Hey! So some of you saw an early preview of this video. Thanks for watching and offering your feedback. Hopefully I was able to incorporate your suggestions. This is of course an unpaid post because it was sponsored by Starbucks...
2019-08-16 17:11:56 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm really excited about this one - a deep dive into all the science of the Mars Helicopter, set to launch next year as part of the Mars 2020 mission.
2019-08-10 16:13:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Here is my next video, in which I try to make liquid nitrogen from scratch:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/quznd0pbbxmfunc/LiNi%20Wed%20night.mp4?dl=0
The video is sponsored so it gives me another chance to 'get it right'. I think this one is significantly better in that the sponsored sections are clearly delineated and most of the video obviously has very little to do with the...
2019-08-08 07:30:32 +0000 UTC View Post
The video I've linked shows your shade ball's life story. There are behind-the-scenes shots, things I cut from the video and some clips from the original video. I've really enjoyed this project so I hope you have too! I have a few hundred extra shade balls and I will mail them out this month to people who missed out the first time around. Please make sure your address is correctly entered in Patreon.com/pledges if you want to receive a shade ball.
*****
When I started on Patreon, ...
2019-08-02 22:58:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Here is my video celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
I travelled to the Nevada dessert to see the nuclear bomb craters that Neil and Buzz trained in... I also got to hold a sample of the moon dust from Apollo 11.
I'm really proud of this video so I hope you like it too.
On a shade ball sidetone, I have been enjoying receiving pictures (and video) of you receiving and opening shade balls. It really warms my heart (for some reason that doesn't seem ...
2019-07-19 19:45:45 +0000 UTC View PostThe United States Postal Service picked up all the balls today so they are now on their way to you.
- All patrons in all tiers in all countries who have a processed payment and an address in Patreon.com/pledges will receive a signed, numbered shade ball.
- In fact I have a few hundred left over.
- So yes, it's too late to change your address. I don't know how long they will take to get to you but I'd suspect a week or two, maybe more depending on how far away you are.
...
2019-07-16 05:54:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Check it out!
Sidenote about shade balls: Everyone who had a cleared payment at the start of July (and a shipping address entered) will be receiving a shade ball.
Plus people who signed up after my last video, even though no payment was charged I'm going to send you a shade ball anyway.
I'll respond to questions in the comments below...
2019-07-07 16:51:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Here it is! Thanks to everyone who made suggestions. I've incorporated them as much as I could. Hope you enjoy the video!
And thanks for supporting on Patreon! Now back to signing balls...
2019-06-21 21:11:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Welcome new patrons! Here is a video I'd like to launch in about 12 hours.
It's a draft so it's rough in spots. It will need some color grading, an animation here or there and possibly some additional music. But please let me know what you think and I'll do my best to incorporate your feedback.
And thanks!
2019-06-21 07:48:16 +0000 UTC View PostThe total number of Patrons is now 11,097. I have 9600 addresses and I believe 9600 shade balls. So in theory you should all be receiving a shade ball and there are no more to give out.
This makes a few assumptions:
1. All payments clear on the first of the month (I'm sure some won't so there may be some extra shade balls to go around).
2. I do actually have 9600 shade balls. I haven't counted them all yet but that is the number I paid for. I assume I got the right num...
2019-06-19 17:13:10 +0000 UTC View Post
My goal is to send a signed (and hopefully numbered) shade ball to every Patreon supporter, at every tier, everywhere in the world. I currently have 9508 patrons, but only 7833 addresses. This is likely because some supporters haven't entered their addresses yet but also because some supporters do not want a shade ball. THAT MEANS BALLS WILL STILL BE AVAILABLE AFTER WE REACH 10,000 PATRONS.
HOW DO I GET MY SHADE BALL?
If you DO want a shade ball, be sure you are support...
2019-06-14 19:59:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey! I'd love to get your thoughts on this one. Usual caveats apply: sound is unmixed, music is missing in places, on screen text to be added etc.
Looking forward to your ideas!
2019-06-12 16:32:41 +0000 UTC View Post
It will likely be signed by me and it may or may not be related to this picture. If you want to receive it, please enter your address on Patreon.
This is open to all support tiers and everyone who enters their address will receive something.
Thanks for your support!
Derek
2019-06-05 16:51:41 +0000 UTC View Post
My latest video is live - it's all about aerogel. Special thanks to all those who watched early and provided feedback. I've been finding it really helpful and I think it's really improved the quality of the videos.
I've really been enjoying making the videos with your thoughtful comments in mind. So thank you! And thank you for your on-going support.
Also, I have a plan to mail out some special souvenirs to all Patreon supporters at all support amounts. If you're interested in rec...
2019-06-01 05:08:54 +0000 UTC View Post
It's that time again. I'm rushing to finish a video before tomorrow morning. If you have a chance, I'd love to get your thoughts. I find the feedback here on Patreon always improves the quality of the videos. Note: I'm planning a section on applications for the end.
