johna's blog

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: Russo-Ukranian War Videos

2024-03-05T12:00:00+10:00

Somehow a POV (point of view) video from a soldier fighting in the ongoing Russo-Ukranian war landed in my feed.

It turns out that many soliders strap a GoPro on their helmet when they go into battle and publish the footage on YouTube, giving people a perspective of warfare that they might never have otherwise seen.

The footage is not unlike a modern war video game, except these are of course real people and real bullets and artillery being fired in all directions.

In a lot of the videos fighting takes place in trenches. I personally had thought modern warfare was more about computer-aimed missiles launched from far away, but I was quite shocked to see what was actually happening.

Although videos are censored with pixelisation of people being shot and corpses, I am extremely surprised what the usually cautious YouTube allow to be published.

Some examples of some fighting action are Face to face with the enemy: trench battles of the 3rd SAB for the "road of life" to Bakhmut and Last phase of 2023 offensive: fierce fighting by the 3rd Brigade on the way to liberating Andriivka.

Some of the video-takers appear to have become famous and subscribers often help with donations so they can purchase weapons and equipment. "Arnie" is an example and I saw some of his videos on the Civ Div channel, such as Arnie’s Most INTENSE Combat GoPro Compilation. This one has some disturbing video of how drones are used to take out enemy soldiers.

Then you have videos like Finnish jaegers survive a BMP-2 in Ukraine. People from other countries bravely volunteer to come and fight in this war. As far as I can tell, in this video a group of foreigners drive to a battle field, briefly engage in some combat and then one gets shot in the foot. Then comes the attempt to get the injured man to help. The path back to the car is checked but it seems the car has been fired upon by an enemy tank and is on fire. "There goes my Nissan," says one of the men, "I still haven't paid for that car."

It turns out their possessions and supplies were all in the car. Plan B is to call in a medical evacuation vehicle, which they do, but they still need a clear path to the road. When faced with a stubborn gate our hero first tries to kick it open then resorts to a hand grenade and when that doesn't work, his automatic rifle. Then he finds an alternative exit.

I won't total ruin the video for you any more than I have, so you will have to watch it to see if it has a happy ending.

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: hood tours

2024-02-10T12:00:00+10:00

Spanian

Recently the mysterious YouTube algorithm somehow presented me with the the videos of Australian rapper and ex-criminal Spanian.

Spanian grew up in the public housing areas of Sydney and spent some time in prison before becoming a successful rap musician.

Now he is travelling the world, reviewing food and travel experiences, but of most interest to me, he is touring the "hoods" of the world.

I first saw his video walking around the streets of Campbelltown, south-west of Sydney.

In later videos, he tours other notorious parts of Australia and also travels to the worst parts of cities around the world.

Sometimes he walks the streets alone, sometimes he has a local guide. When he is in Australia, it seems everybody in these areas knows him. They stop him to say hello or take a photo, and he often ends up with a group of people following him.

When overseas he is rarely recognised, so he faces genuine danger walking through these types of neighbourhoods with a camera in hand. But so far, aside from a few awkward moments and some angry locals, he hasn't had any serious encounters.

Into the hood playlist

Kurt Caz

After YouTube saw my interest in this type of videos, I was next presented with a somewhat similar style of videos from Kurt Caz, a travel vlogger with over 2.5 million subscribers.

South-African born Kurt travels the world and often deliberately ventures into dangerous areas – even when locals repeatedly warn him to turn around.

According to his bio, Kurt's father was a street fighter and taught boxing, and Kurt himself has trained in mixed martial arts, which explains his willingness to travel alone into the areas that tourists are warned against.

Although he does go to some cities that are popular with tourists, many of his videos are about places that tourists rarely visit.

His videos are an interesting and entertaining mix of travel, food and danger. There are also travel tips and advice about negotiating and avoiding scams. Kurt also likes to get a hair cut in most episodes.

You can't go wrong watching any of his videos, but one I saw recently really stands out. In a trip across Cuba, he travels in the back of a truck to a small town where he meets a motorcycle taxi rider who had lost both his arms in the Angolan Civil War, where he fought against South Africa. The rider helps Kurt in his quest to see and experience the farming and manufacturing of Cuba's famous cigars. This is truly a special episode.

