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Forteana & Weirdness On YouTube

I'll put in a recommendation for TRUTHSTREAM MEDIA. They specialise in hidden history, anti-corporate meta-politics, drugs, mind control and conspiracy, but that's not everything. I could provide a link through any of their videos (usually very well produced), but I may as well post this one that I'm halfway through:

The Real Secrets Hidden In Antarctica:

Man that is an interesting video. Antarctic history is far more interesting than most people know. Here's another piece about it I found thought provoking:
 
It is. Serial killer. A very horrible one.
I also assumed it was paranormal. Maybe it should go in the "Serial Killer" thread.

Thanks.

Moved here as we try not to clog the 'main' threads with YouTube videos.

They have a habit of vanishing and destroying the discussion.
 
Seems an appropriate thread for last night's Radio 4 Archive episode about YouTube:
Archive on 4 doc

Basically the point of YouTube is to keep you watching, clicking away on video after video for as long as possible, it's how they make their money - lots of it. But the algorithm to do so has been favouring the extreme right and paedophiles, according to new studies, creating a self-serving addiction to fake news, intolerance and sexual deviancy in many, many viewers - even provoking terrorism and mass murder.

This would explain why, for instance, if I look up an old TV 70s clip on YT, my recommendations get clogged with videos of bigots "pwning libtards LOL" and the like. And I thought Facebook and Twitter were bad.
 
Seems an appropriate thread for last night's Radio 4 Archive episode about YouTube:
Archive on 4 doc

Basically the point of YouTube is to keep you watching, clicking away on video after video for as long as possible, it's how they make their money - lots of it. But the algorithm to do so has been favouring the extreme right and paedophiles, according to new studies, creating a self-serving addiction to fake news, intolerance and sexual deviancy in many, many viewers - even provoking terrorism and mass murder.

This would explain why, for instance, if I look up an old TV 70s clip on YT, my recommendations get clogged with videos of bigots "pwning libtards LOL" and the like. And I thought Facebook and Twitter were bad.

That doesn't surprise me. But, there must be a sort of 'personality' (if that's the correct term) or type of person who is more likely to fall for all these 'recommendations' and keep clicking on them, surely?

We often watch YouTube on our Freesat box. It shows recommendations, but often they're not related (in a way that we can see, at any rate) to what we have previously watched. But regardless, if they're not of any interest to us, we don't click on them. I'm sure we're not alone in that.

So, I wonder, who are the people who will just 'keep clicking' on video after video just because it appears on their screen? Is it more likely to be people who are watching on their phones (i.e. people who spend all day on them and are addicted to watching anything)?*


*On a slightly related note, I've never understood the concept of browsing the internet or watching programmes on a phone screen. We had tiny television screens in the 1930s and 40s and we've moved on from those to something big enough to see the programme clearly. So it beats me why people want to squint at tiny pictures. :omr:
 
If you listen to the doc, it explains, also interviews someone who was turned into a right wing fanatic by watching these videos as much as he could. One of the people who did this (not interviewed) conducted the mass (livestreamed) shooting in New Zealand. There are a lot of alienated people in the world. Give them someone (a lot of someones) who explains and encourages their grudges and grievances, and you have a recipe for trouble.
 
*On a slightly related note, I've never understood the concept of browsing the internet or watching programmes on a phone screen. We had tiny television screens in the 1930s and 40s and we've moved on from those to something big enough to see the programme clearly. So it beats me why people want to squint at tiny pictures. :omr:
Yeah, I don't understand that either. My eyesight is failing - so I want to see it on a big screen, not a tiny one.
 
This would explain why, for instance, if I look up an old TV 70s clip on YT, my recommendations get clogged with videos of bigots "pwning libtards LOL" and the like. And I thought Facebook and Twitter were bad.
You really must stop watching all those Hitler documentaries, GNC.
:p
 
I haven't watched this yet, but it looks extremely promising from a Fortean perspective.

Penda's Fen (1974): An indefinable Play for Today by David Rudkin, about a priggish vicar's son who learns about himself through encounters and visions with angels, demons, Edward Elgar, and the last pagan king of England.