2019-05-31 02:52:12 +0000 UTC View Post
So this is something different, my genuine thoughts about what it's like to be a YouTuber, how the system is working right now, and what my plan is for the future.
I made it an unpaid post because it's not really about science, though I hope my approach to the system has been scientific.
2019-05-19 22:19:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Thank you for all of your input! I tried to incorporate as much feedback as possible. I think the video is much improved for it so I hope you like it.
2019-05-10 20:10:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey! So I'd like to post the final version of this video tomorrow. But first I need your help.
Feel free to make general suggestions or if you're looking for something to guide your feedback, try this:
0. Overall impressions
1. What you like / want to see more of
2. What you don't like or what's confusing/disorganized
3. Any other comments/questions you have - what would you like to know that isn't explored in the video?
Thank you!
Derek
2019-05-10 02:09:06 +0000 UTC View Post
So I had no idea this research was a thing until last week. There have been a number of papers published recently about the things you can do by manufacturing devices with particular magnetic properties.
You can drive them with external magnetic fields to grasp, roll, and jump. These could be used for internal medicine application.
Smaller robots have been shown to form swarms that can take many different forms to help them navigate the human body. There are even tiny magnetic 'tw...
2019-04-25 15:55:38 +0000 UTC View Post
What to expect when you're expecting... an image of a black hole.
I dug into the literature on this one, reading papers from the 70s to finally understand why that Interstellar black hole looks like it did (and what was wrong with it).
Hope you enjoy this video as it was made with a lot of love. Hopefully it presages what is to come with the Event Horizon Telescope tomorrow. My personal prediction is that we're going to see not just a single static image of a black hole but many s...
2019-04-09 16:10:21 +0000 UTC View Post
I don't normally show videos before they're done but this one is an exception. Here's a video about what you're really looking at when you see an image of a black hole. It's done in arts and crafts style.
I'd love to get your feedback. What do you like/hate? Is there anything that doesn't make sense.
If you don't want the final video spoiled, please don't watch this, but if you're interested and want to offer some suggestions, I'm editing now so now is a good time.
Thanks! 2019-04-09 05:59:31 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey! This is a video I've wanted to make for a long time but being sponsored by B&H gave me the impetus to do it. And for that reason it's also an unpaid post.
I was really fascinated to discover the history of electronic images and consider what has led to the present day and our ability to share almost every moment of our lives in high definition video with the whole world.
This is a huge topic so I had to make some judicious cuts but there is the potential for a part 2 in f...
2019-03-30 21:03:41 +0000 UTC View Post
This research was just published today. I'm delighted to be able to share it with you because it's a pretty amazing finding and the experimental setup is great! Let me know what you think.
2019-03-18 20:48:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Compliant mechanisms are devices with components that bend, normally a no-no in engineered devices. By using flexibility they achieve a number of advantages that I call the 8 P's of compliant mechanisms. I think this work is really cool and delighted I got the opportunity to share it with you. Hope you enjoy!
2019-03-12 19:04:45 +0000 UTC View Post
I have been interested in this research for a long time - can you recover audio information from image-only video?
This work was originally done at MIT by Dr. Abe Davis and colleagues. Abe was kind enough to revisit an experiment for me using code he hadn't touched in years. I learned a lot - it's way more sophisticated than looking for motion in the video (because these sound motions can't actually be seen - they're much smaller than a pixel).
This video had a significant sponsor...
2019-03-01 16:11:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Almost 8 years ago I made microwave plasma and posted it on YouTube! At the time I didn't have a very good explanation for it, because no one did. But a new paper published today explains the physics of this phenomenon and how better understanding it could lead to better microchips...
2019-02-18 23:30:39 +0000 UTC View Post
I know it sounds crazy but the more I dug into this question, the crazier it got. I have been obsessed with this topic for the past several weeks and I hope you'll agree the video reflects the incredible amount of passion that went into making it.
Please, if you like this video, share it with your friends. Share it with someone who has a salt lamp or really loves waterfalls. Or someone who is a super skeptic...
This is an unpaid post because of the significant sponsor.
2019-02-06 20:22:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Droplets levitating on a bath of liquid nitrogen are self-propelled by asymmetries that develop in the liquid nitrogen bath...
In this video I perform the experiment and talk to the researcher who just published an explanation of the effect.
2019-01-25 18:33:03 +0000 UTC View Post
What you don't see in the video is me interviewing the study's author (he was in a hotel room and the sound quality wasn't great) but I was delighted he took the time to talk to me. I also interviewed my General Relativity prof from the University of Sydney. He provided some much-needed perspective so I could make this video. It started out as a video about a discovery but I thought it was more valuable to express the state of the field. I hope I've captured that in this video. I spent a few ...
2019-01-12 05:00:19 +0000 UTC View Post
When two satellites were accidentally launched into elliptical orbits in 2014, scientists rushed to take advantage of their eccentric orbits to make the best test of general relativity. They found that clocks on board did indeed tick faster at higher altitudes and slower at lower altitudes as measured by clocks on Earth.
2018-12-23 18:25:40 +0000 UTC View Post