If you’ve no idea who the Vlogbrothers are, here’s a quick history.  Starting in 2007, Hank and John Green agreed to forgo textual communication for youtube videos.  They’ve since been posting videos (as of today they are at 960 videos), have created a community (known as Nerdfighters), and have spun off many new interesting initiatives all over the internet.

You can find their Youtube channel here.  Or take a moment and watch one of their latest videos where Hank reviews the location for this year’s VidCon (one of those many initiatives the brothers are responsible for).

Watching their videos has given me an idea of my own, which I hope to put into practice fairly soon.  I can only hope to be as entertaining as they have been over the years.

Fortunately, one of the movies was the original 1958 The Blob, a personal favorite, so it wasn’t a complete loss (though it’s since been removed, and the only thing that can cheer me up is its opening credits).

Beware of the blob
It creeps and  leaps
And flies and slides
Across the floor…

As the service becomes more mature, it’s obviously going to put pressure on existing video rental services out there like Netflix, PSN, XBox Live, and Crackle.  It was therefore no surprise to me last week to see that YouTube and Google Play will be receiving 600 new MGM titles.

Here’s to hoping that additional content becomes available as studios out there begin to truly embrace on demand streaming services. Also, let’s just hope that, as the services become more popular, they don’t deteriorate to the point where they are ridiculously expensive (I’m looking at you PSN) and full of annoying adds (ehem, Crackle and Hulu).

We don’t need the internet to become the next Cable TV.

Truth is, I’ve been  surrounded by great leaders and mentors throughout my professional life, and tend to focus on them when answering such a question.  There is, however, another group of people who I consider to be both great leaders and mentors, though I never actually met them in person.

These people are leaders on the internet, people such as the VlogBrothers or Felicia Day (there are so many I cannot name them all) who, in spite of everything bad that can happen on the internet, have been putting themselves out there for all to critique.  The result is such people end up being positive examples, and in a way mentors, for the slew of people online who want to start their own webseries, blogs, vlogs, websites, etc…  And even these people had their own mentors.

Hank Green, in an early VlogBrothers video, gives credit to zefrank, a web pioneer who himself served as a mentor, leader and inspiration for the brothers (who have since founded Nerdfighters, a social group of over 75k official members from all over the interwebs).  The zefrank video he uses as an example is the following, where zefrank discusses ideas and Brain Crack.

I have to admit that the video definitively served as a wake-up call, helping me realize that I was addicted to Brain Crack myself, and that I needed to get my ideas out there, and not squat on them hoping that they would one day become perfect.

I invite everyone out there to watch the video, the message of which is quite simply: stop thinking about it, get out there and do it! 

Then yesterday I found out about CISPA, which is apparently some kind of SOPA wannabe, and that, along with ACTA, PIPA, and all the other movement as of late we see from organizations trying to control the internet, has me worried that time is short for the internet as we know it today.

Here’s a video giving an overview of CISPA.  I suggest you watch it.

I don’t want to bother you all with another rant on the subject, or at least not this very moment.  Instead I’ll link you to an article that discusses Sergey Brin’s opinion on the subject.  The article is a little short, but does detail some good points, which are very similar to my thoughts on the matter.

Read about how Sergey Brin is worried about the internet here.

For those of you who may not know, Sergey is one of the co-founders of Google.

*Warning – what follows is arguably worse than Rebecca Black’s Friday*

There’s this thing I like about the internet, and that is how it serves as a springboard for anyone who is willing to put themselves out their and produce something interesting.  Amazing works have come out of the chaotic mess of ideas that has become the internet, and it is increasingly serving as a refuge for those of us who are trying to escape the drivel that is constantly being force fed to society by main stream media.

Of course, big entertainment have always seen the internet as a threat.  They fight to undermine and control it (the results of which have been things like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, etc…), all in an attempt to push their mediocre bullpoo above the excellent content that I, and others around the world, have been consuming for many years now.

I speak of the amazing works (blogs, videos, shows, movies, music, etc…) that have come out of the internet.  Admit it, odds are you’ve seen, watched, or listened to some of this content (possibly in between having watched a handful of cat videos).  Though they may not yet be achieving the same sized audiences of cable TV shows, the content one can find on the internet almost often blows away main stream media thanks to its quality and originality.

Of course, there are exceptions, like the video above.  In spite of everything the internet has achieved since its creation, there will always be people out there who think that the bar is set by main stream media, and who, instead of coming up with their own original ideas, will do their best to imitate that which they feel is the best content out there.

To those people I say: I know we can be better than this!  And if you doubt me, then take the following youtube channels as an example of just how excellent internet content can be: The Guild, Source Fed, CGPGrey, VSauce, Minute Physics, Crash Course, Jeremi Jahns, Sci-Show, etc…

Yep, that’s right, 18 five year olds, at least according to the survey created by mingle2.com.

Try the survey out for yourself by clicking on the image to the left, and see just how many five year olds you can take in a fight.

If fighting five year olds seems somewhat disturbing, then just do what I did and pretend they’re zombie children and your life depends on killing as many as you can!

If you’re looking for more interesting stuff to do online, then I suggest you take a look at the YouTube channel VSauce, where episodes such as DONG give out great ideas on what you can Do Online Now Guys.

The show’s host, Micheal Stevens, always has some interesting suggestions.  You can check out one of the latest DONGs below.

Now if you’ll excuse me, the survey above got me thinking of fighting zombie kids, so I’m going to go play Dead Rising for a bit.

• Titanic at 100 Years – Boston.com
• Titanic 100 Years – National Geographic
• Titanic 100 Years – Youtube Show (some good videos, one of which is below)

New CGI of the Titanic Sinking (with Director James Cameron)

Check out 5secondfilms.com!

That is a question that 5secondfilms.com have answered over 1000 times on YouTube with their sometimes witty, sometimes quirky, and sometimes just plain weird videos. the videos may be short, but the payoff is almost always worth it (though sometimes, I admit, I have to replay the video twice or thrice before I get the gag).

This week, the comedy group tried something different, and presented us with Bummer week: five shorts that were meant to pull at your heart strings and make you cringe.  They successfully pulled it off, demonstrating not only that they are the rulers of short comedy, but also of short tragedy as well.

So, without further ado, I give you two recent weekly compilations from 5secondfilms: Week in Review #180 (comedy ) and Bummer Week in Review (not comedy ).

Enjoy!

BTW, don’t let the name fool you, their videos may only be 5 seconds long, there are so may of them, and they are so addictive, that you can end up watching them for hours at a time.

The Canadian government has decided to abolish the small coin (of which a majority of canadians do not use), in a move that will save almost $30 million a year. That number excludes any productivity increases, or any time wasted in a long lineups while the person at the front fishes through their pockets or purse for exact change.

Though the penny will remain legal tender, it will no longer be produced by the mint, and will therefore, over time, disappear from circulation altogether.

Personally, I’m a little torn on the issue.  I don’t like the idea of rounding prices up or down to the closest 5¢.  That being said, I have to admit that I try to avoid pennies like the plague, throwing them into a jar as soon as I get home, where they remain, forgotten and ignored.

That being said, I’m comforted by videos like the following one from Youtuber CGPGrey, which puts into perspective how useless pennies really are, and how, in the end, this is a good move on the part of the government.

Oh well, I guess now’s as good a time as any to cash in my jar, though I’ll try to keep a couple of nice ones so I can bore my grandchildren with them when I enter my rambling age