You’ve probably never heard of Ray Sipe, but nevertheless he is one of the most prolific YouTubers out there, with a massive 1,098 videos on his channel at the time of this writing, all uploaded over the span of a 9 months. Sipe’s a songwriter with a unique chanting style that really drives a point home — dozens of times — and through his work, he seems to be attempting to cover literally every possible subject, from “Turtle Gymnastics” to the death of Amy Winehouse. The tunes are quite seriously beyond belief, and I’ve collected a nice sampling to give you a taste. Consider it Zombie Caterpillars: The Best of Ray Sipe. Trust me, you need to see these.

In light of Google’s new privacy policy changes, Microsoft has released a jab at Google in the form of a new Gmail Man video ironically, as I’m sure you’ll note, hosted on Google-owned YouTube. Whether you agree with the Microsoft ad –because it is an ad, after all– or not, it’s hard not to appreciate the that little girl’s expression when she finds out where ads come from. Personally, I think everyone is over-reacting anyways. I hardly ever say anything important over gmail anyways; I usually use GChat, or text from my Android phone. Whatever. Come over here Big Brother! Gimme a big hug!

YouTube just keeps getting more and more viewers. As of today, Reuters reports that YouTube now gets 4 billion pageviews per day, up from 3 billion last May. As if that weren’t enough, YouTube users are now uploading one hour of footage each second, just edging out the previous record of two full days every minute. That’s a new norm of 60 hours uploaded per minute to the old 48 hours uploaded per minute for any of you out there who didn’t feel like solving that little word problem.

If you needed a new way to ingest YouTube content, you’re in luck, because YouTube Slam is on the way. YouTube Slam is a nifty little half-gimmick, half-game that aims to let users vote on potentially viral clips, skyrocketing the winners to their 15 minutes seconds of fame on the leaderboard. Of course, there’s a little bit more to it than that. By voting on one clip over the other, you’re also sort of betting on it, and you stand to gain in the long run if you picked correctly. Gain what? Internet points, of course, that you can lord over your friends and family.

It’s hard to imagine a world without YouTube, as the video sharing service has entirely changed how we take in content on these wide interwebs. That’s why the service’s year-end retrospective covering the most popular videos of 2011 is so fascinating, as it features many of the vital videos that came to define this year. And that’s both a good and bad thing.

The latest development in the Universal-MegaUpload battle is almost as unexpected as it is troubling, and suggests that YouTube probably isn’t the neutral party you thought it was. In order to protect the Mega Song and get it back up on YouTube where it could stay unmolested, MegaUpload filed a restraining order against Universal that would keep them from messing with the video until they could provide proof of infringement, thereby validating the DMCA taked0wn request. In a bizarre twist, Universal has said that won’t be necessary: The takedown was not a DMCA affair but rather the result of a private contract between Universal and YouTube, the critera of which are not limited to mere copyright infringement. Say what?

Getting videos pulled from YouTube seems to be all the rage these days. First we had Viacom pull the trailer for The Last of Us for absurd reasons, and now Universal is following suit by having an episode of Tech News Today pulled from YouTube for the sole reason that the episode covered the MegaUpload song debacle. The episode in question contained two clips of the song — only one of which was played with the accompanying audio — during a discussion of the impending lawsuit between MegaUpload and Universal. Apparently, those short clips felt like salt in the wound to Universal, who had the episode pulled immediately and successfully, despite the lovely little thing we like to call “fair use.”

As you may know, Viacom is particularly jealous of its copyright. Viacom videos on YouTube that aren’t supposed to be there do not last long at all. In addition to that, it seems that Viacom has moved on to getting rid of videos that are only tangentally related to it, like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us trailer. Yesterday, the trailer was pulled by from YouTube, leaving a hole in the game’s official site, all on the grounds that Viacom somehow owned it just because it initially aired on the VGAs on Viacom-owned Spike TV. It’s back now, but come on.

One of the best, most practical things the Internet can do is provide you with instructions on how to do things that you don’t know how to do. Things like how to write a cover letter, how to tie a tie, or how to make it in America (all common Google searches). But what about the billions upon billions of more mundane things? Things like how to open a door with a toaster, how to take a valve out of a shoe, or how to touch a wall with an apple? Well, the HowToDoAnythingTV channel on YouTube has you covered. It seems they are making a valiant effort to create how-to videos for all the things, starting with the most obscure. I applaud them for their public service.

Head on past the break to become better at doing things.

As you may be aware, MegaUpload released a star-studded video endorsing the benefits of their service on Friday. As you may also be aware, the video was stripped from YouTube after Universal Music Group filed a copyright complaint, had it overturned, and then filed a second successfully. MegaUpload insists that the UMG has no right to do anything with the video and is consequently suing. To boot, MegaUpload, which has previously been tight-lipped on the whole SOPA issue, has now come out against it.