Some people say that if YouTube is your regular tv on the web, Vimeo is like cable tv. This is because you can upload also HD videos. But, anyway, the quality of the images is stunning. For example, watch at this video a MSc student from the Imperial College. Don’t you find much better to watch an interesting little documentary without getting frustrated because you can tell the difference between what you see and your morning porridge?

Everyday Except Monday from Julien Simery on Vimeo.

And this wasn’t in HD!

The video comes from one of the science channel’s on Vimeo. Here you can find all the video from the Science Communication unit at Imperial College London.

Here it is an example of HD video:

Perth Timelapse from Liam Underwood on Vimeo.

Another large sector of science videos on line is university’s courses. Here is the last addiotion from UCLA’s video resourses: Life, Concepts and Issues. Here is the first video of the series:

Also from UCLA’s video collection is this short documentary on Terence Tao, the first Fields Medal they had:

During last summer the web-based tv Babelgum and the BBC have signed an agreement for the distribution of some contents on the Babelgum platform. This meant the creation of three new channels based on this stuff: BBC-love Earth, BBC-Entertainment and BBC-Knowledge. So now you can watch clips from Top Gear or David Attenborough’s Life in the Freezer just clicking on the relative icon.

On the new channels you can’t watch entire shows from the BBC, but only clips. I think this is due to the fear that people won’t watch them on old tv. What strikes me is that it means I can enjoy exactly just the things I really want to watch. Here you can find simple contributions of the Private Life of Plants, and you don’t have to watch all of this stuff you get bored with while you are waiting for the only thing you’re interested in. Of course you can find just some contributions, not all the contributions. But I think it’s interesting the way you can watch a scientific or naturalistic documentary now. You can choose between a huge number of 2/3 minutes videos, like having a brunch with just fingerfoods.

Babelgum is only a system that distributes professional video content on the web. It is based only on recorded material, not live stuff. And you can watch all their stuff only through their client. But almost everything is for free and of good quality. At the moment you can find several channels of scientific stuff, never hard sciences, but relaxing naturalistic documentaries, an entire channel dedicated to green issues, one on technology topics, and so on.

Babelgum tv is not really different from the idea of having an old tv on you computer, but most of the things are worthwatching. The quality of the video is good and the client software rarely goes on crash.

Today is my birthday, so I just wanna celebrate with this sketch which is one of my favorites from Little Britain.

Last saturday I was in Milan and I had the opportunity to attend the public meeting with Terry Gilliam, former Monty Python and today visionary film director. He was the main guest of Milano Film Festival.

When someone from the audience asked which is the secret of his success he answered that luck and fate had an important role in his career. But what made the difference was his decision of not working for money. He said that this gave him the freedom he wanted and, moreover, working for money means getting tired of the work you’re doing. Only working for the sake of creativity and fantasy gives him the necessary thrill to make his movies.

In my mind I immediately thought about his statements in relation to the blogging thing. Bloggers are free and creative because they don’t get money from their passion. Maybe it’s banal, but it sort of hit me.

What I really can’t understand about producing and broadcasting videos on the internet is why some people try to replicate the standard television model. Ok: some video are simply great and worth the fadigue you need to watch them on your laptop. But the web is a different media. Period.

Here is a easy example I like from bigthink.com: short videos, just a camera and plain interview even to great personalities. What is interesting is often there’s a transcription of the interview. Plain but fascinating.

And talking about ideas, you already should know about TED talks. If not here you can find Alisa Miller talk on february 2008. What makes me like TED talks a bit more then others is the videos are relesed under Creative Commons Licence.

When I asked NN for this blog I prepared a list of things I’d like to share. There were videos, consideration on webtvs, and so on. It was a practical, old fashioned to-do-list. And I said to myself end of august is always a good moment to start a project (in fact a lot of friends had splitted frome their couple :-P). The problema now, is I’m working too much.

Ok: I wasn’t seriuos… I’m working as usual (maybe just feeling a bit more pressed after the summer). Reality is I started to go jogging. And I’m not joking…

I thoght, as a lazy boy, that I’d never liked to make any kind of exercise, except for reaching the fridge for a new beer. But one day I “stumbled” on a mirror while naked. And I thought the mirror should be one of those mirror that produces dizzy and weird effects in the amusement parks. But it was a normal mirror and all (in the precise meaning of "all") that I saw was me.

Excuse me for this banal and personal reflection. Now I’m sliding my feet into my running shoes…

I know it’s an old one and most of you could already know mr. wesch, but viewing it again gave me some hints about some of the discussions we had during and just after the sciblog08.

The first is about “what-the-hell-is-this-so-called-web2.0”-thing, an issue that emrged (not exactly in these therms) following henry’s entry. there’s a part of the video that explains really well the social networks (the main part of web 2.0): the keyword is ‘language’.

The other things the video shows really well is why I don’t like a unique identifier when we are talking about things coming from the web. And I’m referring to the interesting discussion we have in the library during the unconference session moderated by Maxine. At a certain point, Wesch’s video explains what’s happening when we are trying to organize this huge amount of information we have on the web. It says:“When we post and tag the pictures, we are teaching the Machine. Each time we forgot a link, we teach an idea”.

Video:
The Machine is Us/ing Us

I start this sort of weekly segnalation of interesting video on science I found on the web. Hope you like them.

Chemical party
Elements are having a party, but there are some little problems of compatibility…
The video is an educational tools that originally come from here.
This is one of the way you can use a video, attracting surfers with a laugh or a smile.

Social Sciences according to Richard Feynman
Nice and interesting short interview about the public success of social sciences. Here you can watch and listen to Feynman playing his bongos.

I know what you’re going to think: “Just a couple of posts, and he’s attending the Science Blogging Conference!” Well… Maybe you are right…

But I’m glad I’m going to meet other bloggers from NN and people from the forums! Not to forget the interesting programme…