repl-driven development

Not Just Bikes explains how an electric bakfiets (Dutch cargo bike) replaced the family car after a move back to Canada, saving thousands of dollars. It shows how much it can carry, including kids and groceries.

Asianometry explains why Russia cannot replace TSMC after sanctions halted chip shipments. It looks at Russian chip designers such as Baikal, MCST and Yadro, and at Russia's lagging domestic manufacturing capacity.

Not Just Bikes contrasts traditional and suburban development in North America. It looks at the financials behind each pattern and argues that suburban development leaves cities unable to pay for their own infrastructure.

Hans Rosling uses augmented-reality animation to show 200 countries over 200 years in four minutes, built from 120,000 data points. It tracks life expectancy and income to show the world's development.

Veritasium explains why a large share of published research findings may be false, covering p-values, p-hacking, publication bias and low replication rates. It draws on John Ioannidis's well-known paper and describes reforms such as preregistration.

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.

Geoff Cumming uses a simulation to show how wildly the p value varies from one replication to the next because of sampling variability. He argues for estimation and confidence intervals over null hypothesis significance testing.

Dr Brad Stanfield recounts the research history and scandal around resveratrol, the supposed anti-aging supplement, including problems with the original studies.

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.

Aaron Francis walks through how PHP has changed from 2012 to 2023, covering traits, array destructuring, generators, typed properties and more. It is a quick chaptered tour of modern PHP features.

CodeParade's short devlog on how spherical geometry looks in 2D and 3D and why it feels so unusual, part of the Hyperbolica series on a non-Euclidean game.

An episode of Coding Secrets by Jon Burton on retro copy protection, in particular physically damaging a disk with a laser so copies fail. It explains how this defeated hackers and pirates.

CGP Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that automation will make a large part of the workforce economically obsolete, much as engines did for horses. It surveys robots and software replacing both physical and mental labor.

Veritasium examines the role of luck in success, with simulations and examples showing how small advantages and chance can compound. It argues that top outcomes are disproportionately luck-driven while still crediting effort.

A video explaining why Japanese cities look the way they do, through Japan's national tiered zoning system that permits mixed use and flexible development. It compares this approach with more restrictive zoning elsewhere.

CGP Grey explains how ideas spread like germs, and why content that triggers outrage spreads fastest, using a study on what makes online content viral. He argues that opposing outrage-driven memes feed each other.

An Extra Credits episode on China's Sesame Credit, which gamifies obedient citizenship through a social score. It covers how the system rewards conformity and pressures people through their friends' behavior.

An older 3Blue1Brown video on why topology matters, built around the inscribed rectangle problem. It walks through how tori and Mobius strips appear in the solution. The channel later replaced it with an updated version.

A short video on the US Sprint anti-ballistic missile, which accelerated to around Mach 10 in seconds under extreme g-forces and heat. It includes striking launch footage and a brief development history.

CGP Grey's five-minute animated explainer on how copyright terms grew from 14 years to life plus decades. It uses Disney and Star Wars examples to argue the system has gone wrong.

America's Test Kitchen tests eight carbon-steel skillets to find the best one, asking whether a single pan can replace stainless, cast iron and nonstick. It names a winner and covers how the pans perform.

Breaking Taps explains how the cryogenic mirror actuators on the James Webb Space Telescope achieve nanometer precision using flexures. It shows a 3D-printed replica and how one motor handles both coarse and fine motion.

Jen Simmons explains the difference between CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid, and when to use each. She makes the case that Grid does not replace Flexbox and most sites use both.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains why general aviation has failed to replace leaded avgas, blaming industry inertia, bureaucratic delay and an exemption that removes the incentive. This is part one of two.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains in part two of a series why general aviation has not replaced leaded avgas. He covers industry inertia, bureaucratic delays and the exemption that lets the industry keep using lead.

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.

A Computerphile video in which Rob Miles warns against assuming a general AI will think like a human. He uses the thought experiment of a stamp-collecting AI to show how a goal-driven system could pursue its aim with dangerous results.

Engineering Explained compares the lifecycle emissions of keeping an old car with those of buying a new, more efficient one. It weighs manufacturing emissions against emissions from driving, and covers gas versus electric cars.

An MTA video on communications-based train control, the system meant to replace the New York City subway's century-old signaling. It also shows the mechanical interlocks and signals in use today.

PBS Space Time examines Roger Penrose's idea that consciousness arises from quantum processes in the brain, and reviews new evidence about microtubules. It ends with an estimate of what replicating consciousness would demand.

Strong Towns explains the Growth Ponzi Scheme, in which post-war suburban growth takes on infrastructure costs that new development must keep funding. It describes why municipal finances become insolvent.

Chubbyemu presents a case study of a man who followed AI health advice, replaced salt with sodium bromide and developed bromism with severe neurological effects. It is told as a dramatized medical case by a doctor.

A PBS Space Time episode on fuzzballs, the string-theory proposal for black holes that replaces the singularity with a tangle of strings. It explains why black holes seem to both have to exist and break known physics.

A video arguing that exercise matters for the brain as much as the body, linking movement, the nervous system and BDNF to learning and memory. It draws on research connecting complex movement to brain development.

BigClive explains why microwave oven transformer projects are extremely dangerous, since the high voltage and high current can kill. He contrasts them with spot welder builds where the secondary is replaced by low-voltage heavy wire.

Engineering Explained argues that internal combustion engines are far from dead, and discusses the continued development of ICEs and the problems facing electric vehicles.

Insider explains how The Mandalorian replaced green screens with LED walls that project real-time 3D environments behind actors, with over half the show filmed on such virtual sets.

CityNerd explains why traffic congestion grows nonlinearly as more cars use a road network, and why adding road capacity tends not to fix it. It covers the consequences for drivers, bus riders, cyclists and pedestrians, and discusses alternatives such as true bus rapid transit.