New Girl

Zooey Deschanel​’s new show, New Girl, will begin previewing for free on iTunes today and next week on Hulu, Fox.com & HelloGiggles.com (Zooey’s co-owned site).

I just watched the pilot and it’s totally goofy in a really fun way.
I imagine it’s only going to get better.

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How Fast Wildfire Spreads

Texas has huge wildfires all over the state as there is a major drought happening right now. That combined with strong winds from various tropical depressions/storms in the Gulf of Mexico causes them to spread pretty quick.

Texas Parks and Wildlife has a video showing just how quickly one of these fires can spread. It really shows how people evacuating don’t have alot of time to do so and need to do it quickly.

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Yesterday’s Winter Solstice lunar eclipse

William Castleman made a time lapse video of yesterday’s lunar eclipse.
This is way better than those cell phone photos you’ve been seeing all day.

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Time lapse video of Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse on December 21, 2010 from 1:10 AM EST (6:10 GMT) to 5:03 AM EST (10:03 GMT) from Gainesville Florida. Music is Claude Debussy Nocturnes: Sirènes.

(credit: Gizmodo)

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What happens when a NASA shuttle launches

The best of the best in film & high def of unseen NASA videos. It pays tribute to the shuttle program, people involved with the launches and give a view to pictures that were used for only engineering purposes. This is what happens when a shuttle launches.
This is a 45 minute video with commentary by NASA engineers explaining all the technical details.
Pretty fascinating.

Photographic documentation of a Space Shuttle launch plays a critical role in the engineering analysis and evaluation process that takes place during each and every mission. Motion and Still images enable Shuttle engineers to visually identify off-nominal events and conditions requiring corrective action to ensure mission safety and success. This imagery also provides highly inspirational and educational insight to those outside the NASA family.

This compilation of film and video presents the best of the best ground-based Shuttle motion imagery from STS-114, STS-117, and STS-124 missions. Rendered in the highest definition possible, this production is a tribute to the dozens of men and women of the Shuttle imaging team and the 30yrs of achievement of the Space Shuttle Program.

The video was produced by Matt Melis at the Glenn Research Center.

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14 Actors Acting

New York Times Magazine has beautiful short black and white videos of 14 different actors doing short non-dialog scenes, just acting with emotions, accompanied by instrumental classic music. Very dramatic.
The actors include Javier Bardem, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Jesse Eisenberg, Chloë Moretz, Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Jennifer Lawrence, Noomi Rapace, Vincent Cassel, Anthony Mackie, Robert Duvall, Lesley Manville and Tilda Swinton.

Watch it here.

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I Hope This Gets To You: A Viral Love Letter

I hope this gets to her.
Walter C. May and with band of roommates (literally in a band called, The Daylights), wrote a song and made a video for May’s girlfriend. She’s in grad school far far away on the other side of the country from May. Instead of sending her the video directly, they are sending the video out through tweets, links and other social media in hopes that she stumbles upon it randomly. May hopes that this shows her that they “can feel close without having to be close every day”. How cute is that? Help spread the word!

There’s also an interview with Walter C. May at the Villiage Voice:

I wanted it to be simple, something really anyone could have done. We shot the video in my buddy’s garage on a Canon 5D one Sunday afternoon, and I spent maybe $100 in total, buying black bedsheets and stuff. I didn’t want to go overboard, to show that the thought really does count.

I had to block her [May's girlfriend] from my Twitter. She studies so much she doesn’t check it a lot, so hopefully she won’t notice for a while. She was also here last weekend and that was really hard. But our friends and her friends at school have all been given the gag order, so it really has to be some random way she’s going to see it.

(credit: Gizmodo)

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Toxie

This American Life featured an investigative report by David Kestenbaum
and Chana Joffe-Walt of Planet Money about Toxic Assets.

David and Chana wanted to figure out what exactly happened with the financial crisis. They pooled together some money, bought their own toxic asset and started picking it apart. Listeners gave the toxic asset a nickname, Toxie. You can listen to the whole thing here.

In January 2010, reporters from Planet Money bought a toxic asset—you know, the things that blew up wall street banks, sank the economy and brought the global financial system to a halt—one of those. And “Toxie” turned out to be an encyclopedia of the financial crisis.

An animation was made about “The Death of Toxie” summarizing the story.
Directed and animated by Stephen Neary. Assistant animation and backgrounds
by Connie Li Chan. Sound design by Robin Arnott.

Toxie’s Dead from Enkhtulga on Vimeo.

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Sucker Punch trailer

Sucker Punch, written and directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen)
This looks like the perfect bad-ass girl cheesy action movie. Starring Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Abbie Cornish, Jamie Chung, Jena Malone, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm, Oscar Isaac and Scott Glenn. Opens March 25, 2011.

A young girl is institutionalized by her wicked stepfather. Retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her escape from the facility

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Animated German stockings commercial

A stockings lover dream.
One of the commenters on YouTube tried their hand at translating the lyrics:

Singer: What’s just on – the legs – of Dolores – that she turns – the men’s head? {longer break} Woman 1: I am sure he doesn’t return to me. Woman 2: So quickly love’s gone for me. Singer: What attracts men so powerful like a magnet? What fulfills them – with such passion? Who’s got the secret – magic power? What attracts men so powerful like a magnet? {break}

Singer: That are just the stockings – of Dolores – that turn – your men’s head. Therefore wear – the same stockings – and test it out – and they will only have eyes for you! Then every woman got such beautiful legs – and can turn alone for him. The real elegant woman knows – that this name – (Baumhüter) – means quality…

(credit: @JessicaHische)

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Lanvin for H&M

Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz has a new collection for H&M, plus a cool short film to feature it.
It takes place in a hotel where you get a glimpse of each story in each hotel room, plus a glimpse of the fashion. Click on the image below to see the movie.

(credit: @DougJaeger)

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