monkeystopthat2

     Youcan  do  better!

If you’ve ever watched a movie and thought, “A chimp could make this,” now you have something to compare it to for verification (Scary Movie 4, I have bad news for you).  BBC Two will be airing Chimpcam, a compilation of footage shot by chimps at the Edinburgh Zoo.

Ms [Betsy] Herrelko set the chimps two challenges. The first was to teach the chimps how to use a touchscreen to select different videos. By doing so, Ms Herrelko could investigate which types of images chimps prefer to watch. The second challenge was to give the apes a “Chimpcam”, a recording camera housed in a chimp-proof box.  On top of the box was a video screen that showed live images of whatever the camera was pointing at. [BBC via Geekologie]

There’s a youtube video below with a few clips, and one of the always-astute youtube commenters dropped some science for us plebs to digest:

Kooberz: Someone took the “put a bunch of monkeys in a room with typewriters and they’ll write shakespear” way too far. This is stupid. They are as interested with the box as they would be with a rock or a ball. It probably took some poor sap hours of his life to sift through the raw footage, trying to cut out good bits that didn’t include masturbating, poo flinging, and homosexual mating. The sad part is that people will watch and waste their money on the DVD’s someday. Come on humans, Youcan do better.

He’s right.  Wecan do better.  Also, where can I order Chimpcam Uncensored! with all the “masturbating, poo flinging, and homosexual mating” that was TOO HOT for TV?