click-through rate
46:01Exploring Sid Meier's Pirates! - BASIC Code, Quirks, Bugs on Commodore 64
115K views • 5 years ago
8-Bit Show And Tell
8-Bit Show And Tell walks through the BASIC source code of the original Commodore 64 Sid Meier's Pirates!. It covers bugs, quirks and traces of abandoned features and scenarios left in the code.
17:59The Expert Myth
16M views • 4 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium examines which experts have real expertise, drawing on chess research and work by Klein and Kahneman. It explains that expertise comes from pattern recognition built through deliberate practice in valid, feedback-rich environments.
11:10Why Japan's Conviction Rate is 99% (Actually Explained)
82K views • 6 years ago
That Japanese Man Yuta
Yuta explains what Japan's 99% conviction rate actually means, noting that prosecutors drop cases unless confidence is very high. He argues that the number is widely misunderstood and cites his sources.
15:25Why Louisiana Stays Poor
1.7M views • 7 years ago
Together Louisiana
Together Louisiana asks why Louisiana stays poor despite its natural resources and industry, focusing on industrial tax exemptions and corporate welfare.
13:12The 2.7% Rule for Retirement Spending
404K views • 3 years ago
Ben Felix
Ben Felix examines whether the well-known 4% retirement withdrawal rule holds up, drawing on academic papers. He argues that a safe rate may be closer to 2.7%, especially for early retirees.
18:13Try to Rule Fairly and You'll Be Overthrown
26M views • 10 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey's animated adaptation of The Dictator's Handbook, explaining how rulers stay in power by keeping a small group of key supporters happy rather than ruling fairly. It lays out selectorate theory and how resources shape regimes.
15:11Bayes theorem, the geometry of changing beliefs
6M views • 6 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown presents Bayes' theorem through a geometric diagram, showing how evidence should update beliefs. It works through the Kahneman and Tversky style questions and base rates.
31:00How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio
134.5M views • 13 years ago
Principles by Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio's 30-minute animated video explains how the economy works through credit, debt, interest rates, and short- and long-term cycles. It is based on his template for understanding the economy.
23:16The Machinery Of Freedom: Illustrated summary
164K views • 14 years ago
bitbutter
An illustrated 23-minute summary of David Friedman's talk based on The Machinery of Freedom. It describes how law, police and courts could work as market services in a stateless society, covering private law, polycentric law and objections.
14:27Why is TV 29.97 frames per second?
2.2M views • 10 years ago
Stand-up Maths
Matt Parker explains the history behind NTSC television running at 29.97 frames per second rather than 30, tracing it to the backward-compatible addition of color. He walks through the arithmetic behind the odd ratio.
6:40Overpopulation – The Human Explosion Explained
14M views • 9 years ago
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
A Kurzgesagt explainer on why the human population exploded and why growth is slowing, drawing on Our World in Data. It argues that birth rates fall as countries develop, easing overpopulation fears.
21:14The medical test paradox, and redesigning Bayes' rule
1.4M views • 5 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown explains why positive results on accurate medical tests are often false positives, and reframes Bayes' rule using likelihood ratios (Bayes factors) to update odds. It uses visual examples to make the reasoning intuitive.
26:33The Most Underrated Algorithm
10.8M views • 4 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium tells the story of the Fast Fourier Transform, from its use in detecting nuclear tests to Cold War politics, and how it could have changed the arms race. It includes a short, intuitive explanation of what the Fourier transform does.
2:58Why Britain Uses Separate Hot and Cold Taps
6.8M views • 12 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott explains why Britain historically has separate hot and cold taps rather than mixer taps, tracing it to how water was stored in tanks. He notes why the hot tap is not safe to drink from.
5:01How a Laser-Shot Disk Defeats Hackers & Pirates (Coding Secrets)
132K views • 8 years ago
GameHut
An episode of Coding Secrets by Jon Burton on retro copy protection, in particular physically damaging a disk with a laser so copies fail. It explains how this defeated hackers and pirates.
14:47SOUTH KOREA IS OVER
15.9M views • 1 year ago
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
A Kurzgesagt animation on South Korea's record-low fertility rate and rapidly aging population. It explains why a demographic collapse looks hard to reverse and projects the population shrinking sharply by 2060.
9:00Facebook Fraud
6.6M views • 12 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium argues that Facebook's ad revenue relies partly on fake likes, after paying to promote his page and gaining tens of thousands of followers in developing countries who never engaged. He shares his experiment and cites other cases.
4:20Why Snow and Confetti Ruin YouTube Video Quality
10.4M views • 10 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott explains why confetti and snow wreck video quality, using interframe compression and bitrate. He demonstrates it live by changing the quality on screen.
5:33Adam Ruins Everything - The Truth About the McDonald's Coffee Lawsuit
978K views • 9 years ago
truTV
An Adam Ruins Everything segment on the real facts of the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, covering the severity of the burns and the corporate PR campaign that painted it as frivolous.
14:24Why Japan Arrests Foreigners
8.6M views • 7 years ago
Paolo fromTOKYO
Paolo fromTOKYO explains why foreign tourists get arrested in Japan, covering strict laws and the justice system's very high conviction rate.
