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31:00ALAIN COLMERAUER L'AVENTURE PROLOG
7K views • 4 years ago
Prolog Heritage
A French-language documentary on the history of Prolog, created in Marseille by Alain Colmerauer in the early 1970s, with interviews of many people involved. It traces the origins of logic programming and later developments of the language.
30:36Springboard: the secret history of the first real smartphone (Full Documentary)
1.7M views • 4 years ago
The Verge
The Verge's documentary on Handspring and its Treo, a smartphone that came a decade before the iPhone. It tells how a small team tried to build the modern smartphone and was held back by carriers and timing.
4:43The Virtual Production of The Mandalorian Season One
2.5M views • 6 years ago
Industrial Light & Magic
ILM shows how The Mandalorian season one used a large curved LED wall to display interactive 3D environments in camera. The video covers the virtual production setup replacing location shoots.
24:57Air Force Heavy Press Program (USAF film) by D.O.D.
58K views • 9 years ago
rdwaynes
A US Air Force film on the Heavy Press Program, which built some of the world's largest metal forging and extrusion presses for aircraft, starting from German presses taken after WWII.
50:00Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism | VPRO Documentary
4.7M views • 6 years ago
vpro documentary
A VPRO documentary in which Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff explains her book on surveillance capitalism. It covers how Google and Facebook turn personal data into raw material for prediction and behavioral influence.
30:33Origins of Precision
3M views • 8 years ago
Machine Thinking
Machine Thinking traces where mechanical precision comes from, from flat surface plates and the three-plate method up through lathes and early measuring tools. It is the first in a series on recreating the first micrometer.
34:38The Trolley Problem in Real Life
15.8M views • 8 years ago
Vsauce
Vsauce's Michael Stevens stages a realistic version of the trolley problem with unsuspecting subjects who believe they must decide a life-or-death outcome. The Mind Field episode compares what people say they would do with what they actually do.
21:57Toxic Propellant Hazards In Rocketry 1966 NASA
27K views • 9 years ago
markdcatlin
A 1966 NASA safety film teaching workers how to handle toxic rocket propellants such as hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. It explains the hazards of these corrosive, flammable and toxic chemicals and what to do after contamination.
57:27Brian Springer - Spin
469K views • 14 years ago
MasterpieceConCen7
Brian Springer's documentary Spin, built entirely from unauthorized satellite feeds of politicians and newscasters before they went on air during the 1992 US presidential election. It exposes the behind-the-scenes construction of media reality.
9:34Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness
14M views • 17 years ago
swererbob
A condensed film of Dick Proenneke's footage of building a cabin and living alone in the Alaskan wilderness, using hand tools and local materials. It draws on the 8mm films he shot himself.
42:30The man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize
4.2M views • 6 years ago
BobbyBroccoli
BobbyBroccoli's first of three parts on Jan Hendrik Schon, the Bell Labs postdoc whose fabricated organic semiconductor results nearly won a Nobel Prize. It covers his rise and the context around Bell Labs.
9:07The Great Wave - Part 1
190K views • 11 years ago
David Bull
The first part of a long series documenting Dave Bull's Tokyo woodblock workshop as it produces a reproduction of Hokusai's The Great Wave. It follows the carving, proofing and printing of the reward print for Kickstarter backers.
20:49How Prince of Persia Defeated Apple II's Memory Limitations | War Stories | Ars Technica
1.5M views • 6 years ago
Ars Technica
In an Ars Technica War Stories episode, Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner describes how he made the game on the Apple II, fighting hardware memory limits and the platform's decline. It covers the rotoscoped animation and the engineering tricks involved.
31:45How We Bought Our Abandoned House in Japan | Process, Costs, Risks, Finance, How to Find One
3.8M views • 7 years ago
Tokyo Llama
The Tokyo Llama channel details how the creators found and bought an abandoned akiya minka house in Japan. It covers process, costs, taxes, financing and risks of renovation.
12:48America's Iron Giants - The World's Most Powerful Metalworkers
2.9M views • 8 years ago
Machine Thinking
Machine Thinking tells the story of the Cold War Heavy Press Program, the giant forging presses that make parts for aircraft, missiles and turbines.
10:38HBO Intro - Behind the Scenes
1.3M views • 19 years ago
archivefilms
A 1983 behind-the-scenes film about making the HBO 'Feature Presentation' starship logo sequence. It shows the handcrafted miniature city, motion-control cameras and practical effects.
3:28:54COLLAPSE of Personal Computing | Investigation Into the Destruction of Ownership
3.2M views • 5 months ago
Gamers Nexus
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.
17:49Shenzhen: A New Breed of Intellectual Property (Part 3) | Future Cities | WIRED
172K views • 10 years ago
Uncanny Valley by WIRED
Part 3 of WIRED's Future Cities series on Shenzhen. It examines how attitudes toward patents and intellectual property differ from the West, and how shanzhai (copycat) manufacturing created an ecosystem of rapid iteration and distribution.
23:49Nuclear Propulsion in Space
192K views • 9 years ago
US National Archives
A 1968 NASA film from the US National Archives explaining why the US needed a nuclear rocket and how the engine works. It also shows combined nuclear and chemical stages for a manned Mars mission.
