Alfred Schnittke: Concerto Grosso no.1 (1977), V. Rondo: Agitato

I would rank this among the top five pieces of music that have influenced me the most. I first heard the piece by Schnittke when I was about twenty years old and it floored me how effortlessly it went back and forth between musical styles and eras. It's almost as if he took a hatchet to Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky and Cage and then meticulously stitched the broken pieces back together one note at a time into a hauntingly beautiful Frankenstein symphony.

For the attention-deficit among you, here is the spectacular final seven minutes of the concerto.

But I would highly suggest watching the entire thing here because there are themes that are introduced early in the piece which surface again and again in various forms like inside jokes.

A Far Cry - Schnittke: Concerto Grosso no.1 (1977) from Cosmos Lee on Vimeo.

Some Folks Call It A Sling Blade

The short film that inspired the Oscar Winning film, Sling Blade.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris & Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In 2007, when The Four Horsemen was filmed, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was originally supposed to take part in the discussion but had to cancel at the last moment due to a personal emergency. Now in 2012, the discussion continues without the late Christopher Hitchens but includes Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Perseverance

The climber, Dai Koyamada, travelled from Japan to the Swiss alps four times between 2010 and 2012 to work on this particular bouldering problem. Bouldering problems are climbs that don't require ropes because they remain close to the ground, but rank in difficulty between V0 (easiest) and V16 (impossibly difficult)... I, myself, can do somewhere around a V2 or V3 climb... But Dai Koyamada here solves a V16 climb...Notice how, at certain points, his entire body is hanging from two fingertips and a single toe-hook.
It's a long video, so if you get impatient, his final ascent begins around the 12:00 minute mark.

「The Story of Two Worlds low start V16」 from project_daihold on Vimeo.

Sam Harris - Death and the Present Moment

Super technical skateboarding tricks (1000 fps slow motion)

I'll admit it, I am totally out of touch on the subtle nuances of contemporary skateboarding. It used to be that the kick flip, the heel flip, the nollie, the varial flip and the pop-shove it were all you needed to know with street skateboarding... But wow, these super slow-motion shots show just how technical the sport has become.

Richard Dawkins & Daniel Dennett. Oxford, 9 May 2012

A discussion between evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins and neuroscientist/philosopher, Daniel Dennett on the similarities between biological evolution and the evolution of culturally contagious ideas, or "memes", such as religion.