January 27, 2026 | Page 3 | Andy Arthur.org

How I download and play YouTube videos with my smartphone using vlc and yt-dlp! I wrote this bash script as ~/bin/termux-url-opener and tell the YouTube app to share with termux. Prompts if I want to download an mp3 audio or video, saves the file, then opens it ad free in vlc.

#!/bin/bash

read -t 5 -p "Hit m for mp3 otherwise download video: " CHOICE

if [[ "$CHOICE" == "m" ]]; then
        DOWNLOAD_DIR="/sdcard/Movies"                                     
		cd "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"

        FILENAME=$(yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --print filename -o "%(title)s.mp3" "$1")
        FILENAME=${FILENAME%.*}.mp3            
                   
        echo "downloading mp3..." $FILENAME
        yt-dlp "$1" -x --audio-format mp3 -o "$FILENAME"
         
        am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW \                                   -
			 -d "file://$DOWNLOAD_DIR/$FILENAME" \                           
			 -t "audio/mp3" \
             -n org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.gui.video.VideoPlayerActivity
        exit 1
fi                                                                                                                                  

DOWNLOAD_DIR="/sdcard/Movies"
cd "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"

FORMAT="bestvideo[height<=240]+bestaudio[abr<=128]/best[height<=240]"
FILENAME=$(yt-dlp -f "$FORMAT" --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$1")

echo "Downloading: $FILENAME"
yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$1" -f "$FORMAT"

if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "Got error, retrying in 10 secomds"
        sleep 10

        yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$1" -f "$FORMAT"
fi

am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW \
         -d "file://$DOWNLOAD_DIR/$FILENAME" \
         -t "video/*" \
         -n org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.gui.video.VideoPlayerActivity

Great Western Turnpike – US 20 Follows the Edge of the Watershed to Avoid Stream Crossings

Andy | January 27, 2026

Have you ever wondered why the Great Western Turnpike goes so far south, away from the Mohawk Valley and the major cities - and over several hills which have posed troubles for everything from horse and buggies to Volkswagen Bugs?

It turns out when they were constructing the Great Western Turnpike a major concern was bridging stream crossings, and a way to avoid crossing many streams was to follow the divide between the Susquehanna Watershed and the Mohawk Watershed.

While the Great Western Turnpike crosses the Schoharie Creek, it does where it's more shalow upstream, and until you reach the Finger Lakes, most of the stream crossings are minor to non-existent as it's riding the divide between the watersheds.