“We were made to be awesome”

Kid President makes the case for optimism: “We can cry about it, or we can dance about it.”

More Kid President here.

(via TED)

A history of Israel/Palestine in three minutes

Nina Paley, creator of the sublime Sita Sings the Blues, offers a primer on the history of conflict in the Middle East:

A guide to the various quarreling entities here.

“This Land is Mine” is the first completed segment of Paley’s “potential-possible-maybe” feature-length film Seder-Masochism (whose first phase has been successfully funded via Kickstarter). I can’t wait for the rest.

(via The Dish)

The West Wing cast (who else?) says walking is good for you!

Who better than the reunited cast of The West Wing — television’s walk-and-talk champions — to promote the health benefits of walking? Click here for the hilarious Funny or Die video — I can’t seem to embed it, but if you’re a fan of the show it’s worth watching.

Priceless:

Charlie: “Sir, we need your help. We need to convince the American people to do do something that’s good for them.”

Bartlet: “That’s impossible.”

Hopefully not.

For more, visit Every Body Walk.

(Photo by Gerber Rigler, via The Washington Post)

Best use of the crappy Star Wars prequels ever

DJ duo Hot Problems offers a song — and a video — for the weekend:

(via Tor.com)

Books are made of win, cont’d: Chip Kidd gets skanky

…and gives a hilarious and enlightening talk on the creation of some of his iconic book covers:

My job was to ask this question: “What do the stories look like?” [...] We bring stories to the public. The stories can be anything, and some of them are actually true. But they all have one thing in common: They all need to look like something. They all need a face. Why? To give you a first impression of what you are about to get into. [...]

The book designer’s responsibility is threefold: to the reader, to the publisher and, most of all, to the author. I want you to look at the author’s book and say, “Wow! I need to read that.”

And just as I’m watching this and thinking “That’s another thing that’s lost in an e-book,” Kidd agrees: “Try experiencing that on a Kindle!”

Don’t get me started. Seriously. Much is to be gained by eBooks: ease, convenience, portability. But something is definitely lost: tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness — a little bit of humanity.

Watch the video, though. It’s a lot funnier than the serious quotes I’ve pulled out.

More reasons why books are made of win here.

(via TED)

Billy Collins animated, cont’d

My favorite living poet Billy Collins provides some context for his animated poems. Stick around for the hilarious piece he reads aloud at the end.

(via TED)

The best TED talk ever

Courtesy of Improv Everywhere. Founder Charlie Todd’s (real) TED talk is also very much worth a look.

More videos here (including this one).

(via TED)

Space cats

I approve:

(via Neil deGrasse Tyson)

How to listen, cont’d: When life hands you lemons (or a Nokia ringtone)

Following Stefon Harris’ advice, violist Lukáš Kmit’ takes what he hears and runs with it:

Well done.

(via Boing Boing)

“The Bark Side”

Oh, lovely, lovely, lovely. I had a ton of post ideas all lined up — then along comes this video, which just has to go up first:

Check out little Doggie Chewbacca and little Doggie Ewok. I’m melting.

(via Jalopnik)