 
With a little idle time this morning, I found myself on you-tube looking at French horror movies. Well, actually I started with Croenenburg's debut film "Shivers". The near-impossibility, it seems, of getting a complete cut of the film and having to be content with extracts, unrelated scenes and portentious arty documentaries on Coronenbourg's work. Being a Canadian movie, there of course had to be a French dub and an alternative title, Frissons. Looking up films with ths title - thinking I might get the full film in French - I ended up way off-topic and going through French-French, as opposed to French-Canadian, horror movies or thrillers with "frissons" in the title. As you do. Eventually on a film which was a so-so thing about shady goings on around a hospital called something like "forlorn hope", "Espoir mortel". Just a run of the mill sort of thing with nothing much to distinguish it, so I wasn't really paying attention. Anyway, at the end I tried to look up the actors and actresses who'd been in it, one in particular who'd shown a bit of actual talent, to see what else she'd been in. again I wasn't paying attention and looked up names from the end credits by the roles they'd been playing. then i was baffled when I looked up the film "Espoir mortel" and the names of the actors/actresses were completely different to the ones I'd got in the end credits. Was this a remake?

Then I realised. The reason why I'd thought it was a lacklustre so-so run of the mill effort with largely unconvincing acting was that this was one of THOSE American made-for-Tv movies 9basically cheap uninspired filler) dubbbed into French. As with all dubbing, the acting lacks a certain presence. I'd simply been looking up the French voice-artistes who had done the dubs. Not the original cast.

But here is the thing that is Fortean. The French actresses who had overdubbed the original American cast. Two of them, the ones I was looking up, had a facial and physical similarity to the American actresses whose parts they were voicing. Not 100% identical - but near enough for me not to realise, as this wasn't what I was looking for... it took a while for the penny to drop because they looked so similar. And I thought they only cast for the right sort of voice when post-producing a film and dubbing it. Does this sort of thing happen a lot, or was this just coincidence?
 
Penda's Fen (1974): An indefinable Play for Today by David Rudkin, about a priggish vicar's son who learns about himself through encounters and visions with angels, demons, Edward Elgar, and the last pagan king of England.

it's a classic of Folk Horror. Highly recommended! You have to allow for the 1970s production values but it's rather good :)
 
UK viewers will find any half-decent version of Penda's Fen blocked on Youtube. There have been several degraded and speeded-up ones.

The letters ok.ru may lead to a solution.

I revisited the drama just a few weeks back and was fascinated all over again. Nothing like it would get made today. :yay:

PS: The wonderfully-nerdy Spencer Banks, who stars, is alive and well, delighting fans at Timeslip conventions. Clips can be found on Youtube! :clap:
 
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There's a beautifully restored Penda's Fen Blu-ray (and DVD) from the BFI.
 
Australia's mysterious Min Min Lights.

According to Wikipedia: Min Min is an unexplained light phenomenon that has often been reported in outback Australia. Stories about the lights can be found in Aboriginal myths predating European settlement and have since become part of wider Australian folklore.

This is a blast from the past and really takes me back. 'A Big Country' was a great show with unusual stories from the bush and beyond.

The Min Min Lights, A Big Country -1982/1978

WARNING: Aboriginal viewers are warned that this program may contain images and voices of deceased People. DISCRETION Is Advised!

 
In this article, a Professor Jack Pettigrew claims the Min Min lights are a kind of optical illusion in which

a layer of cold air just above the ground between the distant light and the observer could trap light.

“This layer bends the light and keeps it close to the ground, so it can be seen over great distances,” he said.

“This layer of cold air can also concentrate the distant light and stop it from spreading – so it doesn’t get weakened by extreme distance.”

Professor Pettigrew used geometry to show a Min Min light was actually very bright truck headlights sometimes up to 300km away.
According to Dr Kruzelnicki, Professor Pettigrew drove 10km from a campsite and shone his headlights which those at the campsite reported as a bobbing light just above the horizon, changing from vivid red, to orange, yellow then green.

Whether this explanation fits with Aboriginal stories pre-dating European settlement though..
 
In this article, a Professor Jack Pettigrew claims the Min Min lights are a kind of optical illusion in which



Whether this explanation fits with Aboriginal stories pre-dating European settlement though..

There are many explanations, and this is as good as any.
However, there are those who claim to have been chased (or followed) by the lights, which may be an exaggeration or not. No matter, it's an interesting phenomenon as are other 'spook lights' from around the world.
 
The wonderfully-nerdy Spencer Banks, who stars, is alive and well, delighting fans at Timeslip conventions. Clips can be found on Youtube!

This is good news. I was still imagining him as a depressed and stressed teen!
 
And there is this unforgettable children's programme from Scandinavia. I watched this as a youngster. Surreal!

A memorable scene was where Kant fries sausages by connecting their ends to 220V :-0

 
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