Awesome Learning

Kurzgesagt teamed up with CGPGrey to explore the moral, ethical, and practical concerns about our longevity as humans, and whether being able to control our mortality is a good or a bad thing. Be sure to watch the second part here.

“Encourage the behavior you want, rather than discouraging the behavior you don’t.” Mark Brown calls his video “How Game Designers Protect Players from Themselves.” But it’s actually about designers protecting their vision. Either way, it’s a must watch.

While you might assume that modern day pharmaceuticals are all some kind of synthetic, many of them are derived from fungi, bacteria, plants, and other organic matter, each of which contains properties which can be beneficial to humans. MinuteEarth explains.

This compilation of clips from Great Big Story explores the origin stories of instant ramen, car air freshener trees, the Kool-Aid Man, and more. We wonder if you could actually make a cast from Silly String. Also, “Liquid Ass” isn’t exactly an ordinary thing.

Pocket83’s marble sorting machine uses two bars that get slightly wider apart, such that rolling marbles over them will cause smaller ones to fall earlier than the larger ones. Not only does it make a soothing sound, it also does a great job of visualizing the bell curve.

(PG-13) Videogamedunkey talks about the video game industry’s never ending quest for beautiful, detailed, or realistic graphics. While it is mainly a visual medium, the quality of a game’s graphics – and all other aspects – should be second to the quality of its gameplay.

Just Write compares the stories of Disney’s 2D films with 3D successors from Pixar and DreamWorks, then points out how 3D animation contributed to that change. We’re not entirely convinced of his thesis, but his comparison is food for thought.

“There are generally no shark builds that can justify bottom tier.” TierZoo applies his eSports analysis on sharks, which have a couple of the most infamous builds in the real life meta. They’re proof that Blizzard is part of nature – they both take way too long to nerf OP stuff.

(PG-13, SPOILERS) “You’re supposed to be my god.” Wisecrack nicely points out the central theme of the hit TV series Mr. Robot. Basically, the show’s characters are lost and lonely because someone or something else has control over their lives.

Animator Eoin Duffy and Amber L. Stuver of TED Ed explain how the gravity of every object affects every other object in the cosmos, and the technology that researchers use to detect and track these waves so they can better understand our universe.

Most movie posters don’t have the actors’ names aligned with their images. Movie geek austinmcconell explains that the placement of the two elements are determined separately. One is determined by an actor’s star power, the other by marketing.

Mental Floss takes a break from sobriety and digs into their booze cabinet to school us on some 30 different liquors, and where their names came from. While many are obviously named after their creators, others have truly obscure origins.

It’s a nasty thought, but our bodies are teeming with billions of bacteria all of the time. At times, these microbes are helpful partners, doing things like digesting food, and at other times, they want to kill us. Kurzgesagt explores the delicate balance of the human microbiome.

“Alas, you cannot see. But your clothes are dry!” Meet Arnold is a new humorous educational channel on YouTube. It shares scientific trivia by putting a cartoon character called Arnold through extreme situations. Here, Arnold is put into a large microwave oven. For science.

“No home in America is modern without a family fallout shelter.” The 1950’s was an absolutely bonkers time to be alive. And not just because of the music. With the start of the Cold War, the US government started a ridiculous DIY trend: the family fallout shelter.

Learn to play the guitar like a pro with this nifty gadget. It slides beneath the strings onto the fret board of any 6-string guitar, and uses LEDs to show you where to place your fingers as you build your skills. A companion smartphone app provides lessons and tracks your progress.

Kurzgesagt explores the crazy notion that perhaps what we’re experiencing isn’t real at all, and that we’re all part of a massive simulation in some ultra-powerful computer system. Vsauce 3 has their own take on the thought experiment here.

Vox contextualizes Grant Wood’s 1930 painting American Gothic. One thing they failed to point out is the significance of that Gothic-style window – it’s like a carbon fiber hood on a Prius. Whether it’s pathetic, aspirational, or just how life works is up to you.

Sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing. We’ve had it engrained our whole lives that those are THE five human senses, but there are many other things we can detect that don’t tie to an obvious sensory organ. Vox delves into some of our abilities which didn’t make the short list.

The Internet has made it surprisingly easy for you to earn extra money on the side while working your day job. Now learn many of the tricks of the trade from this extensive series of lessons in The Awesomer Shop. Best of all, it’ll only cost what you think it’s worth to you.

(PG-13: Language) From Migos to Chance the Rapper, the triplet flow has defined 2010’s rap. Vox looked at the flow’s origins and how it works. We think they missed Snoop’s point though. It’s overuse combined with mumbling that makes for a homogenous sound.

“Some things aren’t meant to scale.” Kith owner Ronnie Fieg is a divisive figure in the streetwear scene, mainly because he comes from a well off and well connected family. But in his Complex Blueprint feature, you’ll see his story is all about being his own man.

So at what point did clowns go from being jolly entertainers to some of the creepiest nightmare fuel ever? Origin of Everything explores what it is about these white-faced, red-nosed characters that keeps us up at night. Turns out they’ve been creepy for centuries.