Asimo Commercial

ASIMO (アシモ, ashimo?) is a humanoid robot created by Honda Motor Company. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches) and weighing 52 kilograms (119 lbs.), the robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph). ASIMO was created at Honda's Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. It is the current model in a line of eleven that began in 1986 with E0.

Officially, the name is an acronym for "Advanced Step in Innovative MObility". As of 2007, there are 46 ASIMO units in existence. Each one costs less than $1 million to manufacture, and some units are available to be hired out for $166,000 per year.

Authors@Google: Robert Frank

Author Robert Frank discusses his book "The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas" as a part of the Authors@Google series. This event took place on July 23, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA. (...)

Robert Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management Professor of Economics at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times.

Creationism with Ricky Gervais

Animals is a stand-up show written and performed by the comedian Ricky Gervais. As the title suggests Gervais uses aspects of the animal kingdom as his central theme. The show toured in 2003 and is now available on DVD.

Animals is one of three stand-up shows that Gervais has performed: the other two being Politics and Fame.

Metallica - Unforgiven II

"The Unforgiven II" is a song performed by Metallica. It was written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett, and appears in the album ReLoad, as a sequel to "The Unforgiven" (which appears on Metallica).

It has been performed live only once: at a 1997 Billboard Awards when Metallica received the Artist of the Year award.

The Lord of the Rings - Through the Mines of Moria

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2001 fantasy film directed by Peter Jackson. It is the opening installment of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, based on the similarly titled first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic literary fantasy, The Lord of the Rings. Jackson began the project in 1995 as a two-part adaptation of Tolkien's work. (...)

The Fellowship set out and try to pass the mountain Caradhras, but they are stopped by Saruman's wizardry. They are forced to travel under the mountain through the Mines of Moria. After journeying partway through the Mines, Pippin accidentally gives away their presence to a band of orcs. The Fellowship then encounter a Balrog, an ancient demon of fire and shadow, at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. Gandalf confronts the Balrog on the bridge, allowing the others to escape the mines, while he falls with the creature into the abyss below.

Singing Tesla Coil at Duckon 2007

This is a solid-state Tesla coil. The primary runs at its resonant frequency in the 41 KHz range, and is modulated from the control unit in order to generate the tones you hear. So just to explain a little further, yes, it is the actual high voltage sparks that are making the noise. Every cycle of the music is a burst of sparks at 41 KHz, triggered by digital circuitry at the end of a "long" piece of fiber optics.

What's not immediately obvious in this video is how loud this is. Many people were covering their ears, dogs were barking. In the sections where the crowd is cheering and the coils is starting and stopping, you can hear the the crowd is drowned out by the coil when it's firing.

This Tesla coil was built and is owned by Steve Ward. Steve is a EE student at U of I Urbana-Champaign. He and Jeff have been going to Teslathons, which is where they met. It's been suggested that a good name for this coil would be the "Zeusaphone". "Thoremin" has also been mentioned, though personally I think we need Theramin type inputs for that.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Trailer

Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) is a computer role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Atari. It is the sequel to BioWare's Neverwinter Nights (NWN), a successful game based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Where NWN was based on the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition rules, NWN2 is based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition rules (also known as the Revised 3rd Edition), changed to adapt to real-time gameplay.

The Court Jester - The Pellet With The Poison

The Court Jester is a 1956 comedy film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. The movie is co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama. The film was released by Paramount Pictures in the VistaVision widescreen format. Danny Kaye received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actor - Comedy/Musical. The film contains the famous exchange: "The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true" (mainly between Kaye and Mildred Natwick as Griselda) (...)

Immediately upon being knighted, Hawkins is challenged to a duel to the death by Griswold, who appears to truly love the princess. Help is given to Hawkins in the form of a poisonous potion made by Griselda, but Sir Griswold is also told of it by a courtier who overhears of the plot. In a scene full of tongue twisting English, both combatants approach the King, each trying desperately to remember which cup contains the poison, with the result that the king decides to abandon the ritual of drinking a toast before the joust and get straight on to the fight. But a storm is rising, and Hawkins' armor, struck by lightning, has become magnetized. Griswold is pulled from his horse by his morning star which sticks to Hubert's armor, and Hubert wins the joust.

Charlie Rose - An hour with Milton Friedman

An hour conversation with Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman about his life, his contributions to economics, the Republican Party and his view on the direction of the United States and the world.

