rd-180
30:53I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird
2.1M views • 1 year ago
Benn Jordan
Benn Jordan's video about storing a PNG image in a living bird, a starling that learns to reproduce encoded sounds. It mixes ornithology, audio engineering, and data encoding.
8:28The Fastest Way to Board a Plane Feels Like the Slowest
37.5M views • 7 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey compares airplane boarding methods, based on an arXiv paper, and shows why the intuitive back-to-front approach is slow while random or outside-in boarding does better.
4:42The US-Canada Border Is 5,500 Miles of Pure Nonsense
37.4M views • 13 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey walks through the odd history and quirks of the US-Canada border, including how it was surveyed and its irregularities such as exclaves.
17:46Why do Biden's votes not follow Benford's Law?
3.7M views • 5 years ago
Stand-up Maths
Matt Parker examines claims that Biden's 2020 vote counts violate Benford's Law, explaining the law and why it often does not apply to precinct-level election data.
28:43Why build an entire computer on breadboards?
3.4M views • 6 years ago
Ben Eater
Ben Eater explains why he builds computers on breadboards, including testing their signal behavior on an oscilloscope. It is a companion to his 6502 breadboard computer series.
20:30Does Superdeterminism save Quantum Mechanics? Or does it kill free will and destroy science?
989K views • 4 years ago
Sabine Hossenfelder
Sabine Hossenfelder explains superdeterminism as an interpretation of quantum mechanics, addressing common objections and misconceptions, including the worry that it kills free will or science. She ties it to Bell's theorem and hidden variables.
3:34Making an international standard cup of tea
2.7M views • 8 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott follows the ISO 3103 / BS 6008 standard to make an international standard cup of tea, using specialist tasting equipment. The video shows how precisely the standard is specified.
17:52Training AI Without Writing A Reward Function, with Reward Modelling
259K views • 6 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles explains reward modelling, in which an AI learns what humans want from their preference comparisons instead of a hand-written reward function. He walks through the 2017 paper on deep reinforcement learning from human preferences.
11:54The Most Complex International Borders in the World
7.9M views • 12 years ago
WonderWhy
WonderWhy surveys complex international borders, including enclaves like Vatican City, San Marino and Lesotho, the enclave-within-enclave town of Baarle, and the India-Bangladesh Cooch Behar region.
42:3630 Weird Chess Algorithms: Elo World
965K views • 7 years ago
suckerpinch
Tom Scott-style absurdist tour by Tom7 of SIGBOVIK chess projects: a tournament of 30 weird chess algorithms used to rate a color- and piece-blind chess program. Topics include mirrors, arithmetic encoding, perverted game tree search and a diluted Stockfish.
30:38Solving Wordle using information theory
11.8M views • 4 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown uses Wordle as an excuse to teach information theory and entropy, building a solver that picks guesses by expected information and incorporating word frequencies.
9:12Uncovered - Dangerous Secrets of the DOT Helmet Standard
1.1M views • 8 years ago
FortNine
FortNine argues that the US DOT motorcycle helmet standard (FMVSS 218) is badly outdated and weak. It compares it with Snell and ECE standards and points to where you can look up test reports for your own helmet.
43:43Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio
232.4M views • 4 years ago
Principles by Ray Dalio
An animated 44-minute summary of Ray Dalio's book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. It lays out the Big Cycle of rising and declining nations, covering debt cycles, internal conflict, and shifts in global power over the past 500 years.
44:13Doctor Dissects the Wim Hof Method - Cold Hard Science Analysis
1.8M views • 7 years ago
Medlife Crisis
A cardiologist runs a detailed, skeptical review of the Wim Hof Method, covering the research on cold exposure and breathing techniques. It also teaches how to read scientific statistics critically.
14:25China is erasing its border with Hong Kong
14.8M views • 8 years ago
Vox
A Vox Borders episode with Johnny Harris explaining how China is gradually erasing the line between mainland China and Hong Kong since the 1997 handover. It describes the one country, two systems arrangement and its expiration date.
13:23Simulating Green Beard Altruism
4.5M views • 5 years ago
Primer
Primer simulates green beard altruism, where individuals recognize and help others carrying a shared marker, and shows how imposters affect its evolution. It is an animated evolution simulation based on published papers.
7:59The Miniature Microcars of Amsterdam
1.2M views • 6 years ago
Not Just Bikes
Not Just Bikes looks at the tiny microcars such as the Canta seen around Amsterdam. It discusses how they serve people with mobility issues, can use bike paths under certain rules, and where they fit in a 21st century city.
16:43The Equation That Explains (Nearly) Everything!
1.6M views • 4 years ago
PBS Space Time
PBS Space Time explains the Standard Model Lagrangian, the single equation encapsulating the particle physics theory, and visualizes what its terms mean.
9:37PHILOSOPHY - Albert Camus
3.2M views • 11 years ago
The School of Life
A School of Life animated overview of Albert Camus, covering his existentialism and absurdism and his answer to the question of meaninglessness.
28:32Teardown of an IKEA Koppla USB power supply.
730K views • 10 years ago
bigclivedotcom
Big Clive takes apart an IKEA Koppla USB power supply to assess its safety, looking at isolation and transformer construction.
