size optimization

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.

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.

Matthias Wandel tests old and new code on a range of PCs, including a new mini PC, to measure how much faster modern hardware really is. He also shows optimization techniques such as branchless code, with benchmark programs on GitHub.

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.

Kaze Emanuar searches for the best sine approximation for the Nintendo 64, comparing the lookup tables in Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time with polynomial alternatives. It walks through numerics and 3rd, 4th and 5th order approximations.

Matt Parker follows the community effort to speed up his slow Wordle-solving code, which ended up running hundreds of millions of times faster. He walks through the techniques contributors used.

Huygens Optics shows through a laser interference experiment that the question of a photon's size is really about coherence length. It argues that photons exist as energy exchanges between radiation and matter, not as little particles in free space.

Not Just Bikes explains how SUVs and light trucks have grown in size and share of US sales, and why that is dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists and city life. He covers the regulatory loopholes, such as fuel economy rules and the chicken tax, that favored them.

3Blue1Brown visualizes high-dimensional spheres to explain a surprising puzzle about how a sphere fits in a box as dimensions grow. It builds geometric intuition for counterintuitive properties of high-dimensional space.

Vsauce's Michael Stevens takes viewers past infinity using transfinite numbers, ordinals and cardinals, with input from mathematician Hugh Woodin. It is a fast-paced, mind-bending tour of different sizes of infinity.

FortNine looks at the data on why newer pickup trucks with tall, blunt grilles kill so many pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. It argues that lowering hood height would substantially cut fatalities.

A short clip from Carl Sagan's Cosmos in which he explains how Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth using shadows in two Egyptian cities. It is a clear, visual account of an ancient scientific feat.

Numberphile's James Grime explains Cantor's result that some infinities are bigger than others, including why the reals outnumber the integers. It is a short, accessible introduction to countable and uncountable infinity.

Wes Bos breaks down the techniques behind the McMaster-Carr website's speed: server-rendered HTML, prefetching, CDN and service worker caching, preloading, critical CSS and fixed-size images. He also notes its old-school jQuery and YUI JavaScript.

Not Just Bikes takes on the common excuse that a country is simply too big or spread out for good transit and walkable cities. The video argues that city density and short everyday trips matter, not national size or overall population density.

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.

An Isaac Arthur episode on arcologies, self-sufficient habitats that could house whole cities, on Earth or on harsh worlds. It covers how such structures might work and what limits their size.

Not Just Bikes argues that oversized American fire trucks and fire department requirements push cities toward wide roads and dangerous street design. He compares this with the Dutch approach to emergency response.

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.

CaspianReport explainer arguing that Russia's geography, especially its vast size and indefensible Moscow core, shapes its political behavior. It frames Russian security thinking through the lens of geographic determinism.

Vsauce explores math through card tricks and big numbers, including an animation of how enormous 52 factorial, the number of deck orderings, really is.

Kurzgesagt explains black hole stars, a hypothesized kind of giant star with a black hole at its core that could be a route to early supermassive black holes.

A short Techquickie explainer on why laptop webcams are much worse than phone cameras. It covers sensor size, image processing, and the interface differences between laptops and phones, with input from a Logitech engineer.

A Veritasium video on the asteroid threat, with UCLA's Dave Jewitt explaining detection efforts and how different asteroid sizes compare in damage.

Gamers Nexus benchmarks how the amount and application method of thermal paste affect CPU cooling. It compares pea-sized dots, thin spreads and large blobs with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.

Not Just Bikes looks at traffic in the Bahamas to show that a small country can be just as car-centric as a big one. He ties it to land use, car dependence and how dedicated transit lanes help.