Enya - Caribbean Blue

Enya, birth name Eithne Patricia Ní Bhraonáin, was born in Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland, and is a four-time Grammy Award-winning singer, an Academy Award-nominated songwriter, and Ireland's best-selling solo artist and one of that nation's best known musicians. As a musical group, Enya represents a partnership between three people: Enya herself, who composes and performs the music; Nicky Ryan, who produces the albums, and Roma Ryan, who writes the lyrics in various languages. Enya is an approximate transcription of how Eithne is pronounced in her native Irish, in the Donegal dialect. (...)

Caribbean Blue is a hit song from her 1991 album Shepherd Moons.

Deep Space Homer

"Deep Space Homer" is the fifteenth episode of The Simpsons' fifth season. It is also the source of the Overlord meme. The episode was written by David Mirkin, who was an experienced producer of the show, with "Deep Space Homer" being his freshman writing credit for the series.

In spite of Homer being chosen to go into space, he is very nervous about going. He runs from the space shuttle and talks with Marge on the phone, and she says that Homer ought to take advantage of going into space. He agrees and gets into the Corvair space shuttle, with its name a reference to the car that was widely considered to be unsafe. The launch is also a Nielsen ratings smash. When on the shuttle, Homer smuggles potato chips ("Careful! They're ruffled!") on board. He opens the bag, but is unaware that they will clog the instruments. His appetite seems to save the day as he floats after the chips in zero-G to the tune of The Blue Danube, but he flies into an ant farm, destroying it, sowing panic across the world as the ants are set free thanks to Kent Brockman's rather premature assessment of the situation.

Although James Taylor comes in to make a modified adaptation of "You've Got a Friend", the disaster continues on board, with Kent Brockman reporting that the space shuttle has been taken over by giant space ants. The ants destroy the navigation system but, luckily, James Taylor suggests that they blow the bugs out the front hatch. The astronauts do, but Homer fails to put on his "shuttle belt" and is sucked out of the hatch. Buzz pulls him inside but due to the vacuums' sheer force, Homer breaks the handle. He inadvertently uses the carbon rod to seal the door shut. They return to Earth, landing at a journalist convention.

Metallica - The Unforgiven

"The Unforgiven" is one of the slower songs on the self-titled album, Metallica (also known as the Black Album). It also has a sequel, in the form of "The Unforgiven II", from the album ReLoad. (...)

The drum & horn intro was essentially taken from an un-identified Western movie and then reversed so its source would be hidden, as Hetfield later explained on "Classic Albums: Metallica - The Black Album". The band has never disclosed what movie the sound was taken from, although it is strongly reminiscent of a segment of Ennio Morricone's "The showdown" from the movie "For a few dollars more".

"The Unforgiven" was played live as part of Metallica's Nowhere Else To Roam world tour which lasted from 1991-1993, in support of the Black Album. It was played again on the Madly in Anger with the World world tour in 2003-2004 and the Escape from the Studio '06 tour. It has most recently been played as part of the 'Sick of the Studio' tour.

Authors@Google: James Randi

James Randi is an internationally known magician (as The Amazing Randi), psychic debunker, and winner of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant." He was a founding fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). He is perhaps best known for offering $1,000,000 (via the James Randi Educational Foundation) to anyone who can successfully demonstrate psychic powers under conditions mutually agreed on by the challenger and himself. Starting with a $10,000 prize over 25 years ago, no claimant to psychic powers has ever won the money.

Randi has pursued "psychic" spoonbenders, exposed the dirty tricks of faith healers, investigated homeopathic water "with a memory," and generally been a thorn in the sides of those who try to pull the wool over the public's eyes in the name of the supernatural.

The Bastiat Collection

In this Mises Institute thirty-minute interview, Dr. Mark Thornton, the compiler and general editor of "The Bastiat Collection," explains Bastiat's significance, and tells the fascinating story of how this definitive collection came to be. He further explains its significance for the future of liberty. Frédéric Bastiat was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly.

Opeth - Harvest

Blackwater Park is the fifth full-length studio album from the Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth. It was originally released on February 27, 2001 under Music For Nations and Koch Records. The album is a further continuation of the styles explored on Still Life, incorporating and further expanding on the band's signature sound, which features the merger of death metal, progressive metal and folk music elements.

Blackwater Park was the first Opeth album to be produced by Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, who also provided backing vocals in some of the album's songs. The album was a critical and commercial success for the band, introducing them to a new range of fans. Many Opeth fans and critics alike consider Blackwater Park to be Opeth's magnum opus.

A special edition was later issued in 2002 with a second disc consisting of two bonus tracks (which were also released separately on the limited edition Still Day Beneath the Sun vinyl record single) and a music video for the song "Harvest". The release was limited to only 2000 copies.