Hunting for secrets on Google Earth Going Off-Topic 2021-03-03 | Normal folks use Google Maps to simply get directions—but that's just scraping the surface. Here are some of the elite sleuths who have mastered Google Earth and pushed it to its limits.From the Utah #Monolith, to locating an illegal stash of hand sanitizer using #OSINT techniques, to guessing a country based on a single Streetview in #Geoguessr—there are worlds within Google Earth that you may not know about.SOURCE LINKS:• Utah DPS original footage: dpsnews.utah.gov/dps-aero-bureau-encounters-monolith-in-red-rock-country• Utah Helicopter flight path: flightaware.com/live/flight/N352SL/history/20201118/2146Z• Monolith location (Google Earth link): earth.google.com/web/@38.34301098,-109.66609761,1314.60328611a,136.15957716d,35y,0h,0t,0r• Weird Google Earth: weirdgoogleearth.com• Streetview Encounters: twitter.com/nickmorgenbach• Emily Gorcenski’s thread: twitter.com/emilygorcenski/status/1239307655254024192• New York Times story: nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html• Quiztime Twitter account: twitter.com/quiztime• Geowizard YouTube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCW5OrUZ4SeUYkUg1XqcjFYA• GeoWizard fan doing his own straight-line mission: youtube.com/watch?v=aMvHvWDUXkYI spoke with Tim Slane, who found that viral Utah Monolith back in 2020. When authorities refused to disclose its location, Tim leveraged the help of the subreddit /r/findthemonolith to locate the monolith before anyone else on the internet. He used flight tracking data, visual clues in the rocks, and his extensive geography knowledge to deduce its location. (He says it took him a breezy 30-40 minutes.)In a similar vein: Data scientist and activist Emily Gorcenski made a splash in 2020 when she located a stash of hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies that two men in Tennessee were hoarding near the beginning of the pandemic. Her Twitter thread shows how small details can add up to big clues when a trained eye picks apart visual information on the internet.Finally, Geoguessr. A game that seems to have found new life while many of us are frustratingly housebound, instead of traveling. It’s a simple game—you guess where you are in the world based on a random Streetview location—but it’s surprisingly addicting to both play and watch. One player that caught my eye is Geowizard, who ranks amongst the best Geoguessr players in the world, and racks up millions of views of his impressively pinpoint gameplay. He has also popularized a style of travel called the “straight-line mission”, where he attempts to cross entire countries in a perfectly, unnaturally straight line.If you’ve ever found yourself absentmindedly clicking around Google Maps satellite imagery or Streetview scenes: here’s how you can up your Google Maps game.00:00 Intro00:35 The Man Who Found the Monolith02:55 Off-Topic: Google Earth & Streetview Easter Eggs03:47 OSINT: The Illegal Stash of Hand Sanitizer06:07 The Wizard of Geoguessr08:25 Outro
Halloweens Devils night, explained Going Off-Topic 2023-10-31 | What do you call the night *before* Halloween? If you live in Michigan, you may say it's 'Devil's night,' or in New Jersey you might call it 'Mischief night.' #halloween #spooky #shorts
The copycat monoliths around the world #mystery #utahmonolith #geography Going Off-Topic 2023-10-23 | After the Utah monolith was removed, hundreds of copycat monoliths sprouted up around the world. From Romania to California to Spain to Colombia, none of them seemed to be made by the same creator of the original Utah monolith. And where did the original end up? One of the people who removed it showed it off in a now-deleted Instagram video a weeks after its sudden relocation.
Who built the Utah Monolith? Going Off-Topic 2023-10-11 | the internet rushed to speculation about who built the Utah Monolith—and why? was it a promotional stunt for Fortnite or a piece of high-art by John McCracken? #mystery #internet #monolith
Uncovering the Utah Monolith Going Off-Topic 2023-10-09 | @justl3mon asked "what is the monolith?" and here's my answer (or at least part of it) #osint #geography #mystery
How he found the Utah monolith on Google Maps Going Off-Topic 2023-10-01 | A Reddit user used Google Maps to become the first person to find the viral Utah Monolith when it made worldwide headlines #osint #geography #mystery
NASAs Mars helicopter is pulling a WALL-E Going Off-Topic 2023-09-29 | NASA's Ingenuity helicopter is breaking records and redefining space exploration #NASA #space #mars
Why Super Bowl grass costs $800,000 💰 #shorts Going Off-Topic 2023-02-12 | The NFL spent around $750,000-$800,000 on the grass for the 2023 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. And it will be removed after just ONE GAME. #superbowl #nfl
The newest internet slang in the dictionary [2022 - yeet, sus, lewk] #shorts Going Off-Topic 2022-09-27 | Merriam-Webster added 370 words in September—including a group of slang words—to the storied dictionary.Here are the newest slang words added to the dictionary this past month: yeet, janky, sus, lewk, pwn, adorkable, MacGyver, baller, and cringe.For more: merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/new-words-in-the-dictionary
This is what a black hole sounds like #shorts Going Off-Topic 2022-08-22 | NASA detected sound waves in space. Here's what a black hole sounds like.In this sonification of Perseus, the sound waves astronomers previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time. The sound waves were extracted outward from the center.In NASA's August 21, 2022 tweet, the US space agency wrote, "The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've picked up actual sound. Here it's amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!"
