complex systems

A feature-length Defunctland documentary on the history of Disney's FastPass and FastPass+ expedited queue systems. It covers how the systems evolved and how they were designed, with simulation of their effects on park lines.

The first episode of James Burke's Connections series, 'The Trigger Effect', explores how modern society depends on interlinked technological systems and how quickly it breaks down when they fail, starting with a power blackout.

NativLang's 47-minute animated documentary traces the birth and evolution of writing, from early cave marks to modern scripts. It presents the history of the world's writing systems as a story.

The first episode of Stewart Brand's 1997 BBC series based on his book How Buildings Learn, covering how buildings change after they are built. Brand presents and the series has music by Brian Eno.

VICE's Oobah Butler spends eight months using fake reviews to push a nonexistent restaurant, The Shed at Dulwich, to number one on TripAdvisor in London. The short documentary shows how easily review systems can be gamed.

A documentary on the 1972 Club of Rome study Limits to Growth, which questioned the pursuit of endless economic growth. It covers the study's findings and whether anyone acted on them.

Jason Scott's multi-episode documentary on the bulletin board system scene of the 1980s and 1990s, built from over 200 interviews. It captures how hobbyists ran dial-up systems before the internet went mainstream.

First part of a six-part recording of the 1973 Lighthill debate on AI, where Sir James Lighthill's critical report on AI research was contested by figures including McCarthy and Michie.

The first episode of James Burke's 1978 BBC series Connections traces modern dependence on complex technological networks, starting with the 1965 New York blackout, and moves through ancient agriculture to Kuwait's oil-driven leap.

Fredrik Knudsen's 86-minute documentary on Terry A. Davis, creator of TempleOS, tracing his work, his schizophrenia and his decline. It is a chronological video essay built on his public posts and videos.

The first episode of Jason Scott's eight-part BBS documentary, covering the predecessors and beginnings of the dial-up bulletin board system. It includes interviews with pioneers such as Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, who created the first dial-up BBS in 1978.

Derren Brown's TV special in which he convinces a person he has a system for predicting horse race winners, demonstrating how survivorship bias and selective outcomes can fake predictive powers.

An independent feature documentary in which 23 economists, advisers and financiers discuss how the financial system works and what a more just economic model might look like. It covers money creation, debt and the aftermath of the financial crisis.

CNBC gets a tour of ASML's cleanrooms in the Netherlands to see how its roughly $200 million EUV lithography machines are built. It covers exploding molten tin, ultra-flat optics and why only one company can make these systems.

Kirsten Dirksen tours new Earthships, homes built from tires, bottles and cans that generate their own energy, collect water and grow food. The video covers the newer, cheaper Encounter model and its passive systems.

A documentary on how Cornwall became a hub for the world's communications, from the first transatlantic radio signal to modern undersea fibre cables. It describes how cable landing stations and the systems are put together.

Part 4 of the BBS: The Documentary series, covering FidoNet, the amateur network that linked dial-up bulletin board systems together to relay messages and files worldwide.

A VPRO documentary on quantitative analysts who designed the mathematical models and high-speed trading systems behind modern finance. It features figures such as Paul Wilmott and asks what risks come from treating markets as a machine.

Adam Curtis's 2016 BBC documentary arguing that politicians, financiers and technologists retreated into a simplified, fake version of the world because reality became too complex. It ranges across Trump, Brexit, Syria, Surkov's Russia and more.

A VICE documentary profiling Wim Hof, the Iceman, covering his feats of cold endurance, his breathing and meditation method, and scientific studies of his control over his autonomic and immune systems.

Veritasium tells the story of the XZ backdoor, how a patient attacker became maintainer and nearly compromised SSH on Linux systems. It also covers free software history and how encryption in SSH works.

Fully Charged host Robert Llewellyn visits Orkney, where wind, tidal, wave and solar generation plus community energy schemes power the islands. It presents the archipelago as a model for future energy systems.

A NASA video on the 29 days after the James Webb Space Telescope's launch, when thousands of parts must deploy in sequence on the way to its destination a million miles away.