SPOILER ALERT: These articles may describe what goes on in the videos!

Car Tire Runs Over Discs, Bottles, a Melon, and More

I watched the “Crushing Crunchy & Soft Things by Car! Experiment Car vs Color Disk” video from the Experiment with Everythings channel:

In this video a car tire is shown running over various things. As far as I can tell, the things include tomatoes, some kind of discs like CDs or DVDs, drink containers, bottles containing some kind of sauce, capped drink bottles, foam food containers, a melon, juice boxes, a plastic toy, an alarm clock, a plastic skull decoration, instant noodles, and some other things I couldn’t recognize!

The tomatoes made a big mess. I wouldn’t try this at home because it looks like a hassle to clean up, plus it could be risky. I still think that it was an entertaining video to watch, though!

  • Karl

Lookner Channel Sickness, Live Streaming Update from Boston

27 Nov 2019 - 2 minutes

Steve Lookner of the Lookner channel on YouTube has created a new live stream video entitled “Sickness & Mobile Live Streaming Update from Boston”.

In this video Steve is still in front of a green screen. He says that on his phone and his iPad he was getting a message saying his account isn’t eligible for live streaming. But recently a “live” button showed up, and he thought that live streaming was working. But when he tries to do a live stream after clicking the button, he got the eligibility error message again! So he says there is still no live streaming, although maybe some progress is being made.

The Lookner channel’s YouTube page does now have the “Community” tab enabled, however. He asks if anyone got the message he posted there. He also demonstrates how to use the YouTube “SUBSCRIBE” button, and also how to use the bell button to get notifications, too. He talks about notifications in general. He thinks that the Discord channel should give notifications soon.

Steve moves on to talking about how he has been sick lately. It’s day three, or more, of being sick. He says he’s had terrible sleep, getting only 5 hours in bursts of 1 hour, but he also says he’s feeling a little better. He’s staying with his mother, so he sees her often, but he hasn’t been able to see his father who is in a care facility. He also hasn’t seen one of his brothers and his brother’s family, as he doesn’t want to risk them getting sick.

He also gives a monetization update. The channel needs 4,000 viewer hours to apply for monetization, and it’s now at about 3,500 watch hours. So he’s hopeful that he’ll soon be able to apply for monetization, but expects it might take up to a month before it’s enabled. He discusses the monetization process. He talks about community notifications, and how they might not work on iPads. Steve also answers various questions from viewers, and chats about various topics.

Even when he’s sick, or recovering from being sick, I think Steve puts on an interesting live stream! I’m looking forward to seeing some Lookner channel live streams once live streaming is enabled for his phone. It sure sounds like it’s close to being enabled! Get well soon, Steve.

  • Karl

Lookner Channel Live Stream About Being Sick

25 Nov 2019 - 6 minutes

There’s a new live stream video out from Steve Lookner of the Lookner channel on YouTube. It’s entitled “I’m Sick”:

Steve is in Boston, and he says he’s sick. He thought he was getting sick the day before, but now is definitely sick. He says he has a cough, runny nose, pains, digestive problems, exhaustion, and “a little bit of everything”, but will be doing a live stream anyway.

He mentions that he often gets sick when three things happen: 1) he travels, 2) he’s very busy, and 3) when the weather is cold. All three things have happened to him recently.

Because he’s sick, he isn’t visiting his relatives, to avoid getting them sick, too. Somebody in the live chat suggests he try some chicken soup. He talks about some sugar-free Ricola cough drops he got.

Steve is still waiting for live streaming to be enabled for his phone. He also talks about how his mother made some Thanksgiving stuffing a few days early.

In the live chat he’s asked about why he has to watch his weight. He explains that 5 or 6 years earlier he went for an annual checkup, and the doctor looked at his vitals and noticed that Steve had gained 20 lbs in a year for no obvious reason at all. Some tests didn’t find anything wrong, so it looked like his metabolism had slowed down. Steve says he had to change his diet, and couldn’t eat the same things he had been eating. He had to give up caffeine and desserts, and tries to avoid pizza, white bread, white rice, and fried food.

