golden mean

Numberphile's Ben Sparks shows why the golden ratio is the most irrational number, using seeds, continued fractions and rational approximations. He also explains why plants use it for spacing leaves and seeds.

John Chowning's 1977 computer music piece Stria, composed with FM synthesis, which he discovered in 1967. It unifies timbre and scale structure around the Golden Mean.

The first episode of John Vervaeke's lecture series on the modern meaning crisis, tracing its history through philosophy, cognitive science, religion and psychology. It introduces the series and its themes.

The first lecture of Jordan Peterson's 2017 Maps of Meaning course, setting out the Cold War context for his theory of belief and culture. He introduces the narrative structure of culture and archetypal characters for the individual, the known and the unknown.

A Golden Balls episode in which one contestant announces he will steal, leading to an unexpected outcome in the split-or-steal prisoner's dilemma.

Veritasium explains how investigators caught the Golden State Killer using forensic genealogy, matching crime scene DNA to distant relatives in public genealogy databases. It also covers the privacy implications of DNA databases.

A short recording of a 1565 organ in Mantua tuned in quarter-comma meantone, showing split sharps in use. The extra keys provide separate D-sharp and A-flat for more tonalities.

The 'Stop trying to make fetch happen' scene clip from the film Mean Girls.

Peter Alvaro's Strange Loop 2015 talk argues that query languages let you state what you mean, and applies that to distributed programming. It covers Datalog, Dedalus and the Bloom lineage for reasoning about distributed systems.

Nickolas Means recounts the 1979 Three Mile Island accident minute by minute, from the control rod insertion to the operator's decision to switch off emergency cooling. He argues that finding systemic causes is more useful than blaming individuals.

David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, about the default settings of the mind, choosing what to pay attention to, and what we end up worshipping.

Nickolas Means tells the story of United Airlines Flight 232, which lost all flight control yet saved more than half its passengers. He draws lessons on teamwork, crew resource management and leadership for software teams.

A short Veritasium video explaining regression to the mean and how ignoring it leads to wrong conclusions about punishment versus reward, medical treatments and sports streaks. It uses the example of flight instructors who believed criticism works better than praise.

Chris Lattner's ASPLOS 2021 keynote on the golden age of compiler design in an era of hardware and software co-design, covering compiler infrastructure for accelerators and unifying hardware IRs.

Nickolas Means tells the story of Lockheed's Skunk Works and how its engineers built the U-2, SR-71 and F-117 under tight deadlines and budgets. He draws lessons for modern software teams.

Classical guitarist Brandon Acker shows how guitars with tied-on gut frets, as used 300 years ago, can play more in tune than modern fixed metal frets. He demonstrates microtonal and meantone tunings on a guitar with movable frets.

Martin Fowler's GOTO Chicago 2017 talk on the different things people mean by event-driven architecture. He identifies four patterns, including event notification and event-carried state transfer.

David Patterson's talk on the history of computer architecture, from RISC and superscalar designs to the end of Dennard scaling and Moore's Law. It argues that domain-specific architectures and open instruction sets open a new golden age.

Gernot Heiser presents seL4, a microkernel with a mathematical proof connecting security properties to the binary code, and explains what its open-sourcing means for users. It covers its roles as a microkernel, separation kernel and hypervisor.

A viral amateur video in which a woman struggles to explain what miles per hour means. It is a comedic clip of someone failing to reason about speed.

The Galaxy Song from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, a comic musical tour of the size and motion of the galaxy and our place in it.

A short clip of Inigo Montoya's line from The Princess Bride, 'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.' It has no educational content beyond the film quote.

A short clip of Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony in which he says it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. It comes from questioning about Monica Lewinsky.

David Graeber's RSA lecture on bullshit jobs, expanding on his essay about why so many people do work they believe is pointless. He discusses what this says about the modern economy and the way society values work.

Kurzgesagt's short animated take on optimistic nihilism. It argues the universe has no inherent meaning, so we are free to create our own and enjoy life.

Simon Sinek's TED talk presents the 'golden circle' model: great leaders and companies inspire action by starting with why they do something, before how or what. He illustrates it with Apple, Martin Luther King, the Wright brothers and, as a counterexample, TiVo.

A short film by Max Joseph about his anxiety in bookstores and how to read more books amid constant streaming, social media and news. He looks for ways to rebalance his content diet in favor of reading.

Karl Fogel's 2006 Google Tech Talk traces copyright from a 16th-century English censorship law to a distribution monopoly. It then surveys alternative economic bases for creation and distribution.

A Google Tech Talk by Sebastian Deterding on gamification. It looks at what points and badges get wrong and what lessons game design offers for non-game applications.

Mathologer uses continued fractions to show why the golden ratio is the most irrational number, comparing it with root 2, e and pi and pointing to where this shows up in nature.

Clayton Christensen's TEDx talk applying business theory to personal life. He argues that career success is not the right measure of a life and urges attention to relationships and values.

A School of Life animated overview of Albert Camus, covering his existentialism and absurdism and his answer to the question of meaninglessness.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day examines how bad actors and bots use Twitter, drawing on the released Russian IRA dataset and interviews. It asks why interactions on the platform turn hostile.

The 'Machine that goes PING!' sketch from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, in which hospital staff fuss over a machine while ignoring the patient.

Tech Tangents sets up original Doom's three-screen multi-monitor mode, which required a separate networked computer for each monitor. The video covers the hardware and setup work and the result.

GoldenSound publishes music on Tidal to test MQA, a deep dive into the format's claims and problems including its leaky filter. Testing begins around the 5:45 mark.

Dave Thomas, a co-author of the Agile Manifesto, argues at GOTO Amsterdam 2015 that Agile as a branded industry has lost its meaning. He says agile is an adjective, not a noun, and urges developers to reclaim agility.

Joe Armstrong, creator of Erlang, interviews Alan Kay at Code Mesh. They discuss the meaning of object orientation, message passing, the META II paper, and the state of computer science.

Super Eyepatch Wolf analyzes why The Simpsons declined after its golden age, pointing to changes in the writers' room and a shift in the style and complexity of its comedy.

A Kurzgesagt explainer asking whether organic food is really healthier or better for the environment. It defines what organic means and looks at pesticide use, nutrition and environmental impact, with sources.