art of computer programming

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why handling time and timezones in code is so hard, walking through a simple web app that computes how long ago something happened. It covers the quirks of timezones and calendars and ends in an exasperated rant.

Practical Engineering explains what a black start is: restarting a power grid after total collapse. It shows why most plants need outside power to start and why rebuilding a synchronized grid is delicate and high-stakes.

PBS Space Time, together with It's Okay to be Smart and PBS Eons, asks how a universe drifting toward disorder produced something as complex as life. It presents the idea that the laws of physics, through thermodynamics, may actually favor the emergence of life.

Tom Scott visits Peachtree City, Georgia, which has about a hundred miles of dedicated golf cart paths that serve as an alternative to driving. He explains how the network works as a quasi-transit system that keeps cars off the roads.

Veritasium traces analog computers from the Antikythera mechanism and Kelvin's tide-predicting machines to fire control and modern analog approaches. It explains how these machines computed continuously rather than digitally.

A PBS Infinite Series episode explaining the mathematics of quantum computers, including how qubits store complex numbers and how quantum computation differs from classical computation. Hosted by Kelsey Houston-Edwards.

An Isaac Arthur episode on civilizations in the far future, past the Black Hole Era. It covers iron stars, Boltzmann brains, reversible computing and the idea of reversing entropy.

A Vox explainer on how many of the British Museum's treasures were taken during British imperial rule, focusing on the Benin Bronzes and requests for their return.

An animated 11-minute tour of the whole field of mathematics as a single map, showing how pure and applied math and their sub-fields relate to each other.

A Computerphile video in which Rob Miles warns against assuming a general AI will think like a human. He uses the thought experiment of a stamp-collecting AI to show how a goal-driven system could pursue its aim with dangerous results.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explores molten glass and Prince Rupert's drops with a glass artist, including a process that freezes the moment glass shatters and an artisan who makes the drops.

Professor Brailsford of the University of Nottingham describes how the university set out to print its own mathematics exam papers in the 1980s. The story centers on getting a Mergenthaler Linotron 202 typesetter to work with their own software.

WIRED has UCLA professor Amit Sahai explain zero-knowledge proofs to a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student and an expert. Each round goes deeper into the cryptography and why it matters.

About Here explains how North American building codes requiring two staircases make small multi-story apartment buildings hard to build, and contrasts this with places that allow single-stair designs.

Asianometry examines why Japan's software industry has lagged despite its hardware strengths. It looks at dependence on US software and the low prestige of programming.

An RSA Animate video that illustrates a talk by geographer David Harvey on the crises of capitalism. It covers creative destruction, wage stagnation masked by credit, and the search for a more just economic order.

Mike Pound explains the discrete cosine transform and how it underpins JPEG compression. It is part two of Computerphile's JPEG series.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile how Unicode and UTF-8 grew out of messy older character encodings to become the web's standard. It covers why the design works and how it handles worldwide text.

Smarter Every Day shares a binaural audio recording of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch made by Trevor Mahlmann, with explanations of the sounds including the sonic booms of the landing boosters. It is meant to be heard with headphones.

Dr Mike Pound of Computerphile shows how a modern laptop can crack Enigma, using a ciphertext-only attack based on an older paper. He compares it with the tooling in CrypTool.

A Computerphile video in which Dr Mike Pound and PhD student Lewis Stuart explain 3D Gaussian splatting, a quick technique that turns photos of a scene into a 3D model without much compute. It includes a demo and compares the approach to NeRFs.

Rob Miles explains for Computerphile why simple rule sets like Asimov's Three Laws cannot make robots and AI safe. Terms like harm and human are too ambiguous to specify precisely.

Computerphile interview with Prof. Ross Anderson on how Chip and PIN payment systems are being compromised, and the attacks researchers have seen.

A Computerphile video in which Mark Jago of the University of Nottingham explains Turing's halting problem and how it led to the blueprint for the modern computer.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explains how a US Navy nuclear submarine surfaces through Arctic ice, filmed during the ICEx exercise. It shows ballast and control systems and the physics involved.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day explores how grain bins work and the engineering and know-how involved in farming. His point is that farmers are exceptionally capable.

An animated visualization of basic quantum mechanics using a free particle, with simulations based on the actual equations. It covers waves, particles, and how measurement collapses the wavefunction.

Technology Connections explains how the simple American drip coffee maker works, including the bimetal valve and bubble-pump heating, and compares the original Mr. Coffee with modern machines.

A cardiologist runs a detailed, skeptical review of the Wim Hof Method, covering the research on cold exposure and breathing techniques. It also teaches how to read scientific statistics critically.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains why general aviation has failed to replace leaded avgas, blaming industry inertia, bureaucratic delay and an exemption that removes the incentive. This is part one of two.

Dialect coach Erik Singer tours a range of accents across North America with linguists in Part 2 of WIRED's accent series. It covers regional distinctions such as Southern Mississippi, Miami and Utah English.

Technology Connections takes apart a 1970 Wurlitzer 3400 jukebox to show how electromechanical relays and switches automated its behavior without a computer.

Rick Beato analyzes the music and production of Max Martin through Ariana Grande's Into You, breaking down its layering and songwriting craft.

Dialect coach Erik Singer and several linguists tour distinct accents across English-speaking North America. It is the first part of a WIRED series on US accents.

Medlife Crisis examines why some elite endurance athletes die in their sleep, covering extremely slow heart rates and the effects of performance-enhancing drugs that thicken blood. It uses cyclist Marco Pantani as an example.

Real Engineering explains why biofuels, especially corn ethanol, are a poor energy source, looking at energy inputs, efficiency and carbon cost.

Tom Scott explains how decades of deep coal mining sank parts of Germany's Ruhr Valley and changed its drainage. Pumps run by Emschergenossenschaft must now work permanently to keep towns and cities from flooding.

A Wendover Productions video on how the art market works, arguing that prices are driven by wealth, storage and tax mechanics rather than artistic value.

An RSA Animate drawing of Barbara Ehrenreich's talk on the darker side of positive thinking. It argues that forced positivity in culture, work and policy can be harmful and played a part in the financial crisis.

Rob Miles explains on Computerphile how language models generate plausible text and how transformers improved on recurrent networks, with a look at what comes next.