Steve also says he used to like drinking pop for lunch, and thinks he might have been addicted to caffeine. He would get headaches if he didn’t get caffeine. He’s happy that he gave it up, saying he sleeps better, and has fewer highs and lows. He does miss pop, though, along with clam chowder and ice cream.

He talks about how he usually uses hand sanitizer on the plane while flying. He also says he can’t visit his dad who is currently in a care facility, because he doesn’t want to get anyone where sick. When he’s sick he says he needs more sleep, but being sick makes sleep harder. He talks about how he doesn’t like to take certain medications, because they make him feel knocked out and tired.

Steve moves on to talking about how he wanted to do the live stream somewhere else, but YouTube hasn’t enabled live streaming from his phone yet. He says he doesn’t want to do all of his videos in front of a green screen. He wants to go out and film elsewhere. Steve gets on the topic of the t-shirts he wears. He likes solid color Old Navy shirts. For some reason he finds that gray and black colored shirts are not as comfortable to him as navy blue ones are, possibly due to being made out of different fabrics. He says that gray is never as soft as blue, and wishes that the gray and black shirts were more comfortable.

A viewer suggests he do live call-ins. Steve says he can’t, because he doesn’t know who would be calling in, and he can’t stream calls while live streaming. It would be more technically complex, too. He starts coughing, and asks the viewers to vote in the live chat whether or not he should use a cough drop while talking on the live stream. The viewers vote yes, even if there are annoying noises. He says that he never eats on air. He did it once, and it was a disaster. He also says he doesn’t like tea, and tends to drink water.

Steve gives a monetization update. The channel needs 4,000 watch hours before it’s enabled, and earlier it was at 2,600 watch hours. He hopes he will soon be able to apply for monetization. He responds to some viewer comments from the live chat.

He talks about a news story he had covered earlier on Agenda-Free TV, involving a police standof with a veteran in New York. The chat room discussion got very heated at the time. So he’s considering doing news reports on Agenda-Free TV, and then immediately after doing a post-show show on the Lookner channel. He was going to do it, but was too sick. He’s surprised about how much attention that story got, though. Steve says he would do late-night chat streams if he knew viewers would donate. He says he has limited resources, and has to put a focus on things that will help cover his expenses.

A viewer asks in the live chat what Steve would be doing for a living if he wasn’t making content for his Agenda-Free TV and Lookner channels. He says he doesn’t know. Before RSBN, he was in grad school for philosophy, working on getting a PhD. They would pay him to attend, and he’s give teaching help. He wasn’t sure what he would do with a PhD if he got it, and was about a year away from getting it. He says he has two master’s degrees in philosophy, with one of them coming through the PhD program.

Steve is also asked if he would get back into comedy writing. He says he doesn’t know, and might talk about it in another live stream. He used to be a TV show writer, but says that as a writer you don’t always have a lot of control when writing for a show. He likes the freedom of his own channels.

He also talks about taking seven or eight months to write and publish some comedy books when he was in grad school. It was a fun experience to create things, he said. He had wanted to write a book, so he did it. His personal favorite of his own books is “The Fault in Our Pants”, a parody of “The Fault in Our Stars”. He says he liked it because he wrote a parody about a book that he didn’t think would typically be parodied. Another of his own books that he likes is “The Lightning Fart”. He describes it as having the strongest plot underlying it. His friend made the cover for the book, and got him an agent. The agent’s son read the book and liked it, so the agent tried to get a book company to buy it, but none would. Steve says he might do a favorite books stream sometime.

One of the viewers suggests in the live chat that Steve make a “hot toddy”. Another suggests that he eat some pineapple. Steve says that he did buy some earlier, and may have some. He thought about streaming from bed while being sick, but doesn’t have live streaming enabled yet from his phone. He says that he doesn’t usually have time to sit and watch TV, but he did it for the first time in a while while sick. He also says that doing the live stream helps keep him distracted from being sick! Steve asks the viewers about personal steam inhalers, and gets some other suggestions from the viewers about how to inhale steam.

I think that this was an interesting stream. I think it helped the audience to get to know Steve better. And I hope he starts to feel better again soon!

  • Karl

Lookner Channel Update from Boston

24 Nov 2019 - 4 minutes

Steve Lookner of the Lookner channel on YouTube has created a live stream video entitled “Boston Update: Why I’ve Been So Busy - LIVE STREAM”.