What I'm watching on YouTube: Strangest missing person cases

2023-10-21T12:00:00+10:00

These are some of the most strangest and mysterious missing person cases.

Deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon

Two girls disappear in the Panamanian jungle... Then someone finds their camera revealing ninety strange photos of their final moments, leaving investigators baffled.

They found a camera in the jungle... | The Kris Kremers & Lisanne Froon story by MrBallen.

Death of Elisa Lam

A young woman vanishes... Then a hotel releases footage of her in an elevator that has baffled investigators to this day.

The "elevator footage" NO ONE can explain | The Elisa Lam story by MrBallen.

Disappearance of Lars Mittank

A German man goes missing... Then a bizarre video of him emerges, leaving investigators baffled to this day.

Disturbing footage NO ONE can explain | The Lars Mittank Story by MrBallen.

Yuba Country Five

In February 1978, five young men from Yuba City, California failed to return home after attending a college basketball game. Their car was found four days later, abandoned. Four of them were eventually found dead in strange circumstances, while the fifth has never been found. The mystery surrounding the event has led to many researchers referring to the Yuba County Five disappearance as the 'American Dylatov Pass'.

Searching for The Five by Nexpo.

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: strangest mysteries

2023-06-21T12:00:00+10:00

The Disturbing Calls of Gary Sudbrink

This video details some mysterious and unnerving phone calls that took place in 1993 to Gary Sudbrink. The unidentified caller had a robotic voice and called four times.

The Disturbing Calls of Gary Sudbrink by Pandox.

So Joana Book: Internet's Deepest Mystery

A discovery of an old travel book filled with mysterious ciphers, maps, symbols, coordinates, and codewords would kick off one of the most complicated and mysterious internet rabbit holes ever uncovered.

So Joana Book: Internet's Deepest Mystery by Virtual Carbon.

The Dodleston Messages from the past and future

In 1984, Ken Webster, a high-school teacher, was living with his friend Nic and girlfriend Debbie in the small village of Dodleston.

One evening, the three were walking home from the local pub when they saw a pulsing green light emanating from their cottage windows.

When they got inside, they saw something that terrified them.

Though their computer wasn't connected to any network, and everyone in the house was gone all night, a strange message was written on the screen. A message addressed to them, by name.

Over the next few months, more messages appeared. Eventually, Ken and his friends begin corresponding with the person on the other side.

At first, Ken thinks this is a hoax or a prank. But over time, he comes to believe that not only are the messages real, they're being written by someone living in the very same house -- in the year 1541.

Let's find out why.

A Time Travel Story | The Dodleston Messages from the past and future by The Why Files.

Updated 4 September 2025

Here are a few more mysteries that are worth sharing:

The Ammanford Incident: An Internet Mystery

A mysterious case of noises and screams heard from underground in Ammonford, Wales, has baffled residents and investigators for years.

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: Internet investigations

2023-06-21T12:00:00+10:00

The Internet is an amazing and fascinating place. Sometimes the smallest things lead to epic investigations and trips down the "rabbit hole". Here are some of my favourites.

picsmics4

This video is an oddly fascinating look at comments left by one user on a YouTube gameplay video over the course of 15 years.

It started with just a simple comment to the video, which shows gameplay from the game Rock Band and only had a small number of views at the time. User picsmics4 left a simple and unassuming comment that read, "oh excellent... good song, good play, good good good."

The same user continued to return to the video and leave similar comments, and this had some people questioning whether it was a real person or possibly a commenting bot of some sort. Even the video poster was perplexed.

Over many years, picsmics4 continued posting similar comments on the video, sometimes subtly sharing that he was at a high or low point in his life.

Somehow his comments were picked up and became the topic of investigations, resulting in the original video gaining a large number of views and many comments being posted in support of the user. Eventually picsmics4 became aware that his comments had created a large amount of interest and concern for his wellbeing, and he posted an emotional response and explanation.

