They do have some really good ones.
It is interesting that in different episodes they often switch the dominant/passive roles, so it's not fixed as in Laurel and Hardy.
Are we the Baddies? by Mitchell and Webb
. Source. See also: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/nazi.Discoverer by Mitchell and Webb
. Source. Makes fun of the many terrible naming choices British navigators have made while discovering/rediscovering new lands.Most of the videos are crap, but the following ones almost killed Ciro Santilli of laughter:
- Video "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs by Epic Rap Battles of History (2012)"
- Video 1. "Rasputin vs Stalin by Epic Rap Battles of History (2013)"
Rasputin vs Stalin by Epic Rap Battles of History (2013)
Source. See also: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/stalin.Monty Python has a few precursors to the "random famous people mixed together compting" format, although not in the rap fight format:
Communist Quiz by Monty Python (1970)
Source. Has a Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Forum/Communist_Quiz. Brings to mind: Video "Football, Football, Football by Mitchell and Webb".Philosophers' Football Match by Monty Python (1972)
Source. If you can understand the jokes, your philosophy level is pretty good. Like more than zero. Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophers%27_Football_Match. Ciro loves how that page currently uses a standard footbal match template to describe the match!Being able to quote the right one at the right time is considered a fundamental shibboleth of the profession.
And with reason.
Official archive: dilbert.com/
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. - Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact







