Video Of The Day: Holding Hands With Strangers In NYC And China

by Elizabeth Seward on

You could call Andrew Hales a comedian. You could call Andrew Hales a people person. No matter what you call him, he has a good thing going: filming himself holding hands with strangers (or attempting to) in different places around the globe. The group he pulls these stunts off with is called Losing All Hope Was Freedom. In this video, Hales is getting to know the people of Chengdu, China, through impromptu handholding. His approach to making new friends is cute, sure, but it also shines a light on the culture of any given place he films. Enjoy.

[Thanks, Laughing Squid]

Video: Watch San Francisco Be Engulfed By An Ocean Of Fog

by Adam Hodge on

Photographer Simon Christen spent two years compiling footage of San Francisco‘s famous fog for this 4.5-minute, piece of Zen, time-lapse video. His “love letter to the fog of the San Francisco Bay Area” was written during pre-dawn, 45-minute hikes into the Marin headlands to capture the fog gliding over the hills and under the Golden Gate Bridge. The result is quite beautiful. The fog tumbles over the hills like a waterfall, rolling like ocean waves as it streams toward the city. The video is scored with dreamlike music by composer Jimmy LaValle, making it a therapeutic tribute to the soft forces of planet earth. Indeed, the San Francisco Fog itself was impressed with the video, tweeting that it was the “most stunning video of me you’ll ever see.”

Brookland! America’s Hippest Theme Park

by Libby Zay on

Upright Citizens Brigade’s latest parody video takes a shot at Brooklyn hipsterdom. The comedians turn trendy neighborhoods like Williamsburg into Brookland!, the place where adults who don’t want to grow up can eat pizza every day — while playing kick ball. Arcades and candy stores are on every corner, subways and taxis turn into roller coaster rides, and the proper skateboard age rises up and up. It all seems pretty amusing until the comedians point out seasons passes start at $57,000.

Video Of The Day: New York’s Gay Pride Parade In Under 2 Minutes

by Jess Moss on


After last week’s historic U.S. Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage, major U.S. cities, including New York and San Francisco, celebrated their annual Gay Pride parades on Sunday with even more exuberance than usual. In New York, marchers walked danced through the muggy streets from 36th Street and Fifth Avenue down to Christopher and Greenwich Streets in the West Village, while mobs of onlookers cheered, waved flags and wore amazing outfits. The actual parade lasted for hours, but for those of you with short attention spans, this time-lapse video chronicles the route in under two minutes. New York also launched a new LGBT tourism website this weekend.

Video: The North Pole: Where Exactly Is it?

by Elizabeth Seward on


Although you might not be planning a trip to the North Pole, it’s good to know that we don’t know exactly where it is. Well, it’s less like we don’t know where it is and more like where it is depends on what you care about. This handy video, which I found thanks to Laughing Squid, illustrates how the location of the North Pole changes depending on whether you think about it in terms of geographic, geomagnetic or magnetic terms. Henry Reich from MinutePhysics tackles this subject in the video and explains that each type of pole sits at a different place on our planet and their locations even within themselves are not fixed. Check out this video for a clear understanding of the location of the North (and South) Pole.