There are likely several videos on this, but I really enjoyed A Mysterious YouTube Commenter: picsmics4 by ShaiiValley.

8 year quest to find Scott, the President of Domino's Pizza Japan

Somehow, YouTiuber Nick Robinson became somewhat obsessed with meeting the President of Domino's Pizza Japan.

It started as a piece of lost media, a cheesy Japanese advertisement for the pizza chain, featuring the President, Scott.

Somehow this lead to a failed trip to Japan, the discovery of many more cheesy advertisements, and (spoiler alert) eventually meeting Scott.

My 8-Year Quest to Find SCOTT, PRESIDENT OF DOMINO'S PIZZA (lost media documentary)

I found the guy from the「Domino's feat. Hatsune Miku」video

TempleOS

According to Wikipedia, TempleOS is a biblical-themed lightweight operating system designed to be the Third Temple prophesied in the Bible. It was created by American programmer Terry A. Davis, who developed it alone over the course of a decade after a series of manic episodes that he later described as a revelation from God.

TempleOS | Down the Rabbit Hole by Fredrik Knudsen chronicles the development of TempleOS, David's strange behavior, and the degradation of his mental state.

I flew to Japan to visit "Michaelsoft Binbows" in person

Another video from Nick Robinson, this time he flies to Japan to visit a computer store called "Michaelsoft Binbows".

I flew to Japan to visit "Michaelsoft Binbows" in person

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: MagnatesMedia's Business Stories

2023-03-16T12:00:00+10:00

MagnatesMedia is a YouTube channel that produce mini-movies about business and money.

Although the channel has videos on many business topics, I'm really enjoying the videos on how various tech companies started and how they evolved.

Particularly interesting videos that I have watched so far is the story behind TikTok and it's quick and massive growth, the rise and fall of Yahoo, Twitter's history and it's unknown creator, and the simple never-give-up origins of Airbnb.

Each of these mini-movies is full of interesting facts and stories and is delivered in a compelling and entertaining manner.

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: Rob Parson's Tasmania exploration/history videos

2023-01-12T12:00:00+10:00

After YouTube suggested some videos on the Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine), I came across a channel by the name of Rob Parsons.

Rob's channel has an amazing collection of videos where he showcases the Tasmanian wilderness and history.

In many of his videos, he goes in search of some historic location. Often he has been told he will never find it, but he rarely (never?) gives up. He often travels through thick bushland where there are no paths, and sometimes by boat or raft. His adventures can sometimes take several days.

The locations include old mines, caves, historic burial sites, and places where Tasmanian Tigers had been seen in the past.

He sometimes does a little prospecting for gold and gems, too.

Notable videos include his Expedition to find the Tasmanian Tiger, Jane 2.1 where he relentlessly searches for a historic burial site, and Iceage Cave Found Packrafting on Franklin River – another impossible search to find an historic cave.

Or check out his compilation of highlights in One Year of Adventure Highlights in Tasmania to see what his channel is all about.

Almost makes me want to move to Tasmania and have some similar adventures of my own.

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: space videos

2022-11-26T12:00:00+10:00

I find it absolutely amazing how much "we" have accomplished in space exploration.

It wasn't until I started watching space videos on YouTube that I learnt about many of the amazing missions that were undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s -- such as the first Mars landings.

There are many excellent YouTube channels that cover the history of space exploration, but one channel stands out for its amazing story-telling, editing and music selection.

Homemade Documentaries is a one-man show. On his about page, Jackson Tyler says that he started collecting space-related videos and resources at age 14, and originally started editing videos together for his own convenience, and this grew into a hobby and his YouTube channel.

Despite the amazing quality videos on the channel, and almost universal praise in the comments section, the channel has "only" just under 50,000 subscribers. That is still an amazing achievement, but the channel is definitely worthy of millions of subscribers. It appears to be yet another victim of the YouTube algorithm.

What I'm watching this week on YouTube: The 8-Bit Guy and retro computer videos

2022-08-04T12:00:00+10:00

My first computer was a Commodore 64 back in the 1980s. I later had a Commodore Plus/4 and then several Amigas before moving to PCs.

