I have a lot of interests and a lot of hobbies and an addiction to YouTube. This here is where I will share the things that I like and that fascinate me. This will also be a drop-box for random links that I need to have access to.
I am a lover of books and reading. For many years I have favored audiobooks to printed books, just because it fits better into my life [it is very easy to drive or mow the yard while listening to a book]. You can read reviews of books I've read on my blog.
I am currently reading/listening to:
Even though I favor audiobooks for my personal intake, I still have a large library of books at home and school. You can checkout the books I have in my classroom here.
I first and foremost have to shamelessly plug my own YouTube channel and videos. In addition to now posting homework solutions and lectures and lab how-to's on it and this webpage I also have a large backlog of demonstrations and labs uploaded. For students I don't recommend watching videos of demonstrations that you haven't seen yet, because it is better to see it live and to not have the surprise ruined for you. But if you've missed a demonstration, or want to review it or share it then take a look around. Also, in recent news some of you may have seen the announcement on the school webpage, but in addition to being a YouTube Partner I have also been accepted into YouTube EDU, which means additional publicity for my videos and access to my videos (ad free) in school districts that block YouTube, but allow access to the educational video wing of YouTube. This also means all of my videos have been automatically reviewed and accepted into their educational site.
I love this channel and have watched everything that they've ever done, but this video is a little slow. But when he shows the picture at 4:00 minutes I busted out laughing because the conclusion was obvious to me at that point.
This is a great video that the European Space Agency [ESA] put out on the Soyuz launch process. Currently the US relies on Russia to launch astronauts to the International Space Station, where 3-6 astronauts are living for months at a time; Station has been continuously inhabited since 2001. Especially amazing is the footage from t=3:30-5:20 where the escape system had to be used once in the past.
The American Chemical Society has [or had] a video contest going on to explain "Everyday Chemistry". This is one of the entries, but is great and has given me some ideas about a possible chemistry quarter project.
Two of my favorite channels have teams up to film chemistry demonstrations in high speed. I cannot wait for this series, here's the preview.
I've been a little swamped recently, but at the end of the first quarter cleared over 100 videos from my backlog of videos to Watch Later. Along with that has come a few new interesting videos that I wanted to share:
This video, like many others from my favorite channels, overviews and shows off some of my favorite YouTube channels. It also suggests what the future of education might look like, which both excites and worries me a little. Excites because access to information is getting easier and easier, worries because there is a lack of job security for me and I also want to be a part of the creative side of this movement and fear being edged out.
This video is the best explanation of the Monty Hall problem that I have heard. I know the answer, but I'm not sure I could always explain it- this video helped. Also, if you saw the movie 21 from a few years ago, this problem featured prominently in the beginning of the movie.
Vlogbrothers on Many of my Favorite YouTube Channels (and a chance to see Vi from ViHart)!
ASAP Science on Procrastination
Sugru is a great new product that I expect to soon replace duct tape for everyday repairs. The stuff is amazing and the company runs a great how-to and featured uses section of their webpage, but this new video from their YouTube channel probably demonstrates the product the best. "The future needs fixing" and this stuff is flippin' amazing.
I'm not a fan of PhD comics, but I've really enjoyed the animated lessons that the creator's been putting up on YouTube and Vimeo. Here's a new one from today about what else the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can be used for nowt hat the Higgs has been discovered. As a side note it was another PhD Comic video that finally helped me understand the Higgs because: 1) it had good animation, and 2) it didn't use the commonly used (overused I would argue) analogy of a famous person moving through a crowd.
I've heard Neil deGrasse Tyson speak about Sir Isaac Newton before, but this was a nice short video about him.
Two side notes before you watch the video; 1) Tyson is on my top 5 list of people I'd like to meet and 2) Newton wrote more about Religion & Theology than he did about Math & Physics, but he wrote more about the pseudoscience alchemy than all of those combined.