reference frames

HDTVTest reviews the Apple Pro Display XDR using measurements and a side-by-side comparison with a Sony BVM-HX310 dual-layer LCD reference monitor. It examines how well the display handles HDR against a professional reference.

A PBS Space Time episode hosted by Gabe Perez-Giz on the nature of spacetime and whether space and time are fundamental. It builds up reference frames and causality in a short, dense format.

Matt Parker explains the history behind NTSC television running at 29.97 frames per second rather than 30, tracing it to the backward-compatible addition of color. He walks through the arithmetic behind the odd ratio.

Veritasium visits NIST to explain Standard Reference Materials, the carefully characterized items such as peanut butter used to calibrate instruments and keep measurements consistent. It covers why they exist and why they are expensive.

The first episode of Clickspring's series building a John Wilding skeleton clock from raw stock in a home machine shop. It covers making the frames along with the tools needed for the job.

Ramesh Raskar presents femto-photography, a technique that captures a trillion frames per second, fast enough to show light itself moving through a scene. He discusses possible uses such as cameras that see around corners or inside the body.

A how-to video on datamoshing, the glitch-art technique of removing keyframes so that motion data smears across video. It walks through the tools needed, such as ffmpegx and Avidemux, though the author notes parts are outdated.

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.

Malcolm Gladwell's TED talk on how Howard Moskowitz found that there is no single perfect spaghetti sauce. He draws a larger point about choice, preference and happiness.

A short clip of Richard Feynman answering an interviewer's question about why magnets repel, explaining that a 'why' question depends on a shared framework of understanding. It illustrates how hard it is to explain fundamentals to a layperson.

Tom Scott tours the rotating room artificial gravity facility at Brandeis University's Graybiel lab. It shows how humans cope with rotation-based gravity and the odd effects such as Coriolis forces.

An Innuendo Studios Alt-Right Playbook episode about a rhetorical tactic of dismissing partial fixes to problems. It frames this as a style of argument that treats flaws as unfixable facts of life.

The Slow Mo Guys visit a lab with a camera capable of filming at 10 trillion frames per second, fast enough to see light travel. They show the setup and the resulting footage.

A scene from Children of Men in which Theo visits Nigel in the Ark of the Arts to get transit papers. It features Nigel's line "I just don't think about it" and a one-handed chorded keyboard.

Veritasium explains why the one-way speed of light has never been measured, only the round-trip speed, since measuring it requires synchronized clocks that assume the answer. It explores the implications for relativity.

A short animated simulation comparing how Multics and Unix were developed, showing why Unix's small composable programs and pipes gave it a efficiency advantage. It frames Unix as a moonshot achievable by a small team.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on state lotteries. It argues that the claim that lotteries fund education is misleading, because the money is fungible and often diverted to general funds.

Ted Nelson demonstrates Xanadu Space, his software for representing hypertext in three-dimensional space with linked, referenced content fragments.

Kurzgesagt makes a selfish case for improving the world, arguing that helping people far away raises prosperity and innovation for everyone, including yourself. The animated video frames this as egoistic altruism and positive-sum cooperation.

Practical Engineering explains what a black start is: restarting a power grid after total collapse. It shows why most plants need outside power to start and why rebuilding a synchronized grid is delicate and high-stakes.

Slaughterbots is a fictional short film, backed by Stuart Russell, depicting swarms of cheap autonomous drones that use facial recognition to assassinate targets. It was made to argue for banning autonomous weapons.

A George Carlin stand-up bit on euphemisms, tracing how language gets softened, such as shell shock becoming PTSD, until it loses its emotional force.

A five-minute CGP Grey explainer arguing that a phone is effectively an extension of your mind, and that any backdoor or master key into encrypted devices will inevitably be abused or leaked. It frames the encryption debate as locks that are either unbreakable or absent.

Joseph Everett argues, drawing on the book The Salt Fix, that most people benefit from more rather than less salt, and reviews studies on sodium, potassium and blood pressure.

Johnny Lee demonstrates head tracking with a Wii remote and a head-mounted pair of IR LEDs, so a screen acts like a window into a 3D scene as your head moves.

Martin Donald explains the Wave Function Collapse algorithm using Sudoku-like constraint solving and shows how he implemented it with Blender and Godot. It links demos and reference articles.

A short clip of Richard Feynman answering an interviewer's question about how magnets work, in which he explains why a why-question has no simple answer without a shared frame of reference.

Veritasium debunks common climate change myths in under seven minutes, with references to NASA and published research. Topics include CO2 sources, sea ice and 1970s predictions of cooling.

A Wendover Productions explainer arguing that major airlines make much of their profit from loyalty programs and co-branded credit cards rather than flying. It frames airlines as quasi-banks that sell points in bulk, using United's pandemic-era loan as a hook.

Richard Stallman's TEDxGeneva 2014 talk describing how nonfree programs give companies control over users and what users can do to regain control. It introduces the free software movement and the four freedoms.

Animator Noodle explains why frame interpolation does not make animation better, covering timing, easing, smear frames and using the wrong tool for the job. A pinned correction says the video is partly outdated given later AI developments.

Smarter Every Day uses high-speed and Schlieren photography to show how a whip crack is a supersonic shockwave formed at the tip. It references academic papers on whip physics.

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.

Part 1 of Smarter Every Day's three-part series on manipulating the YouTube algorithm. It features Renee DiResta and examples of how social media platforms can be manipulated.

A film-analysis video essay linking Blade Runner 2049's Cells Interlinked sequence to Nabokov's Pale Fire. It examines the poetry and meaning behind the film's references.

Kurzgesagt examines how AI-generated content is flooding the internet, from video and music to news and books. It looks at how this makes verifying what is real harder.

Kurzgesagt's animated explainer on CRISPR gene editing, covering how the technology works and what it could mean for curing disease, designer babies and aging. It frames genetic engineering as an irreversible change coming to humanity.

A short clip from The West Wing in which characters argue for the Gall-Peters map projection over Mercator. It dramatizes how standard maps distort the relative size of countries.

A Numberphile video in which physicists Tony Padilla and Ed Copeland show a seemingly astounding result that 1+2+3+4+... equals -1/12. The argument is informal and has drawn criticism for glossing over what the result actually means.

PBS Space Time explains how spacetime geometry and light cones determine the order of events and what can cause what. It visualizes causality in special relativity.