Following on from the video that I posted yesterday, @vidyut sent me this…..
The video caused a bit of a storm on Twitter, with some people saying that it was one of the most amazing things they had ever seen, and others thinking that the person who created it was sad for wasting so much time on a meaningless video.
So, let’s vote on it, what do you think? Amazing or sad?
Richard Wiseman 
What else is life for if it isn’t for this kind of thing?
exactly Jak.
It is a result of amazing imagination, creativity and of-course great amount of effort
I only agree with the last part. It’s effort that could have been spent doing something more worthwhile. There have been better, much better, efforts at making dominoes fall.
Completely agree with Jak. Anyone who thinks it’s a waste of time to create something exciting, imaginative and beautiful, and better yet intending to share that creation, has in my opinion lost sight of what’s important in life. I’m not saying this is an Important Piece Of Work. It’s not. Its beauty is its pointlessness, just being done for the joy of doing it.
Anyone who thinks this is sad ought to consider professional help. If this does not delight you, then you may be depressed.
Indeed. And pull their head out of the ass and smell the fresh air.
This was brilliant.
I have a hunch that if this had been a video for OK GO or an advert for Honda, far fewer people would have dismissed it as sad.
And where did OK GO get their start but by doing things like this, eh?
Sad? Sad?! What is sad about it? This is orthogonal to sad. But isn’t it is so sweet how some people are so deeply concerned about how others spend their time that they believe it is a good use of their own time to declare when they believe others are wasting it. And with that comment, I guess I just did the same thing…
If that’s sad, then what about over 2 years and 8 months time wasted together by over 305 thousands of people all over the world already? (Wonder how much more time will be spent by people on that video).
He did a great job giving a fleeting moment of joy and wonder not only for himself, but for hundreds of thousands of people.
Thumbs up!
It’s a form of art, and, in my humble opinion, far more worthy of praise than people who paint a red square, a green triangle and a yellow circle on a bit of paper in about half an hour and sell it for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
I’ve never really been a big fan of art, but I do appreciate things that take a lot of time and effort, regardless of how ultimately “pointless” the thing is.
That’s awesome. Reminds me of Domino Day, but they use hundreds of builders. This guy did all that on his own? That’s dedication!
I was thinking it reminded me of Domino Day too! That’s definitely the ultimate in crazy creative “destruction”.
Anyone who thinks that’s sad basically shouldn’t be on the Internet.
Clearly, it’s sad.
Now if you’ll excuse me, _Jersey Shore_ is on.
🙂
Win.
Impressive that anybody can envision this sort of structure and then have the patience to build it. I particularly love the segments where things seem to explode upwards.
“Sad”? It never ceases to amaze me how judgmental we can be of how others spend their leisure time. Some people consider this video sad, but I wonder how many of them spend hours following and arguing about (but not playing) sports? Or fixing old cars? Or playing online games (I’m “guilty” of that one)? If you enjoy doing something and are doing neither yourself nor anyone else any harm in the process, just enjoy it and don’t worry about what others think or how they’re spending *their* free time.
And how is this video worthless? Others here have called it art, I say it’s a fantastic science demonstration – kinetics, chain reactions, physics, mass… any number of concepts are at play here! Show this in science classes, use it to get kids excited!
My thoughts exactly. They used their brains in an active and creative way, created something that entertains people and can even be educational. How is that wasting time when compared with the millions of hours spent watching TV by most Americans (and a lot of Europeans too, I expect). At least making this video kept them active and engaged. Now as to the total quality of this video, I think it went a little long to keep my interest in what was happening. I wonder if the video had been two minutes shorter, but probably required almost as much creation time, if people would still be calling it a sad waste of time?
Here’s a great video with some commentary on the phenomenon of thinking that activities outside the mainstream are a waste of time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIoJLVbkWd4
I clicked the amazing option, but that’s because I definitely don’t consider it sad. I’d love to have to option to vote for really cool as an option. The reason I don’t say outright amazing is because I’m a cynic. The video is cut apart and we’re never given a wide shot of everything at once, which really makes me think that it was set up and shot in smaller pieces and then assembled together as the video. It’s essentially a Rube-Goldberg (sp?) machine done very well, but I’d still like it better if it was either one continuous shot or if we were shown everything at the beginning.
For purposes of filming the presentation, it would have been necessary to have the fixed cameras set on close up shots of areas of interest. It would be nice to have also had a camera set in the back of the room to get a wide shot that could verify that it happened in one shot.
As Adam said above, it would have been nice if it had been shot in a single take, with no cuts – just pans, tilts and zooms.
How did they do the jumping stick sequences at 2:50-3:00 and 4:20-4:30? The sticks look flat on the floor, so how are they configured so they jump up?
Never mind – I just looked at the comments for the previous blog entry…
This video does set off all sorts of “internet crazy” alarms, certain elements just jump out to tell you that everything is not quite right with this guy. However, the content of the video in itself is delightful and amazing.
How so? He does speak in a bit of a monotone voice in his other video, but I wouldn’t consider that crazy, really. He seems like a nice, quirky guy.
By which I don’t mean to imply that his voice sounds crazy or anything, just that I’m grasping at straws here and that’s the only thing that stood out to me.