52:33Doing Time Doing Vipassana - Full official version
689K views • 13 years ago
Karuna Films LTD
A documentary about Vipassana meditation in India's Tihar Prison, led by Kiran Bedi, the prison's Inspector General. It follows inmates who went through the courses and the changes they describe.
47:31Regreening the desert with John D. Liu | VPRO Documentary | 2012
5.5M views • 9 years ago
vpro documentary
A VPRO documentary following ecologist and cameraman John D. Liu. He documents the regreening of China's Loess Plateau and other efforts to restore deserts and biodiversity around the world.
47:49Quants | The Alchemists of Wall Street | VPRO documentary
2.7M views • 16 years ago
vpro documentary
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.
53:56Happy People | Spring (part 1) [Happy People Documentary | Spring in Siberia Part 1
1.4M views • 12 years ago
Дмитрий Васюков
The first part of Dmitry Vasyukov's four-part Russian documentary series about trappers and villagers living in the Siberian taiga. This episode follows spring life along the Yenisei, with hunting, fishing and subsistence in harsh surroundings.
22:49Don't Be a Sucker
2M views • 9 years ago
US National Archives
A 1945 US Army educational film that dramatizes how demagogues use prejudice and scapegoating to divide people. It opens with fake wrestling matches and crooked gambling games to show how con artists work, then applies the lesson to racial and religious bigotry.
17:24Chinampas of Mexico: Most Productive Agriculture EVER?
1.5M views • 4 years ago
Andrew Millison
Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison visits the chinampas, the floating gardens of Xochimilco in Mexico City. He looks at this ancient Aztec agricultural system and the project restoring it.
52:28People & Power - On a wing and a prayer
90K views • 15 years ago
Al Jazeera English
An Al Jazeera English People & Power investigation from 2010 into safety problems with the Boeing 737NG, featuring whistleblowers on cracking parts, hand-made structural components and an alleged cover-up.
4:11Does Vienna Have the World's Best Council Housing? Swimming Pools, Private TV Channels & More
246K views • 7 years ago
Channel 4 Documentaries
Channel 4's George Clarke visits a council estate in Vienna and is surprised by amenities such as swimming pools and private TV channels. It showcases Vienna's high-quality social housing.
9:04Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent
2.4M views • 11 years ago
Chomsky's Philosophy
A nine-minute excerpt from the 1992 documentary Manufacturing Consent in which Noam Chomsky summarizes how corporate media shapes public discourse.
17:26Don't Be a Sucker - 1947
1M views • 19 years ago
Weirdo Video
A 1947 US military film that deconstructs how the Nazi regime used divisive propaganda and prejudice to split and control a population. It teaches viewers to recognise demagoguery tactics.
42:47GOG: Preserving Gaming's Past & Future
459K views • 8 years ago
/noclip
A /noclip documentary on GOG, covering how it finds and re-releases classic games and pushes DRM-free releases. It also touches on the company's origins in Poland.
2:46:48Hypernormalisation | Full Documentary | Adam Curtis
622K views • 3 years ago
Adam Curtis Documentaries
Adam Curtis's 2016 BBC documentary arguing that politicians, financiers and technologists retreated into a simplified, fake version of the world because reality became too complex. It ranges across Trump, Brexit, Syria, Surkov's Russia and more.
8:28NSA Whistle-Blower Tells All: The Program | Op-Docs | The New York Times
447K views • 14 years ago
New York Times Opinion
A New York Times Op-Doc by Laura Poitras profiling William Binney, a 32-year NSA veteran who helped design a secret program he says collects Americans' personal data.
6:53Building The World's First Computer - Greeks, Clocks and Rockets - Antikythera Mechanism Episode 1
1.1M views • 9 years ago
Clickspring
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.
56:09Project Code Rush - The Beginnings of Netscape / Mozilla Documentary
337K views • 13 years ago
The Documentary Network
Code Rush is a one-hour documentary following Netscape engineers in Silicon Valley through the company's last year as an independent firm. It covers the Mozilla open-source announcement, the frantic push to ready the source for release by March 31, 1998, and the toll on engineers' lives before the AOL acquisition.
58:46The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines"
2.9M views • 10 years ago
JustAdamCurtis
The first part of Adam Curtis' documentary series on Sigmund Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays, who invented public relations. It shows how Bernays used Freud's ideas to link mass-produced goods to unconscious desires and create modern consumer persuasion.
1:39:57Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans | A Film by Jeff Gibbs | Full Documentary
16.3M views • 6 years ago
Michael Moore
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.
2:18:23Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs
19M views • 4 years ago
Folding Ideas
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.
56:09Netscape Mozilla Documentary 1998 - 2000 ProJect Code Rush - creative common licence
171K views • 17 years ago
znoopy2k
Code Rush is a 2000 PBS documentary following Netscape engineers during the year they open-sourced the browser as Mozilla. It shows the pressure and long hours of work in Silicon Valley at the height of the dot-com era.
1:15:44Free to Play
6.9M views • 12 years ago
Valve
Valve's feature-length documentary following three professional gamers competing in the first Dota 2 International tournament for a million dollar prize. It shows the sacrifices and pressures of top-level esports.
1:16:56The Part of History You've Always Skipped | Neoslavery
6.2M views • 4 years ago
Knowing Better
A long documentary-style video arguing that slavery in the US effectively continued through convict leasing and the prison system until around 1942. It covers the constitutional carveout and the history of neoslavery.