code search

CGP Grey explains that postal codes are routing instructions for mail rather than geographic regions. He looks at the quirks and problems this causes.

3Blue1Brown's discovery-oriented introduction to error correction codes, building up Hamming codes from the puzzle of locating a flipped bit. It explains the parity-check idea and why it is so efficient.

Veritasium builds a QR code by hand to explain how it works. It covers the history of Morse code and barcodes, how QR codes encode data, why damaged codes still scan, and how safe they are.

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.

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.

Matthias Wandel tests old and new code on a range of PCs, including a new mini PC, to measure how much faster modern hardware really is. He also shows optimization techniques such as branchless code, with benchmark programs on GitHub.

CGP Grey explains why airport codes are inconsistent and sometimes confusing, from their origins in old weather station codes to the quirks that cause mistakes. He builds the story around a single typo that sent a flight to the wrong continent.

Matt Parker follows the community effort to speed up his slow Wordle-solving code, which ended up running hundreds of millions of times faster. He walks through the techniques contributors used.

Numberphile's Dr James Grime explains the flaw in the Enigma machine, namely that a letter could never be encrypted to itself, and how that helped the Allies break the code. It touches on the Bombe and Alan Turing.

CodeParade's short devlog on how spherical geometry looks in 2D and 3D and why it feels so unusual, part of the Hyperbolica series on a non-Euclidean game.

Veritasium explains why a large share of published research findings may be false, covering p-values, p-hacking, publication bias and low replication rates. It draws on John Ioannidis's well-known paper and describes reforms such as preregistration.

Kaze Emanuar explains how he rewrote and optimized the Super Mario 64 source code so it runs far faster on real N64 hardware. He covers performance bottlenecks and fixes in detail for his ROM hacks.

CGP Grey tells the story of Alexander Pope's long takedown of a historian, Thomas Hearne, framed around the quirks of library books and archival research. It is a funny, digressive video essay about literary feuds and tracking down original sources.

Veritasium examines research suggesting science explainer videos like Khan Academy's make students feel they understand while tests show they have not learned, because misconceptions go unaddressed. It suggests how to partly fix this.

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.

A speedrunner-made explanation of the Super Mario World credits warp, an arbitrary code execution glitch that jumps the game straight to the ending. It simplifies the underlying assembly and memory behavior with animations so non-experts can follow.

Marcus du Sautoy of the BBC demonstrates the wisdom of the crowd, showing that averaging many guesses of jelly beans in a jar lands near the true count.

Climate Town traces the history of American parking minimums, how they came from shaky research and ITE guides, and how they shape zoning, cities and housing costs. It is a long, comedic video essay.

Mark Rober digs into bed bugs, testing popular beliefs about where they come from and how to get rid of them. It mixes entertaining experiments with research-based advice on what works and what does not.

Wendover Productions explains counterintuitive riot control techniques based on research, showing that effective tactics tend to avoid violence.

NFPA video in which wildfire researcher Jack Cohen explains that embers (firebrands), not the flame front, are the main cause of homes igniting in wildfires. He shows how landscaping and removing debris around the home reduce risk.

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.

The first video in Not Just Bikes' Strong Towns series explains the financial instability of North American cities, based on Strong Towns research. It argues that low-density suburban growth costs more to maintain than it brings in.

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.

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.

An Every Frame a Painting video essay on how Akira Kurosawa used movement, weather and composition to tell stories. It draws on clips and interviews with other filmmakers.

Kurzgesagt's short animated video asks whether humanity should try to end aging, and argues the case for curing age-related disease. It is part one of a pair, with a second part by CGP Grey.

Ward Cunningham explains the history and intent of the debt metaphor, which he coined while refactoring the WyCash product. He says debt means code reflecting an incomplete understanding of the problem, not sloppy 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.

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.

Climate Town gives a comedic, fast-paced account of how the plastics industry promoted recycling, including the resin-code recycling symbol, while knowing most plastic could not be economically recycled. It points viewers to the Frontline documentary Plastic Wars for a deeper treatment.

Vox explains the Berlin and Kay research showing that languages around the world tend to invent color words in the same order. It walks through the hierarchy and the debate around it.

Rick Beato argues that adults cannot develop true perfect pitch, which he ties to critical-period brain plasticity and language acquisition. He says it can only be developed in young children, and discusses the research behind this.

Polylog explains how algorithms can be turned into circuits and encoded as satisfiability problems, which lets you effectively run them backwards. It uses this to motivate breaking RSA, general reductions to SAT, and what P vs NP is really asking.

Veritasium explores compliant mechanisms, devices that move by flexing rather than using hinges and joints, with researchers at BYU. It covers advantages such as fewer parts and precision, including uses in nuclear weapon safety.

3Blue1Brown illustrates how enormous the 256-bit search space is, showing how infeasible it is to find a hash or key by guessing and checking.

Noodle explores how retro pixel art was designed for CRT displays and why games look different on LCDs, with input from pixel artists and CRT researchers.

A step-by-step animated explanation of how SHA-256 works, from padding and message schedule to the compression function and final hash, with source code for the animations.

FortNine explains the economics of the dealership model, arguing that dealers absorb inventory risk and help manufacturers' finances. It looks at whether cars and motorcycles could be sold more cheaply without them.

Kurzgesagt explains why humans feel loneliness, its evolutionary role, and how modern life can turn it into a harmful downward spiral. It cites research and offers ideas on what to do about it.