Because otters make everything better, this is a video of pet otters Kotaro and Hana (previously seen here experiencing a popcorn maker for the first time) reacting to a soap-bubble gun. They’re uncertain about it at first, but curiosity eventually gets the better of them (thank God they’re not cats) and they get up close and personal to experience all that bubbly fun. Good times. True story: I once made a bubble solution out of vodka and loaded it into a bubble gun and two hours of catching bubbles and gnats on my tongue later I still wasn’t drunk. Not the worst Saturday afternoon, but certainly not the best either.

Take a trip down memory lane all the way back to 2001 with this BBC news report about the upcoming release of cameraphones — phones that can take and send photos in addition to text messages. The future! I love how the multimedia message the guy sends in the video is a whopping 7kB. Talk about high resolution! Now I’m not saying my girlfriend and I immediately embraced the new technology and basically invented modern sexting, but I did have a hard time figuring out what I was looking at. It’s a boob! I think it’s a boob. Is it a boob? She might just be at Target.

This is a video of musician Jared Halley performing all the individual instrumental parts (including vocals) of Green Day’s 1992 banger ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ acapella, combining them into a multi-track performance of the entire song. That’s neat. You know, I always fancied my voice a bass guitar. It’s deep. The kind of voice that they’d use for God in movies if they weren’t afraid of making God sound TOO godly. “He sounds like the adults in Peanuts cartoons.” Dammit honey, you’re just used to it.

Inspired by the very real roller coaster Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point, this is a video of Venomeater123 (is that venom-eater or veno-meater?) demonstrating the miniature version he build using K’Nex. It took him almost a year to construct, which doesn’t surprise me, because that thing is massive. What would surprise me is if it only took an afternoon. I wonder how much money all those pieces cost. I also wonder if there’s a profit to be made selling K’Nex on the blackmarket, and if Veno-Meater keeps his basement door locked.

30-year old Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey has created a virtual reality headset that kills a user in real life if they die in-game, by exploding their head. Finally, the high-stakes video gaming I’ve been waiting for! Some more information about the headset while I wonder what Facebook’s next move will be in bungling their ownership of Oculus:

I used three of the explosive charge modules I usually use for a different project, tying them to a narrow-band photosensor that can detect when the screen flashes red at a specific frequency, making game-over integration on the part of the developer very easy. When an appropriate game-over screen is displayed, the charges fire, instantly destroying the brain of the user.

The idea of tying your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me – you instantly raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players inside it. Pumped up graphics might make a game look more real, but only the threat of serious consequences can make a game feel real to you and every other person in the game.

Obviously, this has Squid Games II written all over it. Would you participate in VR Squid Games? I would. I mean as long as you aren’t required to use one of those omnidirectional treadmills and actually run around, because I’m only participating if I can sit and play. I’m sorry, but I’ve just always imagined my head exploding sitting down.

This is a video of a pipe laborer in New Orleans demonstrating how a high pressure pipe can be repaired while running using a clamping metal sleeve with its own pressure release fitting, which can be closed once the collar is secured in place. Honestly, every time I think about it I find it mind-blowing we have running water in our homes at all. The things we take for granted.