3:26How Highways Almost Destroyed Amsterdam - Plan Jokinen
408K views • 7 years ago
Not Just Bikes
A short Not Just Bikes video on the 1960s plans (Plan Jokinen) to cut highways through Amsterdam to accommodate cars. It shows how radically different the city would look had they succeeded.
4:10'Zombie' Parasite Cordyceps Fungus Takes Over Insects Through Mind Control | National Geographic
6M views • 7 years ago
National Geographic
National Geographic footage showing the cordyceps fungus infecting ants and other insects and steering their behavior so it can reproduce.
20:58The Epidemic of Fake Disease
2.4M views • 6 years ago
Medlife Crisis
A Medlife Crisis video by cardiologist Rohin Francis on overdiagnosis and over-screening. It explains how detecting more disease does not necessarily mean saving more lives, and covers harms such as unnecessary treatment.
3:25Get Perpendicular
95K views • 18 years ago
teraera08
A Hitachi promotional cartoon in the style of Schoolhouse Rock explaining perpendicular magnetic recording for hard drives.
5:32It's not you. Bad doors are everywhere.
10.6M views • 10 years ago
Vox
Vox's Joe Posner, with help from 99% Invisible, explains why bad doors are everywhere. It covers Don Norman's long-running complaint about doors and the idea that good design should not need instructions.
17:39The EV Detroit is Dying to Benchmark - BYD Seagull
319K views • 2 years ago
Autoline Network
Autoline's John McElroy and Caresoft president Terry Woychowski look at the BYD Seagull, an electric hatchback that sells in China for about $11,500. Woychowski points out the cost-saving design and manufacturing choices, and McElroy takes it for a short test drive.
16:22iPhone 12 Anti Repair Design - Teardown and Repair Assessment
11.6M views • 6 years ago
Hugh Jeffreys
Hugh Jeffreys tears down the iPhone 12 and assesses its repairability, focusing on how parts are serialized and tied to the device so swapping components between phones does not work.
12:21What If Dark Matter Is Just Black Holes?
988K views • 5 years ago
PBS Space Time
PBS Space Time asks whether dark matter could be made of primordial black holes. It walks through the observational constraints that limit this idea.
4:44Debt Metaphor
95K views • 17 years ago
Ward Cunningham
Ward Cunningham explains the history and intent of the debt metaphor, which he coined while refactoring the WyCash product. He says debt means code reflecting an incomplete understanding of the problem, not sloppy programming.
5:17Mitochondria: the cell's powerhouse
1.1M views • 9 years ago
Harvard Online
A short Harvard animation narrated by Professor Rob Lue introducing mitochondria as the cell's powerhouses and how cells turn food and oxygen into energy.
7:49America Keeps Rejecting an ID Card It Already Has
13.6M views • 9 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey explains the history of the US Social Security card and number, and why they became a de facto national ID despite never being meant for it. He also covers why America resists a proper identity card.
11:15The hardest problem on the hardest test
16.5M views • 8 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown walks through a very hard Putnam competition problem and its elegant solution, emphasizing the visual intuition and the thought process behind solving it.
3:47Why Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam
1.3M views • 7 years ago
Not Just Bikes
A four-minute Not Just Bikes comparison of grocery shopping in Amsterdam versus car-centric North America, arguing that frequent small fresh-food trips beat bulk shopping. It ties this to land use and reduced food waste.
18:20FIXING the ENTIRE SM64 Source Code (INSANE N64 performance)
3.2M views • 4 years ago
Kaze Emanuar
Kaze Emanuar explains how he rewrote and optimized the Super Mario 64 source code so it runs far faster on real N64 hardware. He covers performance bottlenecks and fixes in detail for his ROM hacks.
5:48Most Cities Got More Democratic. This One Didn't.
6.1M views • 14 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey explains the City of London's unusual governance, including the Lord Mayor, guilds, and how it differs from the rest of London.
18:48Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder Than You Think
2.4M views • 2 years ago
Practical Engineering
Practical Engineering explains why connecting solar and other inverter-based generation to the grid is hard. It covers grid stability, load balancing and the behind-the-scenes engineering challenges of renewables.
20:13The Most Powerful Computers You've Never Heard Of
13.7M views • 4 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium traces analog computers from the Antikythera mechanism and Kelvin's tide-predicting machines to fire control and modern analog approaches. It explains how these machines computed continuously rather than digitally.
5:55Richard Feynman talks about light
1.8M views • 19 years ago
sdfhsfh
A PBS clip in which Richard Feynman explains the strange nature of light and electromagnetic radiation. He conveys how little of it we actually see and how radio waves are present everywhere.
8:39How to Move the Sun: Stellar Engines
19.5M views • 6 years ago
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Kurzgesagt explains stellar engines such as the Shkadov thruster and Caplan thruster, which could move the Sun and solar system across the galaxy over millions of years to avoid hazards and reach new regions.
5:30The Moon's Orbit is WEIRD
1.9M views • 2 years ago
minutephysics
A minutephysics explainer showing that the Moon's path around the Sun is not a spiral but closer to a 12-sided polygon with curved corners. It argues the Moon arguably orbits the Sun rather than the Earth.