After watching a documentary on Atari on TV I searched for something similar on YouTube and found an excellent series on the history of Commodore on a channel called The 8-Bit Guy.

The series has episodes on the early PET models, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Plus/4 and C16, C128, Commodores IBM-compatible PCs, and the range of disk drives they produced. The final part in the series covers the Amiga.

The 8-Bit Guy has videos on many other early platforms but the videos that I found most interesting were the ones on some games he has developed (playlist). These are games he has only recently developed that work with the old platforms, like the Commodore 64. I was quite surprised that there is actually a market still for new software and it was very interesting to follow how he developed his games.

My first programming was learning BASIC on the Commodore 64. I tried to learn machine language at the time, but never grasped it. I thought it might be interesting to try and learn it today. As a starting point, The 8-Bit Guy has a good explanation of it in one of his videos.

Also of interest was his reviews of some of the systems you can buy new today such as the Commodore 64 Maxi, that sounds like an excellent emulator and can run most C-64 software.

Best of YouTube: real-life crime solvers

2022-02-19T12:00:00+10:00

This is one genre of YouTube truly making a difference and providing closure to families of missing loved ones and helping solve cold cases.

One of my favourite channels is Adventures with Purpose. These guys are skilled divers who travel the country helping search waterways for missing vehicles and missing people.

They use a small inflatable boat equipped with sonar equipment and are highly experienced in water searches.

They are deserving of the close to 2,000,000 subscribers they have at the time of writing, having found over ten missing persons. Although they are sadly finding these people deceased, the families at least get to know what happened to their loved ones, sometimes having spent decades not knowing.

Take for instance the case Carey Mae Parker who went missing thirty years ago with her young daughter while on the way to her son's birthday party. Her sister and remaining children have spent the last three decades know knowing why and where she disappeared to. Adventures with Purpose came to help and within a day or two of searching, located the car underwater and assisted police in recovering the vehicle.

Due to the long time the car had been underwater, it fell apart while being pulled out of the water and the police dive crew subsequently brought in to search for any human remains botched the job and failed to find any. Adventures with Purpose stepped in again and found remains of Carey Mae and her daughter plus a present that she was taking for her son.

Their 'Solved' playlist has many other amazing examples of emotional searches and recoveries.

There are several other similar channels that often team up for searches. Chaos Divers and Exploring with Nug are two other examples.

HeavyDSparks is another channel and the hosts will be well-known to those familiar with the TV series Diesel Brothers.

Although this channel is more of a vehicle and adventure channel, they recently conducted a major search of a mine shaft where a body of a missing woman was suspected of being located.

Over three videos (first video), they undertook a very challenging search of the mineshaft that had been filled with lots of debris including a burnt wooden structure and dirt that was piled metres high.

They spent more than a week searching, removing a large amount of wood and digging out tonnes of dirt by hand, and (spoiler alert) they did end up finding bones that are yet to be identified.

Channels like that use a significant proportion of their YouTube income to undertake these searches where the police are either unwilling to undertake or have proved incapable are well worth supporting.

Youtuber Junkyard Dave suffers major setback when lift fails and destroys car

2019-12-06T12:00:00+10:00

A popular car rebuilder on Youtuber suffered a major setback on his latest project when the vehicle lift he was using broke and his project car fell to the ground.

Junkyard Dave has been working on putting a 700 HP Hellcat engine from a Dodge Challenger into Dodge Magnum wagon.

Dave says he was 30 minutes away from the first start of the transplanted engine and first drive when the disaster happened.

He immediately started a live stream on Youtube to share what had just happened with his subscribers and was very shaken and upset, as you would expect when he was almost finished with the project and saw all of his hard work destroyed.

He also considered what could have happened had he been under the car at the time.

The car fell from near the maximum height of the vehicle lift and landed on one of the front wheels causing the chassis to be severely damaged.

The top of the car hit the top of the lift causing damage to the roof, and the lift arms went into the bottom of the car and also damaged one of the rear doors.

Dave was of course filming at the time but his camera fell off the car when it fell and was damaged when the car landed on top of it. Unfortunately, the footage seems to have been lost.

