Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Latest Distraction: Astronaut.io

I found something recently that has been an entirely too hypnotic waste of time. Go here:

astronaut.io

This site will find videos on YouTube that have no views, then drop into a random location and play about five seconds. It continues to do this in a never-ending stream, and the effect is bizarre.

First of all, all the videos shown tend to be people, or homemade. Actually, a majority of the videos are peoples’ kids, which is a testament to the futility of taking videos of your kids. But it reminds me of those found photos sites like Internet K-Hole, that have endless candid snapshots taken at malls or parties back in the mid-Eighties. There’s a certain personal aspect to it, and to just dump in the middle of a home movie is chaotic and bizarre and wonderful. It is like an experimental James Benning movie, but continues forever.

OK, just for fun — I’ve had this running in the background for a while, and I’ll rattle off a quick description of what’s showing:

  • A shot of some mountains out of the window os a plane.
  • A dog running in the snow in a back yard.
  • A Chinese toddler beating a Fischer-Price cash register.
  • Eight grade school girls playing what sounds like a Jewish folk tune on violins.
  • A guy from what looks like a former Soviet satellite country trying to pull a train car on a rope.
  • A kid and grandfather with a remote control plane.
  • Someone skiing down a slalom run.
  • An guy talking in Arabic at a podium with four microphones.
  • Someone explaining physics homework on a whiteboard in German.
  • A girl doing horse dressage.
  • A college stoner dude doing a video essay for a class.
  • A golden retriever running back and forth in a yard.
  • A girl in a class explaining what the ACL ligament is.
  • Some people playing a TV trivia game.
  • Two french toddlers rapping.
  • An elementary school talent show with a girl dancing back and forth.
  • Someone cooking Alfredo pasta.
  • A fat guy on an Oculus Rift.
  • A walkthrough of a house under construction.
  • Four Vietnamese guys in a grass hut.
  • A guy talking in Spanish while shampooing a woman’s hair in a salon.
  • A Pop-Warner football game, shot from about 9,000 feet away.
  • Someone installing an engine in a small general aviation plane.
  • The worst Led Zeppelin cover band imaginable.
  • Someone filming a baby stroller.
  • An Indian video about gluten-free diets.
  • Someone in Spain playing NBA 2K.
  • Two white guys rapping at a beach that looks like Racine, Wisconsin.
  • A choir in an adventist church in what looks like Bali.

…and so on.

This reminds me of one time when I had the bright idea of searching google for IMG_1954 and seeing what came up. But this is a thousand times better. Check it out.

 


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