Best Rickroll Ever

For those of you not familiar with the term, Rickrolling refers to tricking someone into viewing this:



The fact that the song currently has 85 million hits should tell you how popular Rickrolling people has become.


This one might be the best one ever.

Someone at Bishop Fox (a digital security firm) has found a way to Rickroll Chromecast users.


The method has to do with the way the Chromecast devices works when it first connects to a network.or, more importantly, when reconnecting after losing its connection to that network or to the Internet.

The Chromecast device works like an unsecured wireless router when first connecting.  During this period it can be told to connect to any wireless network within its range.  The device can also be told to disconnect from the network to which it is currently connected using a wireless signal.


This means it is possible to tell a Chromecast device to disconnect from the owner's wireless router and connect to yours instead.  After doing this, you can tell it to show to whatever video you want the owner to see.

Including Rick Astley.

What's not to Like About Self-Driving Cars?

Here's the answer from Conan O'Brien:



A computer controlled vehicle with no brakes or steering wheel?

What could possibly go wrong?


Hat Tip: <re/code>

A Look at Past Fashion Predictions

Brought to you by British Pathe, a look at what people in 1960 though fashion would look like in the year 2000.




The concept here is "The Past in Prolog".  It makes a certain amount of sense with fashion, but they missed the time period drawn from by at least century in this clip.

One of those outfits looks like it should have been worn at the battle of Waterloo.

Live Action Toy Story

Someone had too much time on their hands and did a live action version of Toy Story using real toys.  (It's gotten over 11 Million views at this time.)




The only potential problem here is a Copyright Infringement Notice. Google's DRM software doesn't always work well and parody works (like this one)can get hit. You have to give the film-makers credit on this. It's quite an undertaking. It shows what "amateur" producers are capable of with today's technology.

The X-Kitties!

Source: The Pet Collective via Geekosystem

Warning!  Cute Overload.

12 Principles of Animation from the Disney Animators

This actually goes back decades.  Two of the main Disney animators wrote a book in 1981, The Illusion Of Life: Disney Animation, which detailed the principles used by the Disney animators

New York artist Vincenzo Lodigiani has posted a short film on Vimeo ilustrating those principles.



This is useful information for any modern animator to keep in mind, and they apply no matter what method of animation is utilized.

Check out the author's Vimeo page for more animations.


Hat Tip: AV Club

5th Grade Boy's "Synchonized Swimming" Team

The 5th Grade Talent Show at W.A. Porter Elementary School in Hurst, Texas featured a group of "Synchronized Swimmers".

Just watch the video, no words needed.

Someone Gives Bruce Springsteen Virtual Sex Change

Hat Tip: AV Club

Turns out, if you play a Bruce Springsteen 33 of "I'm on Fire" at 45 speed he sounds remarkably like Dolly Parton.  The best part is the last 30 seconds or so.

And I Thought Watching Paint Dry Was Boring

Scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia have been watching a piece of pitch (tar) drip–very slowly–for 85 years.

It started as an experiment (conceived in 1927) as a way to demonstrate the liquid nature of even the most viscous fluid.  The tar has produced 9 drops in the 85 years it has been running, and only the last has been caught on camera.

This is apparently the longest running experiment on record.  (Does anyone actually keep track of that?)


And I thought waiting for paint to dry was boring.

(I actually had a job where I had to do that.  I worked at a test lab that did quality control for a building manufacturer.  Testing paint samples required spraying two coats of paint on a piece of metal.  The first coat had to dry before the second was applied.)

For those of you without the needed patience, here's a time-lapse video.

3 Dev Adam, Bizarre Superhero Movie

Hat Tip: Neatorama

Watching the clips in the video you have to ask how well the producers understood American comic books.

I only have three words: carnivorous guinea pigs.

I Knew There Was a Reason Not to Look Forward to the Next Hobbit Film

Hat Tip: Geekosystem

After watching the first film installation of the Hobbit, I really was not looking forward to the second movie.  The only reason for two movies was the inclusion of a great deal of extraneous material.

The Hobbit runs about 300 pages in book form.

The books in the Lord of the Rings trilogy each run 450-500 pages.

Given the difference, creating two movies out of the Hobbit requires adding the equivalent of 700 additional pages.  Additional material in the movie industry is referred to as "padding", and the producers of the Hobbit films have literally created an entire movie's worth of it.

All that padding results in problems, and there's nothing more enjoyable than poking fun of those problems.  Someone did that in video form and posted it to YouTube.

The video lasts almost 15 minutes.

85,000 Historic Films Loaded to YouTube

Hat Tip: Engadget

British Pathe has uploaded 85,000 historic newsreels to their YouTube Channel.  The films cover 80 years worth of documentaries starting from 1896.

Footage includes coverage from both World Wars, interviews of those that survived the Titanic disaster and other noteworthy events.

Some examples:





British Pathe also has a blog and a website if interested.

This promises to provide an invaluable resource for bloggers looking for historic footage to go with blog articles.

What the Heck? KFC Corsage?

And, yes. It's a real product.

Cartoon Voice Actor Does Darth Vader. Somehow, It's Just Not the Same.

I know this was posted to YouTube some time ago, but I just came across it recently.  Someone has posted a video of Jim Cummings reading part of the Star Wars script as Winnie-the-Pooh.

The idea alone is enough to make you giggle.  The actual video is better.



Of course, this raises the question:  Is it Winie-the-Vader or Darth Pooh?

Climax! Television Show. The First James Bond Appearance.

Before appearing on the big screen, James Bond made appeared in an episode of the 1950's television series: Climax!

Barry Nelson played James Bond.

Don't recognize the name?  Nelson was primarily a television actor and showed up in many television series in a guest spot.  He also played the Hotel Manager in the original Shining movie.




The Internet Archive lists the episode as being in the Public Domain.  (They try their best to check copyright status, but they can make mistakes.)

According to IMDB, the Casino Royale spot was actually a pilot for a James Bond t.v. series that never materialized. 

Shaun the Sheep Short: Synchronised Swiming

This reminds me a little of the old Laff-A-Lympics cartoon.  (Am I dating myself with that?)

Star Wars Featurette: The Birth of the Lightsaber

Hat Tip: Digital Trends

The Star Wars YouTube channel has a new video on the origin of the lightsaber.

Absolutely Brilliant Starwars Mashup

Oh, I wish I was this creative.




Master Yoda from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

My favorite part?

Yoda plays R2 like a steel drum.

I also like the violin section.   You Only Live Twice?