Call it whatever you like… frenzied freerunning or passionate Parkour… it all adds up to eye candy time kids.

Twenty-three year old freerunner James Kingston treats us to some incredible brain-tingling POV Parkour shots as he leaps across walls, fences, trees, rooftops and more in his home town in Southampton.

James plans on traveling the world and making lots more of these videos.

Which, of course, works out great for me since I want to watch lots more of them.

If you want to put in a vote from what cities James should visit go to the video on Youtube here and leave your suggestion in the comments.

Oooo look at all the pretty colors!

I’m always a sucker for slow motion video.

And the messier the better. So this paint on a speaker and 2500 frames per second by The Slow Mo Guys really fits the bill perfectly.

Honestly, who’d of thought that some watered down wall paint could be so mesmerizingly (yeah, I made the word up) beautiful?

And I love the rainbow colored droplets that appear… oh, round about 3:40 I guess.

Hold the phone… just hold the darn phone…

We have an all scienced-up version of Bohemian Rhapsody here… done A Capella no less…. and I’ve been too busy to have noticed it before now?!?

Sure, there’s a whole lot of sciencey name dropping like string theory, quantum physics, Baryons Fermions and Feynman diagrams.

But that’s part of the charm.

I hang my head in shame as I present “A Capella Science – Bohemian Gravity!”

When I hear certain phrases uttered I have an almost physical reaction to them. And for a moment… just a split second, of course, because I’m not a violent person… I want to rip the speaker’s lungs out through their nose.

I think everyone has phrases, or words, that can drive them almost instantly into the red zone.

Usually it is the way people are using the words, and not the words themselves that are the problem here. Phrases that surge in popularity tend to be lazy, fluffy and meaningless. Both a waste of breath and a waste of my time.  (And on occasion they’re just flat out wrong.)

For this list I just stuck to just thirteen of my madness inducing phrases. But trust me, it could easily be three times as long and still not complete.

Now, that fact might cause some to argue that my list of teeth-gnashing phrases is longer than most. I guess I can’t argue with that. Perhaps I’m just easily irritated.

(Oh, and I apologize if I‘ve managed to use one of YOUR most hated phrases anywhere in this post. Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Hang in there. The urge to kill will pass soon.)

Phrase #1: “Gone missing”

[And the related, "Went missing.” This one only annoys me when Americans use it, particularly so-called journalists. Brits you go right ahead.]

Phrase #2: “At the end of the day”

Phrase #3: “I know, right?”

[Well do you know, or are you not sure? Please decide before you speak.]

Phrase #5: “With all due respect”

Phrase #6: “I could care less”

[It's COULDN'T people...sheesh!]

Phrase #7: “Now granted”

Phrase #8: “Literally”

[When what the speaker is saying is clearly figurative]

Phrase #9: “To be honest”

[Runner up, and really the same thing..."To tell you the truth"]

Phrase #10: “Mute point”

[Uh, you mean "moot" people.]

Phrase #11: “On accident”

[That would be "By accident"... sigh. What are you? A three year old?]

Phrase #12: “That being said”

[Why must you torture me like this?]

Phrase #13: “It’s on my bucket list”

[No, just no.]

You know, just creating this list was kind of cathartic. Maybe it works like aversion therapy. Forcing myself to write them down may have desensitized me a bit.

You should try it. List your most hated phrases below if you like. Get them off your chest. It’s a safe place here. We won’t judge… much.

In light of all the Ben Affleck as Batman hysteria on the interwebs today I thought you all could use a little salve to soothe your wounded souls.

Yes, yes I know Affleck is a horrible choice.

Yes, yes I know it’s going to suck.

Yes, yes I know you are upset.

But as I pointed out in a tweet earlier, all Superman movies suck.

So no need to get your shorts into THAT much of a twist.

It’s all going to be OK… I promise kids.

Take a deep breath and watch this.

P.S. – I’m actually starting to feel a tiny bit bad for the guy. I mean, if someone asked YOU to be Batman you’d probably have said yes too… right? Let’s just hope he’s not checked the web today. Hey Matt, distract your buddy for a few days until the hate dies down.

I know, it’s probably not a question that’s kept you up at night. But still, it’s a good one. “Can a “scary” spider’s mating dance actually be cute?”

Two words. HECK and YEAH.

Because my reaction to watching this little guy… an Australian Peacock spider… dance his tiny little spider tushy off was just that… “Awww adorable!”