Here are the new emojis (2022 update) #shorts Going Off-Topic 2022-03-14 | iOS 15.4 was released today and it includes over a hundred brand-new emojis.From "Melting face" (how we all feel after the last two years) to a "saluting face" to a "dotted line face," the popular yellow emoji faces have all-new ways to express themselves.But that's not all: gender- and race-inclusive updates mean users can mix-and-match skin tones with handshake emojis and choose different body types for pregnant emojis.And of course: plenty of one-off objects and creatures to boot. A troll, slide, x-ray, "biting lip," buoy, nest, coral, and more.
Why Sea Shanty TikTok EXPLODED Going Off-Topic 2021-01-12 | 🎥 MY NEWEST VID: youtu.be/ZcKsQ5TJRYA — I found the WORLD CHAMPS of Google MapsWellerman craze has hit: when Nathan Evans (@nathanevanss), a Scottish singer, uploaded a video of himself singing the start of an old sea shanty, he had no clue how viral it would become.But soon after, the duets came: @_luke.the.voice_ , @apsloan01 , @the.bobbybass, and @jonnystewartbass rounded out his contribution to create a melodious rendition of "Soon May the Wellerman Come" that took the internet by storm.It's not hard to see why. The harmonies ("gentle thiccness," as singer Jonny Stewart referred to it) combined to capture the attention of millions across the world.But they're hardly the only ones making videos like this. Online communities have sprung up around the hashtags #shantytok and #seashantytok (on TikTok) and /r/seashanties (on Reddit) to celebrate, sing, and meme the centuries-old genre of folk song. Across the seven seas, TikTokers use the duet feature to collaborate and build off of others' shanties.We trace the history of sea shanties: from the Library of Congress to shanty collectors like Stan Hugill—all the way through the modern day twists heard in the Spongebob Squarepants introduction and in video games like Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.If you thought sea shanties went the way of Davey Jones’ locker—think again! And get ready to dive into the world of Sea Shanty TikTok. ⚓️Library of Congress link: loc.gov/item/afcnye00019200:00 Down the "sea shanty" rabbit hole00:49 Wellerman & Sea Shanty TikTok01:51 /r/seashanties02:23 Why people love sea shanties02:54 Where shanties come from05:05 The earliest-recorded shanties06:05 Sea shanties today06:43 The end
How expensive is a ticket to space? Going Off-Topic 2020-09-25 | Space tourism is officially here. Over 600 people bought tickets to the cosmos from #VirginGalactic for $250,000—including celebrities like Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio. Those flights are set to take off in 2021, but they’re far from the only option to take a trip to space. Rocket companies are lining up to launch you off the Earth.🚨CORRECTION🚨As pointed out in the pinned comment: Virgin Galactic plans to send folks on *suborbital trips* — not low-earth orbit. Low-earth orbit (LEO) is 160km-1000km above Earth (ESA) whereas Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo plans to take tourists ~83km above Earth.In addition to the Richard Branson-founded rocket company, fellow billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have also founded their own similar companies: Blue Origin and #SpaceX, respectively. And each one has it’s own plan on how it might launch regular people into space.Hitch a ride on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, named after Alan Shepard who was the first American astronaut in space. (He also famously hit golf balls on the moon!) Or climb aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which recently launched it’s first crewed flight with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley in May 2020.Or, go all-out and treat yourself in the way that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa did: pay a secret price to SpaceX to take a round-trip flight around the moon with half-a-dozen of your closest friends. His project is called #dearMoon and is planned to launch in 2023 as an art project to promote world peace.But if Virgin Galactic’s $250,000 price point sounds a bit more manageable—get ready for an out-of-this-world experience. From your Virgin Galaction/Under Amour-designed customer “spacewear system” (it’s technically not a space suit!), to your launch at Spaceport America (the first FAA-classified spaceport in the US), to the SpaceShipTwo cabin: we cover it all in this video.00:00 How much would you pay to go to space?01:18 Blue Origin New Shepard rocket02:09 SpaceX Dragon capsule02:55 dearMoon project by Yusaku Maezawa04:00 Virgin Galactic: Pre-launch05:22 The flight experience07:04 Return to earth
lofi space beats to chill/relax to 🛰 Going Off-Topic 2020-09-15 | If you need some music to relax to, music to work/study to, or just float along in your day: here are some beats that will put your mind in orbit.Features samples from: Carl Sagan and his "Pale Blue Dot" excerpt, Apollo 15 Commander Dave Scott's utterance on the moon that, "Man must explore," and JFK's infamous "We go to the moon," speech.Lo-fi videos are having a moment. You've seen ChilledCow's famous lo-fi videos. And now: Will Smith, Google AMP, and even NBC's hit show 'The Office' have made their own lo-fi beat loops! But we felt the spacefarers and rocket fans needed one of their own, so that's what we did.3, 2, 1 liftoff. Enjoy!#lofi #beats #triphop