He mentions that he came back to Boston on Tuesday evening, and wants to explain why he hasn’t been able to stream news. It turns out he has been very busy with a variety of activities.

On Wednesday and Thursday he says he had a college-related event. When he was in college, he was on a humor magazine called the Harvard Lampoon. He says there is an event where graduates come back and meet with newly elected members. He thinks it’s important for him to attend because he benefited from the presence of older members when he first joined.

He also explains that his family is all in the Boston area, and that his father is having some health issues and is in a care facility and no longer at home. So Steve has had to split time between seeing his mother at home, and seeing his father at the care facility. He’s also trying to see both of his siblings and their families.

Steve doesn’t want the channels to grind to a halt. He would have covered other news on Agenda-Free TV if he hadn’t been so busy. He says that Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday, and it’s a big family event that will likely have 40 or more people. He also has a high school reunion on Friday. With all of these things going on at once during his trip, he can’t get on the air as much as he would like, and apologizes for this.

A viewer asks why Steve doesn’t just live in Boston, instead of Atlanta. He says that he really hates the cold, and feels sicker when it’s cold outside. Sometimes he even finds Atlanta to be too cold, and has considered moving somewhere warmer, such as Florida. He says that he plans to do a stream on the Lookner channel about possibly moving somewhere else, and what his requirements would be.

He’s still waiting for YouTube to activate live streaming on his phone for the Lookner channel. Once it’s activated, he can then do things outside the studio while live streaming. With his current set up he’s tied to streaming from a computer, which is limiting. He says that part of the reason for creating the second channel was to get out of the studio.

Steve says that he’s grateful that his parents are still alive, as many friends he has have lost one or both parents, so he’s trying to see his father as much as possible.

The idea of getting a second host for Agenda-Free TV comes up. Steve says maybe it’ll happen some day, but currently he thinks it would be too complex to find somebody who’s qualified, and to then train them and get a studio set up. He also doesn’t have the money to pay them.

He says that he also has to figure out the moderation situation for the Lookner channel, such as how it will work and how people will become moderators. He also says the channel still needs more watch hours before monetization is possible, so he’s waiting for them to accumulate. There are lots of different things he wants to try out, such as different types of content, but he needs live streaming from his phone to be enabled first. He wants to do a stream where people meet the dog, for example.

Steve mentions that after the stream he’ll be having dinner with his mother, and he is thinking of doing a news stream after that. He wants to cover the Hong Kong elections, but the timing is unusual for somebody in Boston, where Steve currently is. A viewer asks where Steve will be going for dinner, and Steve says probably Chinese food. He likes it in Boston, but not in Atlanta.

He reads and responds to various viewer questions and comments in the live chat. He also talks about the COPPA-related changes coming to YouTube and if they’ll apply to his channels. He think that toy review channels might be affected, as the restrictions are significant. He thinks he’ll have to read more about it.

Steve recaps the current situation with the new Lookner channel, where he’s still waiting on the activation of live streaming on his phone, but he does want to make more content, and will be busy for the next week or so while in Boston. He thanks the viewers, and mentions that he loves sushi, but it’s too expensive. If he had lots of money one live-changing thing he would do would be to eat more sushi.

I think that this was an informative news stream. It gives the viewers a better sense of what’s going on with Agenda-Free TV and the new Lookner channel. I hope that Steve is able to get streaming on his phone enabled soon, so that he can make more content. I also hope that his father is doing ok.

  • Karl

Paul from Langfocus Teaches Us About the Norwegian Language

22 Nov 2019 - 1 minutes

Today I watched the video “Norwegian! A North Germanic Language of Norway” from the Langfocus YouTube channel:

In this video, Paul gives us an overview of the Norwegian language. I found it to be informative because I didn’t know a lot about the Norwegian language before watching this video.

Paul explains the origin of the language, and how it has two standards, BokmÃ¥l and Nynorsk. He also gives us a brief explanation about the language’s grammar.

I don’t think I understood the grammar part very well, probably because I’m not a linguist. But I think the first part of the video was easy to understand, and I learned a lot from it. Overall, I think it was an interesting video.

Thanks, Paul from Langfocus!

  • Karl