Sundance, Yeshiva, Yang, Energy, Birth
Sundance 2016
Jim Cummings | Vimeo | 8th July 2016
Documentary about filmmaker Jim Cummings and his entourage attending the Sundance festival that we gradually realize is not a documentary, but a short horror film (albeit one actually filmed at Sundance). What seems like a playfully combative relationship between filmmaker and manager turns ugly, blurring the line between fiction and reality. Wonderful slow burn (31m 09s)
My Son's Yeshiva Is Breaking The Law
The New York Times | YouTube | 12th April 2021
At New York yeshivas (orthodox Jewish boys' schools), students are not being given a basic education ("I didn't learn enough history to even know who Martin Luther King was"), but because these communities vote as a bloc, politicians don't want to step on their toes. "When I left the yeshiva system, I had no idea how to get into the job market and I didn't feel like I had any options" (3m 37s)
Political Polarization & Andrew Yang
Ideas Sleep Furiously | YouTube | 11th April 2021
Do we choose our political beliefs? As studies have shown, probably a lot less than we think—and perhaps recognizing this fact will help de-polarize American politics. "Political belief is much more like sexuality than choosing a football team," and accepting this may be the key to a "more tolerant and kinder civil society" (5m 17s)
Do We Need Nuclear Energy To Stop Climate Change?
Kurzgesagt | YouTube | 13th April 2021
Weighing mankind's options: "If we're going to electrify sectors that currently use fossil fuels, like cars or heating, we will need significantly more electricity than we're currently using everywhere around the world." Nuclear energy is efficient but "more expensive to build and maintain than most fossil fuel alternatives," thus requiring innovation (10m 42s)
Mesmerizing Video Of The Week
The birth of the sun, Earth, universe and life itself in one minute
Browser Video Of The Week
David Hargreaves on the biggest change in his thinking from the writing of his book As We Were: The First World War. "The war was enormous for everyone in each nation, enormous to an extant I don't think any of us can imagine. Choices were so radically constricted or even extinguished, and living with the reality that we basically have to operate within incredibly narrow parameters" (1m 41s)
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