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What's the Difference Between A and Z

2014-08-29 · list · Hank · 3:55 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities · mode: Curiosity & trivia

Hank answers one Google autocomplete "what's the difference between…" question for each letter of the alphabet, from crows and ravens to zucchini and squash.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Premise: Google's suggestions for 'what is the difference between…' questions, answered for every letter

  • ★★ Hank went to Google to ask a 'what's the difference' question, got distracted by others' questions, and decides to answer one for every letter of the alphabet. (playful) — 00:00:01 · Google

00:00:18 — A to Z answers: crows/ravens, baking soda/powder, college/university, English/British, Hulu Plus, kun/san, LCD/LED, prison/jail, Rangers/Green Berets, Uber/Lyft, asparagus, x64/x86, zucchini

  • ★★ Hank says crows and ravens are different species: crows come in annoying groups, ravens alone or in pairs and are huge. (playful) — 00:00:19
  • ★★ Hank explains baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, which releases carbon dioxide with an acid; baking powder is baking soda with the acid already mixed in. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank says that in the US a college teaches only the years after secondary education, a university has graduate components, and both can contain colleges. — 00:00:39
  • ★ Hank says 'dinner' versus 'supper' is an interesting linguistic case: supper apparently means something different to everyone. — 00:00:50
  • ★★ Hank explains English means from England, a country inside the United Kingdom, while British covers the whole UK, including Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish people, who may not like the label. — 00:00:55 · England, United Kingdom
  • ★★ Hank says hair and fur are scientifically the same thing. — 00:01:09
  • ★★ Hank says Hulu Plus costs more, can be watched on a TV or a mobile device, and has very slightly more content. — 00:01:11
  • ★★ Hank says the iPhone 5C is 'kind of' the value edition of the iPhone, with a less fancy camera, processor and design. (hedged) — 00:01:17
  • ★★ Hank says jelly is jellied juice and jam is jellied fruit pulp, so jam is a bit softer. — 00:01:23
  • ★★ Hank explains kun and san are Japanese honorific suffixes showing respect: san between equals, kun for someone junior, generally male. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ Hank explains LCD is a display technology and LED a backlighting; most TVs today are LCD displays backlit by LED. — 00:01:41
  • ★★ Answering 'you and me', Hank says humans are biologically very similar to each other. (playful) — 00:01:50
  • ★ Hank admits he does not know what NAS and SAN are beyond something to do with IT infrastructure. (playful) — 00:01:55
  • ★★ Hank says subjective statements are based in opinion and objective statements in fact. — 00:02:03
  • ★★ Hank explains prisons hold people convicted and sentenced; jails hold the detained or arrested awaiting trial, and some with short sentences. — 00:02:08
  • ★★ Hank says both full and quick formats wipe a drive, but only a full format rebuilds the file structures and scans for bad sectors. — 00:02:19
  • ★★ Hank says Rangers and Green Berets are both Army special operations forces; any recruit can apply to the Rangers, but Green Berets need three years of service and two languages. — 00:02:27
  • ★★ Hank says Scotch is a type of whiskey, made in Scotland. — 00:02:38
  • ★★ Hank explains 'too' means excessively or also, and 'to' is for all other uses unless you mean 'two'. (playful) — 00:02:42
  • ★★ Hank says Uber and Lyft are pretty much the same: newfangled ways to get taxis that people are surprisingly excited about. (hedged) — 00:02:47
  • ★★ Hank predicts taxis will be mostly driven by robots in ten years. (playful) — 00:02:50
  • ★★ Hank says green cards give the right to permanently live and work in the US, visas only temporarily. — 00:02:56
  • ★★ Hank explains white asparagus is the same plant as green, grown under piled dirt without light, so it lacks chlorophyll and is milder and softer. — 00:03:01
  • ★★ Hank says x64 is the 64-bit CPU architecture for Windows 7 on newer machines and x86 the older 32-bit design. — 00:03:14
  • ★ Hank ends the alphabet by saying green and yellow zucchini differ in color, and a zucchini is a squash. (playful) — 00:03:21

00:03:26 — Sign-off; the script was released early through the Nerdfighter Online Video Workshop; thanks to participants

  • ★★★ Hank released this script early through the Nerdfighter Online Video Workshop, so people uploaded their own versions of this video before he did. — 00:03:31 · Nerdfighter Online Video Workshop
  • ★★ Hank calls the workshop very cool so far, thanks performers, editors and scriptwriters, especially constructive critics, and points to a link for more. — 00:03:41 · Nerdfighter Online Video Workshop

Humor (significant)

  • Distinguishing crows from ravens by group behaviour and size. — 00:00:24

    “If there's one or two of them, and you think, "Is that a cat, because it's huge," that's a raven.”

  • The autocomplete question for the letter Y is 'the difference between you and me', which Hank answers literally. — 00:01:50

    “I mean, biologically, there's very little difference between you and me.”

  • Hank looks up NAS and SAN and finds only something about IT infrastructure. — 00:01:57

    “sorry, out of my depth there.”

  • The autocomplete question for Z is 'green and yellow zucchini'. — 00:03:21

    “Green and yellow zucchini are different colors.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Google Autocomplete

Also: Projects: Nerdfighter Online Video Workshop

Organizations: Google · Lyft · Uber · United States Army · United States Army Rangers · United States Army Special Forces

Concepts: Japanese honorifics · Scotch whisky · self-driving car

Places: England · Northern Ireland · Scotland · United Kingdom · Wales

Products: Hulu Plus · iPhone 5C · Windows 7

Only in the description or credits: CGP Grey

Also centred on Google Autocomplete: Is bronchitis contagious? Is black a color? · Why Does My Dog Eat Poop? · Why are Barns Red and Kardashians Famous · Why is There an Egg Shortage (And More)

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