Although many of Dave's fans said he should get the car to a frame machine and try and repair the car, he thought the damage was too great and he was better off finding a new shell and starting again.

During the live stream he said that maybe since he had got the Hellcat that he had experienced a lot of bad luck, and after this incident that maybe he was done with the project altogether.

He has since posted an update video of the project including the incident and seems to be back on board with finding a new shell and finishing the project.

He thinks that the lift's lock skipped a few feet causing the car to fall forward and off the lift. Ironically he said this was probably the last time the car needed to be on the lift.

This is one Youtuber that definitely needs some support right now, so check out his channel and subscribe if you like and want to support him.

In addition to this project, he also has done Mazda rotary, Volvo and domestic (USA) projects, and also a number of auction and flip cars.

I hate "Building a car in ten minutes" videos

2019-12-01T12:00:00+10:00

Who started this annoying trend of videos where a series of car build videos is compiled into a single short video titled something like "building a car in ten minutes"?

I think it may have been the Home Built by Jeff YouTube channel who compiled his 67 part Porsche 911 build into a 4-minute single video and quickly amassed over half a million views on Youtube (and over 50 million views on Facebook).

Once news of this success story got out every second car YouTube channel jumped on the band wagon and made their own compilations with similar titles.

Most didn't enjoy anywhere near the same success.

While in some cases these type of videos make it quick and easy to see how a project started and the end result, personally I enjoy watching the build process and I have refused to watch any of these compilations, even when posted by some of my favourite Youtubers.

The only thing worse is those build videos compiled from photos only, most of which are usually accompanied by some crappy music.

Built Youtube channel going downhill?

2019-10-29T12:00:00+10:00

I was a latecomer to the Built Youtube channel, only finding it when Caleb was working on the Audi A4 wagon that he eventually gave away to one of his subscribers as part of a competition.

The Audi was an interesting project to follow and ended up looking great although it didn't seem to be very reliable, even breaking down when delivered to the competition winner.

When the next giveaway and project car was introduced - a Datsun pickup - I was really impressed with the plan and looking forward to watching the build progress.

But the first few videos on the Datsun were pretty short and I noticed other people commenting with the same opinion.

Then the channel was hacked and the videos stopped. A second channel was created while Caleb attempted to get his channel and over 100,000 subscribers back, which he eventually managed to do.

In an unfortunate coincidence, on the day he lost his channel, Caleb had quit his job and intending to do Youtube full time.

Now that the channel is back and Caleb is doing this full time you would expect quicker progress on the project build, and longer and more frequent videos, right?

Well, so far this hasn't happened. We've had a few videos on the Datsun build and then he started on a widebody project on a children's toy car... This is of no interest to me but I may be in the minority as these videos are getting plenty of views - more than some of the Datsun videos!

He's also posted a few random videos on an ant infestation in a car, advice on starting a Youtube channel, and some old videos about his earlier project widebody MR2.

I'm still subscribed but hoping the channel gets back to building real cars.

What happened to the Street Bandito Youtube channel?

2019-10-11T12:00:00+10:00

Street Bandito is a popular automotive Youtube channel with over 70,000 subscribers.

Their first video was published on 17 August 2017 and after a while they starting posting 1-3 times a week.

Their projects include Xavier's Honda S2000, Greg's 350Z and Tim's Datsun 240Z that he is rebodying in carbon fibre.

But after their last video upload on 30 May 2019 they completely stopped posting new videos.

A month later they posted on their Youtube community tab, "Quick update...we are alive lol. Currently working things out behind the scenes and will be uploading videos again soon appreciate all the support and love you guys."

But 3 months later and still nothing!

Someone replied to that post, "I called the police, FBI, coast guard, Pentagon, hell...I called M.I.B. Y'all can't do a brother like this. #HurryBack," and Street Bandito responded with, "lmaoo my bad my bad."

Of around 100 comments on this post, that was the only one they responded to.

I went looking for any answers but found nothing. In fact, I did find things but they were a little puzzling.

