control algorithms

The opening lecture of Steve Brunton's Control Bootcamp, covering the kinds of control and why closed-loop feedback matters. It starts a series that follows the control chapter of the Brunton and Kutz data-driven science book.

A JSConf 2014 talk visually breaking down algorithms behind everyday UI patterns, such as dropdown menus that vanish when the mouse drifts and picking the nearest target to the cursor. It shows how these are implemented in JavaScript.

A visualization and sonification of 15 sorting algorithms, from selection sort to bogo sort, run on shuffled integers in six minutes. Each algorithm gets a size and speed scaled to its complexity.

A clip from Jim Jefferies' Netflix special BARE in which he comedically dissects American gun culture and gun control arguments.

Dave Jones of EEVblog looks at a sub-3-cent microcontroller from Padauk and other obscure Chinese manufacturers. He shows how to find such parts and where to buy them in stock.

A Daily Show segment in which John Oliver examines the argument that gun control does not work, using Australia's experience after the Senate rejected the Manchin-Toomey amendment. It is a comedic, man-on-the-street style piece.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment covers the working conditions of US air traffic controllers and the understaffing, outdated equipment (including floppy disks) and funding structure of the FAA. It mixes comedy with policy criticism.

In a TEDGlobal talk, Raffaello D'Andrea demonstrates quadcopters that play catch, balance, learn and coordinate, using algorithms that treat them like athletes. It includes Kinect-controlled quads.

Ben Eater writes a program in a made-up machine language and walks through the control logic an 8-bit breadboard CPU needs to execute it. It is part of his build-an-8-bit-computer series.

Glenn Vanderburg presents Cló, a Clojure library that reimplements TeX's core typesetting algorithms as composable functions. He shows what translating procedural, literate-programming code into functional form teaches.

Andreas Antonopoulos argues that money has a fourth function beyond store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account, which is as a system of control. He covers the history of money and why it does not flow freely.

Real air traffic control audio of the Air Astana flight whose flight controls had been wired in reverse by a maintenance error. The pilots struggle to keep control while ATC tries to help.

A 1953 US Navy training film explaining the basic mechanisms in mechanical fire control computers aboard ships. It shows how gears, differentials and cams solved mathematical problems in permanent mechanical form.

A 1953 US Navy training film on the basic mechanisms in fire control computers: shafts, gears, cams and differentials. It shows how these mechanical parts compute ship and target firing solutions.

A lecture from MIT's Missing Semester course covering version control with git. It builds up git from its data model rather than from commands.

Andrei Alexandrescu's CppCon 2019 talk revisits sorting, showing how branchless tricks, hybrid strategies and a cost metric can speed up std::sort-style algorithms on modern hardware.

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.

A special lecture from MIT's Private Pilot Ground School in which Lt. Col. Randy Gordon, a fighter and test pilot, describes F-22 flight controls. Topics include thrust vectoring, the pilot command system and how software handles failures.

Part one of Sandia National Labs' first-person documentary on the use control, detonation safety and survivability of US nuclear weapons. It covers nuclear sharing in NATO and how control of use was separated from possession, leading to the always/never problem.

A short demo of an open-source Krita plugin that uses Stable Diffusion to generate and edit images in place. It adds ControlNet scribble and line-art support. You select an area, push a button, and new matching content appears.

Lex Fridman interviews Donald Knuth about algorithms, complexity, The Art of Computer Programming, and his work habits. The conversation covers his approach to verifying algorithms and how he organises his time.

An American Airlines training video by Captain Warren VanderBurgh on control malfunctions and flight instrument anomalies. It discusses real incidents such as runaway trim and instrument failures and how crews should respond.

Valve's short video on building the Steam Controller on a heavily automated assembly line, which the company designed itself. It shows the robotic manufacturing process and US final assembly.

Terry Davis, author of TempleOS, demonstrates his SimStructure physics simulator and builds a PID controller using math from Numerical Recipes in C. The description notes PID controllers are used in everything from rockets to espresso machines.

A TU Vienna demo of a double inverted pendulum on a cart, using constrained feedforward and optimal feedback control for swing-up and point-to-point motion.

Fully Charged gets an exclusive first drive of the Porsche Taycan, running 0-200 km/h launch control repeatedly. It covers the car's twin-motor 800-volt specs, claimed range and fast charging.

A TU Wien control-systems demo in which a triple pendulum on a cart is swung up and stabilized using constrained feedforward plus optimal feedback control. It accompanies a 2013 Automatica paper.

Ben Heck modifies a keyboard with magnets, Hall effect sensors and an Xbox controller so the WASD keys give analog control. He walks through the hardware build.

Dashcam footage of a Tesla Model S on adaptive cruise control hitting a stopped van, with the driver listing the safety systems that failed to react. The uploader still calls the Model S the best car in the world.

Linus Torvalds gives a Google tech talk on git, the source control system he created two years earlier. He argues for distributed version control over centralized systems such as CVS and Subversion.

SQLite author Richard Hipp's talk at SouthEast LinuxFest criticizing Git's workflow and introducing Fossil as an alternative. He lists Git enhancements and argues for keeping history intact.

Tom Scott's Royal Institution discourse on science communication in the age of social media, how recommendation algorithms shape popularity, and why view counts can matter more than truth. It includes a segment on parasocial relationships.

A Technology Connections video essay arguing that algorithmic feeds make people passive about finding content, leading to complacency in how they seek information. It urges people to actively choose what they consume.

Kevin Spacey, giving the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival, urges TV channels to give viewers control. He points to Netflix's House of Cards release as evidence that audiences want to watch on their own terms.

A short research demo of Autonomous Intersection Management, a protocol in which self-driving cars reserve slots through an intersection instead of obeying signals or stop signs. It uses UT Austin's autonomous vehicle Marvin and a simulation to show cars crossing without stopping.

A short MIT Aerospace Controls Lab demo from 2011 of a variable pitch quadrotor flying.

Chandler Carruth's CppCon 2014 talk on writing fast C++, explaining why data structure choice and memory layout matter more than clever algorithms. It covers why standard containers like unordered_map perform poorly on modern CPUs.

Moleman 2 is a feature-length documentary about the demoscene, tracing its rise from 1980s Commodore 64 culture to modern real-time art. It explains the algorithms and creative process behind demos and intros.

Matthaeus Krenn presents a concept for car touchscreen UI where the screen controls only one thing at a time, designed to suit driving. A tablet prototype accompanies the short demo.

Technosociologist Zeynep Tufekci argues that the machine-learning systems used to serve ads also decide what political and social information people see. She explains how opaque algorithms can nudge, segment and manipulate users, and warns that the real danger is powerful people using AI to control populations.