introduces her website MakeLoveNotPorn as a response.

Researcher Kamal Meattle describes how an arrangement of three common houseplants placed in specific spots can measurably clean the air in a home or office. It is a short TED talk based on his work in a plant-filled building.

An early 2009 tech test by Notch of an Infiniminer-style cave game running about 700 fps on a 256x256x64 tile map. It is the prototype that grew into Minecraft.

Patrick Stewart on the BBC's Parkinson talk show talks humorously about going bald, how it affected his career and relationships, and how he came to accept it.

A three-minute clip from BBC's Planet Earth narrated by David Attenborough about Cordyceps, the fungus that infects insects and takes over their behavior. It shows an infected ant and its demise.

A short BBC clip in which David Attenborough shows a lyrebird imitating sounds, including camera shutters, car alarms and chainsaws. It comes from the BBC natural history series Life on Earth.

A BBC Weird Nature clip about vervet monkeys in the Caribbean that drink alcohol, and how they split into heavy drinkers, social drinkers and teetotalers.

A short clip from the BBC sitcom Yes, Prime Minister in which Jim Hacker explains which kind of person reads which British newspaper. It is a satirical take on press readership and bias.

A short BBC clip narrated by David Attenborough showing crows in Japan using city traffic to crack nuts, dropping them at intersections and retrieving them when the light changes.

A Red Dwarf clip where Kryten fixes a toaster and finds it to be the most annoying machine in the universe, endlessly offering toast.

A classic sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie in which a man at a police station has a surname that is very hard to pronounce. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie play it out as a comic exchange.

A short Fry and Laurie sketch in which a man returns from vacation to find his local police station has been privatized, with paid tiers of service. It satirizes privatization of public services.

A short clip from a Richard Feynman interview in which he explains fire, describing how burning wood releases sunlight stored by the tree, which built itself mostly from air. It showcases his curiosity and plain-spoken explanations.

A short clip from Microsoft's 1995 Judgement Day event in which Bill Gates is inserted into Doom as a promo for Windows 95 and DirectX gaming. It was never publicly released at the time.