short scale

Numberphile explains the long and short scales for naming large numbers, covering millions, billions, trillions, milliards and the Greek myriad, with James Grime and Tony Padilla.

Wendover Productions explains the wave of supply shortages in 2021, arguing the causes go beyond COVID. It covers how just-in-time manufacturing was applied, container imbalances and the chip shortage.

A visual scale comparison of stars and cosmic objects, from planets up to some of the largest known stars, set to music. It is meant to convey the vastness of the universe.

Roaring Kitty's July 2020 analysis of GameStop, arguing a bullish deep-value case when the stock was about $4 and short interest exceeded 100%. It covers fundamentals, cash balance and technicals.

Asianometry explains that the worst of the 2021-22 chip shortage sits in trailing-edge semiconductors, not the leading-edge chips usually covered. It covers why those older-node fabs are so hard to expand and fix.

A short CGP Grey bonus video explaining the shortest-splitline algorithm, which draws electoral districts by repeatedly splitting a state along its shortest dividing line while balancing population. It is offered as a neutral, algorithmic fix for gerrymandering.

A scene from The Big Short in which Jared Vennett pitches credit default swaps on mortgage bonds to a hedge fund team, using a Jenga tower to illustrate collateralized debt obligations.

Cody's Lab builds a 200-billionth-scale model to show how far away the nearest stars are, using parallax and light speed. A short astronomy explainer on interstellar distances.

CGP Grey explains the elegant ratio of A4 and the metric paper sizes, then zooms out across scales from the Planck length to the observable universe.

A short video built around an animation of the roughly 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, placed at their measured redshift distances. It gives a brief history of deep field images and ends with a 3D fly-through.

Tom Scott makes the difference between a million and a billion dollars tangible by using distance on a road trip instead of volume. The drive makes the scale of a billion intuitively felt.

A short BicycleDutch video on how the Netherlands got its cycling infrastructure, including the 1970s protests and the shift away from car-centric planning. The channel later published an updated version.

Roy Beck's short gumball presentation using World Bank and Census data to argue that letting people immigrate to the US cannot solve world poverty because the numbers are so large. It is made by NumbersUSA, an immigration-restriction advocacy group.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why electronic voting is a bad idea, arguing that paper ballots are transparent, auditable and hard to tamper with at scale. He covers why moving voting to phones, tablets or computers undermines trust and verifiability.

The first of four short videos from Bill Hammack (engineerguy) introducing and giving the history of a 100-year-old mechanical computer, Michelson's harmonic analyzer. The series goes on to explain Fourier synthesis, analysis and operation of the machine.

Posy gives a short history of the computer mouse cursor, from early straight pointers to the tilted arrow, comparing Apple and Windows designs. He then explains why he designed his own cursor set and offers it as a free download.

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.

Tom Scott tells how John Reber's plan to dam San Francisco Bay was disproved by the Army Corps of Engineers' giant hydraulic Bay Model in Sausalito. The model showed the plan would have been dangerously wrong.

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.

Derek Sivers annotates a short clip of a lone dancer at a festival, showing how a first follower turns a ridiculous act into a movement. He draws out lessons about leadership and making it easy to follow.

Isaac Arthur examines the Dyson Dilemma, the puzzle of why we see no Dyson spheres or megastructures if growth-oriented civilizations should build them. He covers detectability and whether such structures could hide.

A short excerpt from Frans de Waal's TED talk showing a capuchin monkey fairness experiment in which two monkeys are paid unequally, one with cucumber and one with grapes. The shortchanged monkey reacts angrily.

An 8-minute explainer on the Lightning Network and how it relates to Segwit, Bitcoin and Litecoin. It covers how off-chain payment channels route payments to scale blockchain transactions.

A short, sarcastic Half as Interesting video about a tiny freight railway in Canada built to exploit a shipping regulation loophole. It explains how a track just 100 feet long counted as a railway.

Tom Scott visits Cloudflare's San Francisco office to show the wall of lava lamps whose camera feed is used as a source of entropy for random number generation. It is a short explainer on how this helps secure internet encryption.

Isaac Arthur examines Dyson spheres and swarms, including common myths and misconceptions. He covers uses such as interstellar travel, black hole generation, and computing large enough to simulate universes.

Tom Scott makes a short descriptivist argument that language keeps changing and that casual internet writing conventions, like lowercase typing and dropped full stops, are legitimate. It is part of his Language Files series, written with Gretchen McCulloch.

A short Nature video on the discovery that our home supercluster is Laniakea, redefined by mapping the flow of galaxies rather than their density. It names the structure with a Hawaiian word meaning 'immeasurable heaven'.

Ray Dalio's 30-minute animated video explains how the economy works through credit, debt, interest rates, and short- and long-term cycles. It is based on his template for understanding the economy.

CGP Grey's animated adaptation of The Dictator's Handbook, explaining how rulers stay in power by keeping a small group of key supporters happy rather than ruling fairly. It lays out selectorate theory and how resources shape regimes.

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.

Tom Scott explains why electronic voting is a bad idea. Elections must be trusted by everyone and attacks on software scale in ways attacks on paper do not, so open source or blockchain fixes do not solve it.

CGP Grey explains that the City of London is a tiny, separate entity with its own governance, history and privileges, distinct from the city called London. He covers its financial role and how it is run.

A two-minute animation of an Alan Watts talk arguing that life is like music: it is meant to be danced to in the moment, not rushed toward a final goal. It is a short, accessible take on living in the present.

An RSA Animate whiteboard adaptation of Dan Pink's talk on what motivates people at work. It argues that beyond simple tasks, autonomy, mastery and purpose drive performance more than money.

CGP Grey explains why European diseases devastated the Americas while few deadly diseases traveled the other way. He ties it to livestock domestication, dense cities, and the ideas of Guns, Germs and Steel.

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.

CGP Grey's quick, witty explainer on the differences between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England, and the countries that make up the UK.

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.

A short explainer on the history and mechanics of public key cryptography and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. It uses a mixing-paint-colors analogy to show how two parties can agree on a shared secret in public.