figure 8 knot

Hard Is Easy runs experiments to show that a correctly tied figure 8 knot is not hard to untie after loading. He shows how two knots that look similar can behave differently depending on how they are dressed.

A short status-update demo from Figure showing its humanoid robot using OpenAI-powered speech-to-speech reasoning to converse and perform tasks.

A ten-minute card-magic act by Dani DaOrtiz performed on Penn & Teller: Fool Us in 2022. It is built on timing, misdirection and psychology, and the method defeated the show's hosts.

Terry Moore's three-minute TED talk showing a better way to tie shoes, replacing the common granny knot with a square knot so laces stay tied.

BigClive explains why microwave oven transformer projects are extremely dangerous, since the high voltage and high current can kill. He contrasts them with spot welder builds where the secondary is replaced by low-voltage heavy wire.

Innuendo Studios uses Phil Fish, creator of the game Fez, as a case study in internet celebrity. The essay argues that fame online works differently from traditional fame, and shows how audiences turn on the people they have elevated.

Howard Abrams demonstrates, in an EmacsConf 2015 talk, how he uses org-mode's Babel and Tramp to configure and operate remote servers from a single document. Code blocks, their results and the explanatory text all live together.

John Kitchin shows how Emacs org-mode with Python lets researchers combine narrative, math, figures and executable code in one document. It exports to LaTeX, HTML and PDF, and he used it for papers and e-books.

A four-minute tour of the TeXmacs scientific editor, showing math typing, figures, citations, a drawing tool, document styles, HTML export, presentations and animations.

A CAD-based animation from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics showing how the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator is configured and what its fusion research aims to achieve. It runs about 11 minutes.

The full documentary 'The Internet's Own Boy' about programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, with interviews with family, friends and internet figures. It covers his work on access to information and the legal case preceding his death.

Part one of Errol Morris's First Person interview with Murray Richman, a New York lawyer who defends mob figures. He talks about how he sees the law and his clients.

Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths asks whether a country's reported land area accounts for hills and mountains, working through how surface area depends on the resolution of elevation data. It follows up on a question from a viewer and work by researchers who measured it.

A 1995 episode of The Computer Chronicles devoted to Gary Kildall, creator of CP/M. It works as a retrospective and tribute to the personal computer pioneer.

Benn Jordan argues that Spotify's business model undermines the music it sells, using streaming payout figures and the economics for artists and labels.

A political commentary video arguing that tech billionaires such as Thiel, Musk and Andreessen, along with figures like Yarvin, are using the new administration to push their agenda. It connects Yarvin's ideas with Project 2025.

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 roughly 3.5-hour Gamers Nexus investigation into rising PC component prices, driven largely by AI data-center demand for memory and other hardware. It draws on interviews with industry figures to argue that personal computing and ownership are being eroded.

A Munk Debate on the proposition that AI research and development poses an existential threat. Yoshua Bengio and Max Tegmark argue for it, and Melanie Mitchell and Yann LeCun argue against.

Hillsdale historian Burt Folsom lectures at a 2011 seminar on the 'robber barons' of the Gilded Age. He argues that figures like Vanderbilt and Rockefeller were market entrepreneurs rather than monopolists.

Full episode of Sassy Justice, a satirical local-news show from the South Park creators starring a deepfaked consumer advocate, Fred Sassy. It uses face-swapped public figures to comment on the dangers of manipulated video.

Scott Manley explains the thermal balance of spacecraft and how a satellite could be configured to radiate away the heat from datacenter-scale computing in space. His rough numbers suggest it is feasible.

A five-minute TED talk by Rob Reid, who introduces Copyright Math, applying entertainment-industry piracy loss claims to produce absurd totals such as an $8 billion iPod.

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.

Joe Rogan interviews Stanford neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky about his book Behave. They discuss the biology of human behavior, including toxoplasmosis and risk-taking, and baboon troop dynamics.

Physicist Angela Collier uses Gell-Mann amnesia to critique pop-science figures, especially Michio Kaku, and works through an eigenvalue problem along the way. It is a long, rambling commentary on how experts see simplified explanations of their own field.

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.

A short animated explainer that stages a $100 footrace in which contestants start at different distances from the line, depending on the advantages or disadvantages they inherited. It uses the race as a metaphor for how unequal starting points shape outcomes, citing US census income and poverty figures.

Michael Abrash of Valve explains what affordable VR hardware will be capable of within a couple of years, and describes a prototype showing what that level of hardware can do.

Joel Spolsky's 2009 Google Tech Talk on why StackOverflow was built, how it addresses the mess of searching for programming help, and the community design behind it. He also takes jabs at paywalled answer sites.

An extended Fifth Estate interview with Pierre Sprey, designer of the A-10 and a key figure behind the F-16, arguing the F-35 is an over-engineered, expensive failure.

The famous 1984 Apple Macintosh Super Bowl commercial, directed by Ridley Scott and based on Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It casts the Mac as a force freeing individuals from a Big Brother figure, widely read as aimed at IBM.

The courtroom scene from A Few Good Men in which Col. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson, shouts 'You can't handle the truth' at Tom Cruise's character.

An episode of REACT in which children try to figure out 1970s-1980s computers, including an Apple II and floppy disks. It was made to promote the AMC show Halt and Catch Fire.