critique

Tantacrul dissects the UX and UI of Avid's Sibelius music notation software, going through a long list of bad design choices. The review is both a comic rant and a practical lesson in interface design.

A former libertarian argues against libertarianism, describing the worst-case scenario if government disappeared overnight. It is drawn from the School Sucks Podcast episode on the natural state.

Thunderf00t, a physicist, critically assesses the Hyperloop concept, covering the vacuum, pressure, safety, and cost problems of high-speed tube travel. He argues the media accepted the claims uncritically.

Tantacrul gives a detailed UX and UI design review of the MuseScore 3 notation software and compares it with Sibelius. It examines visual appeal, navigation and notation quality.

An animated, profane rant critiquing Windows 8, especially its touch-first interface on desktop PCs. The author draws on a background in tech journalism to lay out the UX problems.

Accursed Farms' hour-plus critique of the modern desktop GUI. It argues that current interfaces are a regression from older designs such as Windows 7 and proposes principles for better ones.

Dan Olson's roughly two-hour video essay critiques NFTs, cryptocurrency, and Web3, covering their technical, economic, and ideological flaws. It is heavily sourced and ends with the advice to ask whether a project needs crypto to work.

Paul Phillips, a major Scala compiler contributor, gives a long talk on Scala collections and views, using it to critique Scala's design and direction.

Thunderf00t critiques Starlink's economics and technical claims alongside other unfulfilled Musk promises. It argues Starlink is a poor business.

Paul Phillips, a former Scala core contributor, argues after moving a million lines of code that much of what the software industry does is wrong. He critiques Scala and compiler design and calls for better approaches.

James Howard Kunstler's TED talk argues that American public spaces and architecture have become unworthy of care, damaging civic life. He presents suburban sprawl and car-first design as failures of the common good.

CityNerd critiques the Las Vegas Loop, the Boring Company's tunnel transit system, arguing its design and operation are poor. The video covers how the system actually runs.

Tantacrul critiques the UX and UI of Steinberg's Dorico music notation software, comparing it with Sibelius and user testing it with real musicians alongside his own attempt to compose in it.

An episode of the Well There's Your Problem podcast on five-over-one buildings, wood-frame floors atop concrete bases, with engineering background and some oil industry news. It is long, rambling and has NSFW language.

Not Just Bikes looks at the cancelled plan to spend over $200 million widening Wonderland Road, a stroad in his hometown of London, Ontario. He asks whether the cancellation marks a turning point away from car-dependent development.

Jason Cammisa reviews the 2022 Volkswagen Mk8 GTI and explains why he thinks it is worse than the Mk7. He criticizes aspects such as the capacitive touch controls and the interface.

A long, sarcastic critique of Elon Musk's Loop tunnel transit idea and related Boring Company and Hyperloop claims. It leans on transit-planning arguments about capacity and throughput.

Adam Something argues that the Hyperloop is impractical, covering the costs and engineering problems of running trains in a near vacuum compared with conventional rail and metros. The description admits some wrong numbers in the original cut.

Brian Will makes the case for procedural programming over object-oriented programming, arguing that OOP's promised encapsulation and decoupling are largely illusory. He analyzes real code examples and the problems of tying data to behavior in classes.

Planet of the Humans, a full documentary by Jeff Gibbs presented by Michael Moore, arguing that the green movement has been co-opted by corporate and wealthy interests and that techno-fixes are not enough.

Economist Richard Wolff's Talks at Google lecture on his book Democracy at Work. He critiques capitalism and argues for worker-run cooperatives as a path to a more democratic economy.

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas spends months in the virtual world Decentraland and delivers a long critique of the metaverse, NFTs and DAOs, and why virtual worlds fail as places.

Brian Will follows up his earlier anti-OOP video by walking through four short code examples, including Java code in the style of Uncle Bob, to show how object-oriented design complicates simple programs. It argues that OOP hides and scatters state and adds needless indirection.

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.

Bertrand Meyer's ACM webcast giving a critical look at agile methods, separating good ideas from hype and from practices he thinks damage projects. It is based on his book on the same subject.

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.

Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 spoken-word piece, in an official audio upload. It contrasts the Apollo moon program with poverty and neglect at home.

A short video of Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 speech criticizing Gross Domestic Product as a measure of progress, saying it counts everything except what makes life worthwhile.

Brian Will critiques object-oriented programming and rewrites a roughly 3800-line OO program in a procedural style, cutting code and complexity. It is part of a series of OOP critiques.

Freya Holmer delivers a long critique of generative AI, arguing it degrades the internet by flooding it with machine-generated junk. The video grew out of her frustration finding reliable information about a technical file format.

A short clip of Casey Muratori from Handmade Hero explaining why he rejects the object-oriented mindset and how to move away from it. It is part rant, part programming philosophy.

An hour-plus Some More News episode that critiques Ben Shapiro's arguments and record of errors. It is a long, comedic and opinionated breakdown.

ContraPoints' long-form video response to Jordan Peterson, critiquing his ideas including his use of the term postmodern neo-Marxism. It is delivered in her theatrical essay style.

A short Adam Curtis clip on what he calls oh dearism, the habit of news reporting that presents events as a stream of sad, inexplicable happenings. He argues this leaves viewers passive and unable to imagine action.

Thunderf00t's critique of SpaceX's claims, arguing its launches are not actually cheaper than competitors or the Space Shuttle. It questions the economics of reusability.

A video essay from Pop Culture Detective arguing that The Big Bang Theory normalizes sexism and toxic masculinity through its portrayal of nerd men. It analyzes recurring tropes in how the male leads treat women.

A one-minute clip of Alan Kay giving his blunt critique of Linux and the Unix approach.

Not Just Bikes argues that self-driving cars will worsen sprawl and car dependence and harm cities. The video compares car-centered and people-centered urban design and weighs what cities should do instead.

Bret Victor's talk at CUSEC 2012 in which he argues that creators need immediate feedback and should organize their work around a guiding principle. He demonstrates live-coding and animation tools that show results as you type, and describes his own principle that creators must see what they are making.

Not Just Bikes introduces the "stroad", a street-road hybrid common in the US and Canada that fails at both jobs. He contrasts it with Dutch design, where each road has a single purpose, and covers cost, danger and ugliness.