18:58The Great Stranding: How Inaccurate Mainstream LCOE Estimates are Creating a Trillion-Dollar Bubble
38K views • 5 years ago
RethinkX
RethinkX summarizes its report arguing that mainstream LCOE estimates are inflating a bubble in coal, gas, nuclear and hydro assets. It claims solar, wind and batteries will strand conventional energy investments.
4:40This 1970s tank simulator drives through a tiny world
12M views • 4 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott visits the Swiss Military Museum to see the last surviving 1970s tank-driving simulator. It uses a real camera moving over a miniature model landscape rather than any computer graphics.
16:37Does It Make Sense To Put Data Centers In Space? Can They Really Cost Less To Operate?
502K views • 2 years ago
Scott Manley
Scott Manley analyzes the idea of putting data centers in orbit, prompted by Lumen Orbit's funding. He examines the claimed advantage of constant solar power against launch cost, cooling and mass.
11:39The Unbeatable Game from the 60s: Dr NIM
7.2M views • 10 years ago
Stand-up Maths
Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths explains single-pile Nim and the trick that wins it, using Dr NIM, a 1960s mechanical plastic computer that plays perfectly. He teaches the strategy so viewers can beat friends.
15:15WHY Exercise is so Underrated (Brain Power & Movement Link)
4.3M views • 9 years ago
Joseph Everett - WIL
A video arguing that exercise matters for the brain as much as the body, linking movement, the nervous system and BDNF to learning and memory. It draws on research connecting complex movement to brain development.
19:42Using AI To Detect AI Music (and other music industry data-porn)
452K views • 1 year ago
Benn Jordan
Musician Benn Jordan uses AI to detect AI-generated music and digs into music industry data, including streaming payouts and sample library copyright problems. He covers ways to tell whether a track is human-made.
4:10'Zombie' Parasite Cordyceps Fungus Takes Over Insects Through Mind Control | National Geographic
6M views • 7 years ago
National Geographic
National Geographic footage showing the cordyceps fungus infecting ants and other insects and steering their behavior so it can reproduce.
10:13The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile
4.4M views • 12 years ago
Computerphile
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.
27:14Transformers, the tech behind LLMs | Deep Learning Chapter 5
11.6M views • 2 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown's visual explanation of how transformers and GPT-style language models work, tracing data through tokens, embeddings and attention.
6:59The Problem With Facebook
3.1M views • 12 years ago
2veritasium
Veritasium's Derek Muller argues that Facebook's business model works against pages and creators, because it charges them to reach the audiences they built. He explains how filtering and paid promotion undermine the value of likes.
28:23The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT): Most Ingenious Algorithm Ever?
2.3M views • 5 years ago
Reducible
Reducible's visual walkthrough of the Fast Fourier Transform, motivated by polynomial multiplication. It shows how the FFT's key ideas can be discovered by asking the right questions.
27:19Once you understand game theory, you understand the world.
26.5M views • 2 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium explores the Prisoner's Dilemma and Axelrod's tournaments, showing why tit-for-tat and forgiving strategies win in repeated games. It extends the ideas to cooperation in evolution and conflict.
42:3630 Weird Chess Algorithms: Elo World
965K views • 7 years ago
suckerpinch
Tom Scott-style absurdist tour by Tom7 of SIGBOVIK chess projects: a tournament of 30 weird chess algorithms used to rate a color- and piece-blind chess program. Topics include mirrors, arithmetic encoding, perverted game tree search and a diluted Stockfish.
31:56Why Russia is Invading Ukraine
21.7M views • 4 years ago
RealLifeLore
RealLifeLore explains with maps why Russia invaded Ukraine, focusing on energy resources, security buffers, Black Sea access and Crimea's strategic value.
27:15The Most Misunderstood Concept in Physics
31.5M views • 3 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium's explainer on entropy, presented as one of physics' most important and least understood concepts. It uses examples such as heat engines and the sun's energy flowing through the Earth.
14:12How Harley-Davidson Killed Itself
5M views • 6 years ago
FortNine
FortNine explains how Harley-Davidson ended up in decline, from a narrow lifestyle niche and an aging customer base to the pandemic hitting a company already in trouble.
27:07Attention Is All You Need
814K views • 8 years ago
Yannic Kilcher
Yannic Kilcher walks through the Attention Is All You Need paper, which introduced the Transformer, a sequence model based solely on attention without recurrence or convolutions. He reviews the architecture and the paper's translation results.
4:07Why do competitors open their stores next to one another? - Jac de Haan
7.4M views • 14 years ago
TED-Ed
A short animated TED-Ed lesson in which two competing ice cream vendors on a beach illustrate why rival shops cluster together. It introduces game theory and the Nash equilibrium through the Hotelling model.
1:10:52The Fermi Paradox Compendium
815K views • 10 years ago
Isaac Arthur
Isaac Arthur surveys the popular proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox in a 71-minute compendium. He weighs the strengths and weaknesses of each argument.
5:39Every Ruler Makes the Same Mistake When They Die
6.8M views • 10 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey, adapting The Dictator's Handbook, explains how rulers keep power and why succession causes trouble when they die. It is the sequel to his video on the rules for rulers.