He’s sweet little look of spidery earnestness grabbed my attention from the start.

His multiple eyes scanning the horizon for a female friend made me root for him right away.

But when he started his little attention getting side leg lifts… well, let’s just say someone ought to check my pulse because I’m pretty sure I died from the cute.

Then suddenly… BAM… the fan’o'color is released and that’s when this eighth of an inch long party REALLY gets started.

And when he finally breaks out his full-on butt-bobbing leg-shaking dance moves he somehow manages to be both impressive AND adorable.

Do you doubt the adorable? You won’t once you watch this.

And then take a look at some slow-mo dance action with musical accompaniment no less (fancy fancy).

Believe it or not I’ve posted about jumping spider dances before.

(I KNOW…crazy, huh? I have two…count them TWO… posts now that sport the tag mating dance. In my book that officially makes it “a thing.”)

If you want to hear the hidden part of this dance party you should check it out here.

And for even MORE spider fun check out this Look Ma I’m hidin’ spider.

[via Scientific American]

Not much to say about this one except…

- It’s shot from a dog’s perspective
- It made me grin
- And it might make you grin too

Oh, and if your easily offended I do have one word of warning there is a bad-ISH word used in it a number of times in a row.

(If you’re wondering what the bad word is… it’s a video from a boy dog perspective… use your imagination.)

Otherwise, it’s a dog… rapping… so enjoy!

[via: LaughingSquid]

Photographer and artist Michael Chung took some time-lapse video of the Perseid meteor shower.

That alone would have been worth watching. After all it was sure to be some beautiful footage of a rare event.

But when he reviewed the video he was stunned at what he had accidentally captured.

Chung had shot footage of what looks like a Perseid meteor exploding… resulting debris ring and all.

This incredible video, shot early in the morning of August 12th, literally gave me chills.

According to some in the know over at Universe Today this video appears to be the real deal.

Although, according to the article on Universe Today it is more accurately described as “a persistent train after a Perseids fireball, being torn apart by upper atmosphere wind shear.”

(How’s THAT for a mouthful. Memorize it and impress people at the next cocktail party you get dragged to.)

And although video of “persistent trains” (aw hell, I’m sticking with exploding meteors… it sounds WAY cooler) has been captured before, it’s rare and still stunning footage.

Wow, what an amazing Universe we live in.

What I want to know is if Whirlpool dreamed up the Robo-Vac back in the 1950′s why the heck did we have to wait so long to get ‘em?

Apparently in 1959 Whirlpool had the “Miracle Kitchen of the Future” on display at the American National Exhibition in Moscow.

The pic below (or what I like to refer to as Exhibit Number One) was part of a Look magazine article.

Take a gander. Just LOOK…there is a freakin’ robot vacuum right there!

So why did I need to wait to 2002 for iRobot to finally bring me my darn Roomba?

And oh, in case you should doubt me. In case you think I’ve just been doing some clever Photoshopping and I’m making this whole thing up. I did some digging and I present to you Exhibit Number Two… a video!

Oh, and notice the video is from two years BEFORE the Moscow display… 1957!

And while I’m complaining what about all that other STUFF they’re promising me in this little film? I want my dish-scraping self-propelled dish-washing robots and I want them NOW.

I want to be relaxing in MY pushbutton kitchen while my robots whip me up a full dinner and fabulous cake in three minutes flat and then clean up after themselves AND me.

I want to push a button and have a Magical Meal made for me. And I want self cleaning EVERYTHING.

OK, OK… it does appear that they dreamed up a few more cool things that people finally got around to making like CCTV/webcams, what sounds like a microwave oven (10 years before the first in-home models hit), automatic coffee (Keurig anyone?), and even an induction-like surface for cooking.

But still, I can’t help but feel a little cheated.

PS – Does it crack anyone else up that the lighting portion of the black and white film talks about the color changes that are happening?

I TOTALLY “stole” this from those cool kids over at Neatorama.. ’cause that’s how I roll.

And because… well they found it first.

So go take a spin around their site to make up for my thievery.

Now back to bizness.

This is an awesome little animation on the history of physics done by our buddies across the pond at the BBC.

Hosted by some guy by the name of Dara O Briain … (Which I totally read as Dara O BRAIN at first and got excited that he had such a cool name for voicing a physics video. But yeah, I was wrong. However, he does have a cool Irish accent… so there’s that) … I really love the style.

Ready to get smart? Enjoy!