You can learn anything on Youtube; well almost anything
The social phenomenon is nothing short of, well……a phenomenon. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and all the rest. Great stuff indeed. But this weekend I was really impressed with the notion that rather than watch people get blown up by airbag pranks gone awry, if you really search you can find a how to for just about anything. In my case it was as simple as installing a steering wheel on a classic car. Who knew that one could and would find this on YOUTUBE. I did, I watched and it worked. So today at work and at lunch I started searching for other people and or sites that felt the same way. I came across this today which is re printed below aptly entitled 10 Things You Can Learn on YouTube!
After reading this I decided to search for anything on YOUTUBE about nightclub design and or how to open a nightclub. Nothing, nada. basta, zilch. So here’s my plan. I’ve a friend who has a photo production company and has an amazing outdoor studio and since Bigtime Design is located in Miami Florida why not shoot a series myself handheld camera and all on the ins and outs of nightclub design and the business of opening a nightclub and publish it on YOUTUBE. After all, as compared to how to gut a fish or how to change your oil I’m thinking this would be a whole lot more entertaining.
You can read the original article here http://voices.yahoo.com/10-things-learn-youtube-1692101.html
It turns out, YouTube isn’t just a repository for videos of people singing off-key, motorcycle crashes and Rickrolling. You can actually learn things on YouTube: Real things that you might want to know.
It all started when my husband took my son trout fishing. They stock the rivers and bigger streams around here, and right after that it’s supposed to be easy to catch trout. But they didn’t catch one. Some other fisherman felt bad for them, so he gave them one of his. A whole trout: head, guts and all. I had no idea what to do with it. So I turned to YouTube, and found several videos showing not only how to gut it, but how to fillet it and how to cook it.
It occurred to me that there might be lots of things you could learn on YouTube. I did a search, and I learned a couple of things about YouTube as well as how to do 10 things I didn’t know how to do before I started.
First, I learned that you can probably learn almost anything on YouTube. I found videos for all of the things I searched for. The challenge was to pick the best ones.
Second, I learned that YouTube recommends related videos to you, based on what you’re watching. That’s how I found the video on how to cook stuffed trout (you’ll have to find that one for yourself, I didn’t include a link to that one). That’s how I found the robot one, below, as well – YouTube thinks it’s related to the Rubik’s Cube video, somehow.
Third, I learned that YouTube allows you to subscribe to other user’s videos, which means you’ll be notified if that user posts a new video. Many of the how-to videos are made by people who make similar videos. The bread videos are examples of that, and the Make magazine people have a lot of videos on a wide range of interesting topics. You have to have a YouTube user account in order to subscribe, but it’s free and easy to set up. I learned how to do it from one of my children.
So, without further ado, here are 10 things you can learn on YouTube:
How to gut a trout. This is not for the squeamish. The guy does it right in the boat; the trout is not even dead yet. I warned you.
How to solve Rubik’s Cube (part 1 and part 2). This one includes instructions (algorithms) which you might want to copy down; they are over to the right, not part of the video. This one has 2 parts because YouTube limits how long videos can be.
How to make a cool little robot out of the head of a toothbrush (a robot that actually works, or at least, walks, if you are able to get your hands on all the parts).
How to make a messenger bag out of recycled plastic bags. This one is really cool, because you can use the procedure at the beginning of the video to make fused plastic that you could then make a lot of different items with.
How to make a catapult. This one is a guy thing. I’m deathly afraid my sons will find this video and build one and shoot each other with it.
How to make craft flowers with a small circular loom. To make up for the guy video above, here’s one no guy would want to be caught dead watching. This looks so simple and so beautiful, I’d like to try it right away.
How to make Naan bread. I’ve seen these breads in grocery stores. This Indian woman has a lot of videos on how to make various kinds of Indian food, and it’s made right in her kitchen, using ingredients and equipment we can easily get here in the States.
How to change the oil in your car. Okay, I don’t want to do this myself. And I also thought I knew basically how to do it. This video actually shows you how to let the oil drain out, where the oil filter is located (well, at least in the car they used when they filmed it) and it’s also entertaining.
How to French braid hair. If you have a daughter, this is a must-see. They show you how to do it step by step; they even freeze frame the video and point out which fingers should be holding which strands of hair, so you can really understand how to separate hair into 3 sections and manage to hold them and braid the hair, despite the fact that you only have 2 hands. This is a very helpful video.
How to make Italian bread. This one has several parts, and is shown in a bakery kitchen, not a home kitchen, but I still think you can learn something from it. I’m including a link to the user’s page because it’s easier to find all the parts that way.
How to make cheese. Really. You can make your own cheese, and all you need is milk, buttermilk, lemon juice and salt. You also need cheese cloth, but other than that, you don’t need any special equipment. The man in the video did say it’s not going to save you money to make it versus buying it in a store, but it would still be fun to be able to say you made your own cheese.
Before I started working on this article, I wrote the title. I knew I would limit this to just 10 things. But I would have found many more if I had continued. I encourage you to search YouTube yourself, and find out how to do something you’ve always wanted to learn.