skill

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.

Danny MacAskill tries to destroy carbon fiber bike wheels by riding trials tricks through downtown Glasgow, including on bare rims on concrete.

Josh Kaufman's TEDx talk argues that you can reach practical competence in almost any skill with about 20 hours of focused practice, rather than the 10,000 hours often quoted. He describes how becoming a parent led him to rethink how adults learn, and lays out a short method for rapid skill acquisition.

A Harvard Business Review video with tactics for getting better at small talk and enjoying it, such as setting goals, allowing pauses, and starting and ending conversations.

A beginner-focused tutorial on freehand knife sharpening with a single stone, aiming for a shaving-sharp edge in about five minutes.

A UK tradesman's rant on the disadvantages of air source heat pumps, covering grants, heat pump types and whether they are worth it. He argues they are impractical for many British homes.

A condensed film of Dick Proenneke's footage of building a cabin and living alone in the Alaskan wilderness, using hand tools and local materials. It draws on the 8mm films he shot himself.

DIY Perks builds a realistic artificial sun for dark winters, using a powerful water-cooled LED, a satellite dish reflector for near-parallel rays, and a scattering layer to mimic the blue sky. The video explains the optics behind why most lamps do not look like sunlight and shows the build and its results.

The first episode of Clickspring's series on reproducing the Antikythera Mechanism by hand, laying out the plan and the history. The series follows a machinist building the ancient Greek device with traditional tools and methods.

Matthias Wandel uses anemometer measurements to find where to place a fan to move the most air through a house at night. He finds that placing the fan some distance back from the window works better.

The Primitive Technology channel shows the construction of a tiled roof hut in the bush using only primitive tools and materials made in earlier videos. It includes tiles, a kiln, clay walls and underfloor heating.

First of an 18-part lecture series by engineer Dan Gelbart on building prototypes. The series covers practical mechanical design and fabrication of precision machines.

A DIY demonstration of a fan-and-screen mosquito trap that uses carbonated water as a CO2 attractant. The creator reports catching about 8,000 mosquitoes in two nights.

Kirsten Dirksen visits retired mailman Russ Finch in Alliance, Nebraska, who grows oranges, figs and pomegranates in a backyard greenhouse without paying for heat. The greenhouse uses the stable temperature of the earth, with underground earth tubes, to heat and cool itself.

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.

Jacques Pepin demonstrates deboning a whole chicken, quickly and with complete control. It is a short, wordless-feeling technique demo that shows a skill most cooks never learn.

A short TEDx talk by Joe Smith teaching how to dry your hands with a single paper towel. It shows a simple technique for cutting waste.

DIY Perks shows how to turn old or smashed TVs and monitors into realistic artificial window lights, using the backlight and Fresnel lens to simulate distant daylight.

Technology Connections experiments with filtering white and colored LEDs to make holiday lights look less garish. He explains why narrowband LED strings look harsh compared with incandescent bulbs.

Primitive Technology shows building a cord drill from scratch and then upgrading it to a pump drill, using only primitive materials like a stone flywheel and cord.

Machine Thinking tells the story of the Cold War Heavy Press Program, the giant forging presses that make parts for aircraft, missiles and turbines.

Essential Craftsman announces the start of a spec house build on a scenic lot, kicking off a long series. The channel covers every step of building a house from the viewpoint of a general contractor.

Part 1 of an episode of the British educational TV series The Secret Life of Machines, about how vacuum cleaners work and their history. It mixes humor with explanation of household technology.

Lock-picking YouTuber Bill Johnson (BosnianBill) explains how to choose a high-security lock and why, showing examples and comparing designs. It covers what makes some padlocks more pick-resistant than others.

A short film following Moroccan artisans from Fez as they build a traditional 15th-century-style Moroccan court inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It shows zellij tilework and other traditional techniques.

Kirsten Dirksen visits architect Gary Chang's 32 square meter Hong Kong apartment, which he has redesigned over decades. Sliding walls and transformable furniture turn it into 24 different room configurations.

Kirsten Dirksen profiles Steve Rees, who buried two shipping containers to build an earth-cooled, off-grid 640 sq ft home in Northern California for about $30,000, solar included.

A short clip showing a person touching an active table saw blade with a finger and walking away unharmed, thanks to SawStop's system that stops the blade within milliseconds of skin contact.

Builders Matt Risinger and Jordan Smith visit a Swiss cross-laminated timber factory that makes thick all-wood walls with no traditional insulation and wooden nails instead of glue or chemicals. The video is sponsored by Siga.

Kirsten Dirksen visits the Providence Arcade, the oldest US indoor mall, which was converted into 225-square-foot micro-lofts classified as a rooming house.

Builder Matt Risinger freezes water-filled copper and PEX piping capped with SharkBite fittings to see which survives. The video compares how each pipe type handles freezing.

A Primitive Technology episode in which the creator builds a bow-drill-driven bark fan to blow air into a fire, using only natural materials. It shows the progression from fanning a fire by hand to a rotary forge blower.

A short NIST-based demonstration places a room furnished with old natural-material furniture beside one with modern synthetic furnishings and burns both. The modern room reaches full flashover in a few minutes while the legacy room is only starting to spread.

This Old House's Ross Trethewey explains MERV filter ratings and how air filtration works, then shows how to build a localized DIY air filter, including a box fan with multiple filters.

Technology Connections praises a 1940s-50s Sunbeam toaster and explains what makes a toaster well designed, drawing on a vintage Sunbeam video.

A woodworker shows how his table saw accident happened, why it happened and how to avoid a similar one. He describes severe hand lacerations from a blade contact.

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.

Dan Gelbart shows his home-built air bearing CNC lathe and grinder, which reaches about 1 micron accuracy. He demonstrates the machine and its parts.

Clickspring makes the pin-and-slot epicyclic gearing of the Antikythera Mechanism, the module modelling the Moon's variable motion in the Greek theory, by hand.

Matthias Wandel shows how his pantorouter, a template router machine, works. The flexible machine cuts joints such as mortise and tenon and dovetails, and plans are available.