Amazing Deaf Woman Who Now Hears Meets Ellen Degeneres

Sarah Churman (she has her own blog) should be an inspiration to us all. Deaf her entire 29 years she recently had a procedure done in one of ears that allowed her to hear for the very first time. I saw the video she posted to YouTube a few weeks ago and was deeply moved. I don't know her and will probably never meet her; but seeing her hear for the very first time was just spectacular. The miracle of modern medicine really is just that, a miracle. I'm not the only one that has been moved, her video has already seen over 8 million views; and her original posting has already been copied to other YouTube accounts where hundreds of thousands of views have been logged. She has become an internet sensation. 

Ellen Dengeres obviously thought so and invited Ms. Churman to appear on her show not too long ago. Through the interview you learn a few things about Ms. Churman and her family. You learn that the procedure cost $30,000 per ear and isn't covered by insurance. Ms. Churman and her husband couldn't afford such an expensive surgery, much less two of them, so her mother-in-law cashed in a small retirement savings so that they could borrow the money for the 1st surgery.

Ellen apparently learned this in advance of the interview and through a little magic of her own worked with Envoy Medical, provider of this new ocular implant, to provide the next implant free. Ellen and Envoy didn't stop there, they presented Ms. Churman and her family with a check for $30,000 to pay back Ms. Churman's mother-in-law.

Both videos are below. If one doesn't bring a little tear to your eye, then you need to go see a doctor yourself.

Meeting with Ellen on The Ellen DeGeneres Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp4usWroDew

Her original video, with over 8 million views so far...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOo3jzkhYA

Dr. Who Spoof - Very Funny

Have you heard of Rowan Atkinson? Yes you have, because I know you have heard of "Mr. Bean." Well is this Comic Relief production Rowan Atkinson is "Dr. Who." Jonathan Pryce is none other than the "Master." You will also spot several other English actors you know so well. Even better, it appears the Dr Who production team was in on all the fun.

If you enjoy Dr Who you are going to love this beautifully done spoof that has lots of fun with the Dr Who mythos and its well known "over-the-top" style. Never you mind, just watch and I will explain later. (This spoof is based on "classic" Dr Who.)

Courtney's Birthday

Today we celebrated Courtney's birthday and Mother's Day. Her birthday isn't for a few days yet, but why not celebrate a little early.As far as presents go she got the standard fare of clothes, shoes and gift certificates. Including some shorts that live up to their description. Not so sure I'm ready for her to "grow up." The cake is a Baskin Robbins Icecream cake and it's very good. Ofcourse it figures that Courtney was just a little too full so she is waiting till later to have some. That's assuming there's any left.

YouTube - Turns 5

YouTube's first video, Me At the Zoo, was uploaded on April 23rd, 2005 at 8:27 pm. I don't think anyone at YouTube knew the revolution they would spark or how much YouTube would change the internet. It's really surprising when you realize that they weren't the first to do video, even Broadcast.com wasn't the first; but none of them up until YouTube would capture the imagination of the world the way YouTube has done and continues to do. Part of the success is the simplicity of the website (not unlike Google - which bought YouTube in 2006); but the true ingredient to their success is far simpler - it's content created by us, average folks. It also owes it's success to being in the right place at the right time, not an unusual ingredient to success. The wide adoption of digital video cameras, the ease of uploading to computers, the availability of inexpensive editing software (for those that wish to edit) and of course the ever increasing speed of our access to the internet - for watching and uploading videos. All of it came together around 2005 and all YouTube had to do was light a match.

The use of YouTube has shot through the stratosphere too. The best way to illustrate this is to look at the top videos and how many times they have been viewed. The first thing you will notice is that there are 10 videos with more than 100 million views, several of which are either personal videos or new media videos. If you look at total views something interesting becomes apparent. Currently the number one video (Lady Gaga's Bad Romance) has 186 million views, number two (Charlie Bit My Finger) has 183 million and number three (Evolution of Dance) has 142 million. While those numbers are astonishing, what's more astonishing is that Lady Gaga's video was uploaded on November 23, 2009 while Charlie Bit My Finger was uploaded on May 22, 2007 and Evolution of Dance was uploaded on April 6, 2006. Evolution of Dance reigned supreme for years, and was then quickly overtaken by a little kid who was then overtaken by a music video.

Two points come to mind to me. One, more and more people are turning to YouTube for regular entertainment; two, old media is seeing this trend and moving in for the kill. While they fight over what goes on YouTube, they have realized that people like to watch YouTube. The smart ones, like Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, are taking advantage of YouTube. The others, well, my grandkids won't know who "they" were; but something tells me they will remember Lady Gaga, and maybe even Evolution of Dance.

Below, are links to the top 10 Videos on YouTube as of April 25th, 2010.

• 01 - Lady Gaga - Bad Romance - 189,933,428 Views
• 02 - Charlie Bit My Finger - 182,889,941
• 03 - Evolution of Dance - 142,066,505
• 04 - Pitbull I Know You Want Me - 116,936,742
• 05 - Miley Cyrus - 7 Things - 116,645,862
• 06 - Hahaha - 116,463,786
• 07 - Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA - 112,074,029
• 08 - Jeff Dunham - Achmed the Dead Terrorist - 110,913,292
• 09 - Lady Gaga - Just Dance Ft. Colby - 107,902,852
• 10 - Lo que tu Quieras Oir - 100,519,782

Video of the Week: Funny Words

I think I've got a pretty good video of the week for you. With nearly 250,000 views on YouTube since April 21st (4 days) it's currently one of the hottest videos on YouTube; and for good reason. I've not seen her videos (spricket24) before, but I will have to check some of them out. Basically in this one she runs through lots of "funny" words. Not funny because of what they mean, but funny in how they sound. At one point, one of the words cracks her up as she is trying to say it.

Apparently this bit of comedy sprang from saying "gobsmacked" to someone and having that person laugh at her for using the word. Gobsmacked, if you didn't know, means utterly astonished; no I didn't know that until I looked it up!

Toy Story 3 - Official Teaser Trailer [HD]

[vsw id="5f-MYl-HzNw" source="youtube" width="425" height="344" autoplay="no"] Wow, amazing HD on YouTube. If you have tried HQ on YouTube before you've probably been impressed, but not incredibly so. Wait till you watch this trailer from Toy Story 3 on youtube. It's in 1080p goodness, and at least for me it runs smooth as silk on my Mac. Jut amazing how much better video keeps getting on the net.

Cool CSS Effects in Future Web Browsers

This is truly very cool. I came across this YouTube on MacRumors (my favorite Mac News/Rumors site). Basically what you are going to see in this video is 3D effects with images in a browser window. No flash or Silverlight mind you, but a proposed standard for website creation. Apple has asked that this code be included in HTML 5. Apparently Snow Leopard and browsers based on WebKit (Safari is one of them) will make use of this technology. Here is the link to the MacRumors story - 3D CSS EFFECETS IN SNOW LEOPARD...

FaceBook Fever - Happy Slip

Enjoy this video by one of my favorite YouTube posters. She has lots of funny videos, and isn’t afarid to make fun of the medium she apparently loves. This one is about FaceBook. If you use FaceBook at all; you are going to love this video. She calls it FaceBook Fever. You can find more of her material over on YouTube.