Early Bitcoin skeptics: Is it just stupid? [COMPILATION] Going Off-Topic 2020-08-24 | We searched through HOURS of old news coverage to find the earliest bitcoin coverage and explanations on television. And damn: did we found some freezing-cold takes and bitcoin skeptics.From the dismissive ("Is it just stupid?") to the clueless ("Link it to gold!") to the luddite-tinged gaffes ("[Bitcoins] live in the ethernet.") we found it all in the news archives.Bitcoin was created in 2009 and was largely unknown to the public until sporadic news reports in the early 2010's brought awareness of the cryptocurrency into the mainstream. From clips we've surfaced, it seems Max Keiser was one of the first on-air evangelists of the emerging cryptocurrency. "This is the biggest story of this decade," he said on RT in June 2011, correctly predicting that the currency would continue to grow in 2012 and beyond. John Stossel, Stu Varney and Larry Kudlow—personalities on FOX Business and CNBC at the time—make appearances with varying levels of optimism and skepticism.In a combative exchange that neatly summarizes institutional distaste for bitcoin, Expensify founder and CEO David Barrett handily spars with a bitcoin skeptic on CNBC who posits, "The whole bitcoin market is $1 billion. It's a novelty for the Geek Squad."Remember that classic 1994 news clip of three NBC anchors—Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel—asking "What is internet?" Think that: but for bitcoin.Buckle up, HODL, and cringe your way through this compilation.#crypto #bitcoin #HODL
Why NASA Sent a Helicopter to Mars Going Off-Topic 2020-07-30 | NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will make history's first attempt at powered flight on another planet next spring. It is riding with NASA's July 2020 mission to Mars, latched onto the belly of the Perseverance rover.Ingenuity may weigh only about 4 pounds, but it has some outsize ambitions."The Wright Brothers showed that powered flight in Earth's atmosphere was possible, using an experimental aircraft," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity's chief pilot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "With Ingenuity, we're trying to do the same for Mars."From 2014 to 2019, engineers at JPL demonstrated that it was possible to build an aircraft that was lightweight, able to generate enough lift in Mars' thin atmosphere, and capable of surviving in a Mars-like environment. They tested progressively more advanced models in special space simulators at JPL."The Ingenuity team has done everything to test the helicopter on Earth, and we are looking forward to flying our experiment in the real environment at Mars," said MiMi Aung, Ingenuity's project manager at JPL. "We'll be learning all along the way, and it will be the ultimate reward for our team to be able to add another dimension to the way we explore other worlds in the future."What makes it hard for a helicopter to fly on Mars? For one thing, Mars' thin atmosphere makes it difficult to achieve enough lift. Because the Mars atmosphere is 99% less dense than Earth's, Ingenuity has to be light, with rotor blades that are much larger and spin much faster than what would be required for a helicopter of Ingenuity's mass on Earth.It can also be bone-chillingly cold at Jezero Crater, where Perseverance will land with Ingenuity attached to its belly in February 2021. Nights there dip down to minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 90 degrees Celsius). While Ingenuity's team on Earth has tested the helicopter at Martian temperatures and believes it should work on Mars as intended, the cold will push the design limits of many of Ingenuity's parts.#mars2020 #nasa #perseverance
International Space Station flythrough Going Off-Topic 2020-07-27 | See what the astronauts get to see aboard the International Space Station—250 miles above earth.The first module of the International Space Station, or ISS, was launched November 20, 1998. Since then, 240 individuals from 19 countries have visited the ISS.The space station is a stunning scientific and engineering achievement. It's over 357 feet end-to-end—nearly the full length of an American football field. It runs on 4.5 million lines of software code (between on-the-ground and on-flight code) and more than 50 computers control the space station's systemsBeyond the raw code and bits and bytes: there's beauty. Astronauts aboard the ISS travel through 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours.The acre of solar panels that power the station means sometimes you can look up in the sky at dawn or dusk and see the spaceship flying over your home, even if you live in a big city. Find sighting opportunities at: spotthestation.nasa.gov#iss #nasa #spacestation