The ominous music, the multiplied stick sounds, certain elements of the device(the giant creepy face for example), the “woo hoo” at the end. You usually see elements like those in “internet crazy” videos. I’m not saying this guy is, for all I know, he is just a guy that loves building giant domino contraptions, but this is the impression the video leaves me 😛
The face at about 3 minutes in? That doesn’t look creepy to me, it looks whimsical. I don’t know, all those things that stand out as crazy to you stand out as fun to me. If that’s crazy, I probably hang out with crazy people exclusively, because it seems quite normal to me. A bit geeky, maybe, but not crazy.
yep….no one on twitter wastes time…
Sorry, not available in my region because of copyright violations…….
…and that is both amazing and sad
Next year millions of people will sit and watch other people in a stadium do all sorts of pointless things, including literally running round in circles. Is that sad too? If so why are we are paying a billion quid for that to happen?
I predict some people will say they learned some valuable lessons about motiviation from watching the olympics. I happen to be more inspired by the self-motivation evident in this video. And it’s a lot cheaper.
This is the internet. Things don’t have to have meaning.
What a staggering amount of work went into that. Impressive job.
I agree with Jim Holmes; I found a lot to be inspired by while watching that amazing display.
The little ‘woohoo’ at the end just sealed the absolute awesomeness of this video. Creative, imaginative and fun. A child’s sense of joy in the world and in his own creations.
Anyone who thinks this is sad is beyond help.
If the guy who made this feels amazing, who are we to tell him that he should be sad?
+1
This was no more a waste of time than every “most liked” Justin Beeber or Katy Perry music video. It was thoroughly fun to watch and therefor a win in my mind.
And you know what? Every comment that this was a waste of time was still a view, so thank them for the controversy they’ve made this video as popular as it is.
Amazing, Creative and FUN!!!! Loved it! (it was a tiny tad long, but still great!!!)
Anyway, I wouldn’t like to be the one that cleans everything up when finished 🙂
It’s obvious this guy doesn’t have kids!
The gentleman who is the creator of these pieces, is kind, gentle, caring, a productive member of society, and someone who just loves to play with the science of kinetics. He does not harm anything or anyone, rather he makes many of us smile.
There is no question that this act is nothing short of amazing! We should all be so concerned with doing something harmless and smile inducing.
The gentleman who is the creator of these pieces, is kind, gentle, caring, a productive member of society, and someone who just loves to play with the science of kinetics. He does not harm anything or anyone, rather he makes many of us smile.
There is no question that this act is nothing short of amazing! We should all be so concerned with doing something harmless and smile inducing.
You know what’s a waste of time? The two hours I spent last night going through assorted papers, bills, and receipts deciding what I needed to keep, what should be shredded, and what could just go in the recycle bin, all because so many companies out there can’t seem to get a handle on the notion of “computers” and the “internet” and do away with all the garbage they mail out. Or the 20 seconds a day sorting the junk mail from the important mail and tossing it in the recycle bin (although lately it’s more and more junk and I’m thinking of just putting the recycle bin under the mail slot). Or the time spent counting out pennies and nickels to pay for things when their real value is far less than the smallest denomination we had fifty years ago. Doing something you enjoy, creating happiness for someone else, these things are never a waste of time. A waste of time is the stuff you are forced to do because of legacy processes and poor decision making by others.
Why does some people think it is sad? Just because they don’t understand this guy’s passion or hobbies (could be more than one person tho). If it makes him (them) feel good to be doing those things… what is bad about it? Some people will prefer to collect stamps, others will play video games, others will paint. We should respect everyone’s passion… There’s nothing sad here, it’s just a guy (or a bunch of people) who had a good time creating this and showing it to people… To me, it’s amazing!!
If it’s sad to be “wasting so much time on a meaningless” project, then all art is going to be sad.
I think those people have confused “meaningless” with “economically unproductive”. All entertainment is essentially “meaningless” then.
BTW, there is a well known Japanese TV program that does the similar thing. It is aired in between children’s programming. It is thought to be neurologically stimulating.
That Japanese program is called Pythagora Switch (Pitagora Suitchi I believe) and their little 30 – 60 second Rube Goldberg contraptions are wonderful and actually show numerous concepts in action. Here’s one of tons of examples on YouTube. Watch one and you’ll be stuck for an hour going through them all…
Thought it was cool. I liked the part (starting at 4:12) where the things fell, hit the glass tubes, and sounded like a xylophone, maybe for the next one- he can get it to play a tune – like “Happy Birthday” for someone’s special day!
people do realise that this isn’t one big chain of dominoes/sticks, right? and is actually loads of little sequences played one after another to look like it is one massive chain?
still watched the whole 4 minutes though and was entertained throughout, i’d like to see the people who thought this was sad keep my attention for that long with a video
It would be sad if he did it just for the video – but clearly this is something he would have done whether there was a camera or not. And how sad is it that he has this much free time? That many humans are no longer chained to slaving from dawn to dusk just to survive?
It’s great that he did something he loved.
Nothing that brings people joy is a waste of time.
This brought me joy, and it clearly did so for the person who made it as well.
Anyone who thinks that doing something that brings enjoyment to your life is sad needs professional help. There is much more to life than just work or “doing something meaningful”, everyone needs to have fun. Some people do soduku puzzles, some people sky dive, and some people make chain reactions out of dominos and popsicle sticks.
This was created by the Kinetic King, he was on “America’s Got Talent” – Season 6
Kinetic King on “America’s Got Talent” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueLxYKP5UzU
It gives pleasure. It needs no more excuse than that. That video probably took considerably less time to set up than the making of a hand drawn or a stop action animation video. I can’t even understand the mindset that would call this sad.
… not available in my country due to the music…
first love the woo hoo at the end. also i can totally see how that could be the end of the world. well done…very well done.
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