first principles

Dave Ackley gives a high-level introduction to robust-first computing, which prioritizes robustness over efficiency in computer architecture. A sorting demo illustrates the idea.

Economist-comedian Yoram Bauman delivers a humorous translation of Mankiw's ten principles of economics for the uninitiated. It was presented at the AAAS humor session in 2007.

Aaron Boodman of Replicache asks why sync engines have not yet fixed web app complexity and what is missing for them to go mainstream. The talk lays out the ideas that led to the Zero sync engine.

John Scholes builds a depth-first tree-search operator step by step in a Dyalog APL session. It covers higher-order functions and runs the search on the N-Queens problem.

CGP Grey explains how the 2015 UK general election showed the flaws of first-past-the-post voting, with parties like UKIP winning many votes but few seats.

Dave Ackley presents robust-first computing and the ULAM programming language for the Movable Feast Machine, a cellular-automata-like architecture. It was a short video for the Future Programming Workshop 2015.

The famous ladder fight scene from Jackie Chan's First Strike (Police Story 4), an action sequence that won the Hong Kong Film Award for best action choreography.

A dramatization of a hypothetical Soviet first strike that destroys US bombers and Minuteman missiles, filmed with US Air Force cooperation. It is a short version of the 1979 documentary First Strike.

The first episode of Clickspring's series on reproducing the Antikythera Mechanism by hand, laying out the plan and the history. The series follows a machinist building the ancient Greek device with traditional tools and methods.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day undergoes hypoxia training and experiences his own impaired thinking as oxygen is withdrawn. The video shows how quickly and unnoticeably oxygen deprivation degrades judgment, illustrating why you put your own mask on first.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella of the Natural Running Center gives a short instructional video on natural running form. It describes the principles of good technique, including barefoot-style mechanics.

SethBling performs the first credits warp in Super Mario World on a real SNES console, a glitch that plays the ending without beating Bowser. The run relies on pixel-perfect positioning and tools such as a helper ROM hack.

Roman Mars gives a funny TED talk on vexillology, laying out five basic principles of good flag design and why many city flags fail them.

A Numberphile interview with Donald Knuth about how he came to write the first book on surreal numbers after a lunch with John Conway. He tells the story casually in about 14 minutes.

Flanders and Swann perform 'First and Second Law', a comic song about the laws of thermodynamics, from their 1964 stage show At the Drop of Another Hat. It sets the first and second laws to a deadpan call-and-response routine.

Drummer Larnell Lewis hears Metallica's Enter Sandman for the first time on Drumeo and learns to play it by ear, using his musical vocabulary.

Steve Jobs introduces the first iPod at a small Apple event in 2001. He positions it as a music player and ties it to the Apple brand.

A clip from the 2015 film The Big Short in which FrontPoint Partners investigate mortgage lending in Florida and place their first trade. It shows brokers and a stripper-adjacent loan scene illustrating subprime lending to unverified borrowers.

Nature video showing MIT researchers flying the first plane with no moving parts, powered by an ion drive that creates an ionic wind from high-powered electrodes. The 5m-wide craft flies across a sports hall.

A short first look at Dasung's 25.3-inch Paperlike 253 e-ink monitor, edited from the company's own Weibo reveal video. Price and release date were not yet known.

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 short look at the Voder, the first electronic voice synthesizer, demonstrated by Bell Labs at the 1939 World's Fair. It was operated by trained women using ten finger keys, foot pedals and a knee lever.

CGP Grey explains first-past-the-post voting and why it pushes elections toward two dominant parties. It is the first in his series on electoral systems.

A short CGP Grey explainer on the alternative vote (instant runoff voting) versus first past the post, made around the 2011 UK referendum. It shows how ranked ballots are tallied and why they avoid spoiler effects.

Josh Kaufman's TEDx talk argues that you can reach practical competence in almost any skill with about 20 hours of focused practice, rather than the 10,000 hours often quoted. He describes how becoming a parent led him to rethink how adults learn, and lays out a short method for rapid skill acquisition.

Game Maker's Toolkit examines Nintendo's design approach of starting from a core play mechanic, making it fun, and building around it. Examples include Mario's jump and Luigi's Mansion's vacuum.

A short street interview from Invisible People with Keith, a homeless man in Los Angeles who lost his housing-industry job in the crash and moved from painkillers to heroin because it was cheaper. He talks candidly about the grip of addiction.

An RSA Animate adaptation of a Slavoj Zizek talk on charitable giving and ethical consumerism. It argues that buying products that bundle a charity donation can sustain the system that causes the problems.

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.

Robert Llewellyn of Fully Charged takes an early, 19-minute test drive of the Honda e electric car in Frankfurt. He looks at its acceleration, camera wing mirrors and tight turning circle.

Primer uses simulations to compare voting systems such as first-past-the-post, approval, ranked choice and others. It shows how each system behaves and can be manipulated, with links to further voting theory resources.

CGP Grey discusses flag design principles and grades flags, following the Minnesota state flag redesign. It argues for simple, distinctive flags.

A short clip, from 2003, of Noam Chomsky going through crimes of post-WW2 US presidents. He argues that they would be indictable under the Nuremberg principles.

A ten-minute explainer from Hypermind on the wisdom of crowds, covering Galton's discovery and the diversity theorem. It argues that collective intelligence comes from diversity, independence and aggregation.

A five-minute CG sci-fi short film by Danil Krivoruchko, based on Peter Watts's novel Blindsight. It follows a revived crew member recalling a first contact mission, and took four years to make with artists worldwide.

A solo performance of Steve Reich's Piano Phase, with one pianist playing both parts, recorded in 2004 with Reich in attendance. It is a 15-minute minimalist phasing piece.

Physics Girl creator Dianna Cowern shares an update on her health, struggling with long COVID and ME/CFS. It includes documentary footage and links for supporting her recovery.

A 1937 GM-produced film explaining how the automobile differential lets wheels turn at different speeds around a corner. It uses clear animations and cutaway demonstrations to build the idea from first principles.

3Blue1Brown's first chapter on deep learning explains what neurons and layers are and the math underlying a basic neural network, using handwritten digit recognition with visual animations.

Wendover Productions explains how airlines make money from different cabin classes and why premium seats matter so much to profits. It also touches on how this shaped decisions such as the decline of supersonic travel.