Their last post on the Street Bandito Facebook was 5 July, although it appears to be a post by Xavier about his car and doesn't concern the channel. Their regular Facebook posting seems to have stopped on 16 May.

Xavier's Facebook was last posted to on 14 May, and his Instagram on July 5 (same post as on Facebook). Quite a few people asked what was going on in comments to that Instagram post and Xavier replied, "going to do updates once I finish my car lol", "sure do I’ll address it soon got to finish my car first lol", and "we are around just not updates at the moment working some things".

The website for Tim's business, Industry Garage, was not working up until only recently. I found that on 5 August Tim posted on his industrygarage Instagram page that his website "will be under construction until further notice". A bit weird but maybe it was just being updated.

However, he did post a photo of the Z on 23 August, and he posted several times after the videos stopped.

The Street Bandito Instagram is possibly a little more informative. I'm not sure if it was always labelled as Greg's account but it says now "GREGORY HICKS, YOUTUBE, STREET BANDITO".

The last post here is much more recent, it is from 2 October. It's a video of Greg drifting the 350Z. In the post text Xavier is mentioned at the end... not sure if that means he wrote the post or was just being mentioned. There's a few like that, so I think that Xavier did the post.

One commenter said, "Notice y’all been avoiding the questions about YouTube- it’s official- the band broke up." Does he know something or is he guessing?

I checked some of the older posts and there were some responses from Street Bandito to similar questions. "brb" (Be Right Back) was one answer and "we got allll the updates... coming soon".

Tim's personal Instagram was last posted to on 23 July. Nothing more recent and nothing about the channel.

The Street Bandito website is still around and taking orders for merchandise, but no mention of what is going on. It still mentions their Youtube schedule: "every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday". Um, nope. The last event on the events page was June 16 so it doesn't look like the website is being maintained.

I also checked on the business that I think Greg and Tim run (possibly just Greg), Baltimore Body Shop & Service, and that still seems to be around and no sign of issues there.

If you came here for answers, then sorry, I don't have them. All I have for you is my best guess...

They all still seem to be around and still working on their cars, perhaps just not together. However, from my research, I guess that Xavier is looking after a lot of the IT and social media side of the channel and I believe he was the one who posted the video of Greg drifting, so it looks like they may still be together somehow.

Perhaps the problem is the business side of things. Although they have 70,000 subscribers and were growing quickly, the channel may not have been bringing in a significant amount of money, particularly when it would presumably have to be split three ways. Maybe some of the team weren't happy with the return on what would be a busy workload producing three videos per week.

Please let me know if you know more of the story.

Update (24-Dec-2019): It's a Christmas Miracle... Street Bandito are back!

On Christmas eve – six months since their last video – Street Bandito posted a new video. They say that they are officially back and explain where they have been and what the future of the channel is.

Basically, they were busy with non-car projects like house renovations, and were short of money for their car projects, and also were sorting out how they could make their channel – in which they are equal partners – work for all of them.

They also mentioned a blog post where someone researched and guessed at what might have happened to them... Hmm?

A Youtube channel that deserves to be much larger: INITIAL DWEEBS

2019-10-09T12:00:00+10:00

It always intrigues me how some Youtube channels grow and some don't... Youtube algorithms work in mysterious ways.

I came across a channel that has been around for close to a year and has content that should be of wide interest but it is only at 669 subscribers at the time of writing. Not that there's anything wrong with 669 subscribers - that's an achievement in itself - but the channel deserves to have lots more.

INITIAL DWEEBS follows a group of friends who work on old school Japanese cars.

Their projects include an early Toyota MR2, a Datsun 280Z, a Honda Civic and a few Toyota Corollas.

They do everything from engine swaps to bodywork and paint jobs.

I love their intro too.

Looks like the recently tried one of the "rebuild in 10 minutes" type videos that seemed to work so well for some other channels. But, no, still triple-digit subscribers.

My guess is that because most of their videos include plenty of swearing that Youtube is limiting their reach. I've heard before that Youtube can penalise channels because of bad language (reference).

If you like JDM cars, engine swaps and restoration then the channel is well worth checking out.