used hardware

Linus Tech Tips looks at whether buying a used GPU that was previously used for crypto mining is a good idea, as miners prepare to sell off cards. The video discusses how mining affects wear on cards and what to watch for.

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.

Huygens Optics explains the Fourier transform and shows how a lens performs one optically. A DLP projector is used as a Fourier filter to do simple pattern recognition on lithographic character patterns.

Tom Scott explains why hold music sounds worse than it used to, tracing it to old telephone exchanges and the audio compression applied by modern switches. It is a short visit to the Milton Keynes Museum.

A Business Insider World Wide Waste episode on H&M's garment recycling machines, which turn used clothing into new apparel. It asks whether a fast fashion company can solve the waste problem it helped create.

A short video explaining the Intel Management Engine, a hidden embedded computer inside Intel machines with deep access to hardware. It is presented from an insider's perspective and raises backdoor and NSA concerns.

Retro Game Mechanics Explained dissects how Atari's Quadrascan vector displays and vector generator hardware drew games like Asteroids and Tempest.

Tom Scott argues that grammatical gender is a silly concept and that the singular 'they' is an established gender-neutral pronoun. The description carries later corrections and reflections he added in 2019.

The 8-Bit Guy explains the color limitations of 1980s computers and consoles such as the NES and Commodore 64. It shows how sprites, attributes and palettes shaped the look of old games.

Modern Vintage Gamer looks at OpenLara, an open source Tomb Raider engine, running on the Game Boy Advance. The video explains how the port achieves playable speeds on the GBA's slow ARM CPU, with input from the developer XProger.

JerryRigEverything tours Li-Cycle to show how lithium-ion batteries from EVs, phones and tools are recycled. It walks through the process of shredding batteries and extracting materials.

Andreas Antonopoulos answers a question about how to secure your Bitcoin. He covers holding your own keys, backing up the 12 to 24 word seed phrase, and the tradeoffs of custodial accounts, phone wallets and hardware wallets.

Vsauce explores whether people in past decades really looked older than people of the same age today, or whether photographic and cultural factors make them seem so. It draws on old photos, yearbooks and perception research.

A 36-minute animated deep dive from Branch Education into how DRAM works. It shows how memory connects to the CPU and how billions of bits are stored in nanoscale capacitor cells. It also covers why DRAM sits between SSDs and the processor.

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.

Dave Plummer tours the IBM z16 mainframe from design through factory assembly, test lab, accelerators and water cooling. He explains why mainframes still exist and what makes them reliable.

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.

Retro Game Mechanics Explained shows how the Atari 2600 draws images with almost no video memory, by having the CPU race the CRT beam line by line. It walks through the techniques in detail.

Linus Tech Tips reviews the first Framework Laptop, a fully repairable and upgradeable machine. The reviewer expected a flimsy chunky device and was happily surprised.

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.

Linus Tech Tips warns against cheap Android TV boxes, many of which ship with preinstalled malware. It looks at several boxes and suggests safer alternatives such as Chromecast and Nvidia Shield.

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 animation from the DNA Learning Center showing how mRNA carries a gene's message to the ribosome, where tRNA and codons are used to assemble amino acids into a protein.

Technology Connections explains how LED traffic lights, which do not melt snow, drew complaints and were blamed for accidents. He uses it to illustrate the 'but sometimes' fallacy against new technology.

Tom Scott-style absurdist tour by Tom7 of SIGBOVIK chess projects: a tournament of 30 weird chess algorithms used to rate a color- and piece-blind chess program. Topics include mirrors, arithmetic encoding, perverted game tree search and a diluted Stockfish.

Veritasium tells the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., who introduced leaded gasoline and CFCs, and covers the science behind lead exposure and ozone damage. It also touches on isotope geochemistry used to uncover the history.

The 8-Bit Guy covers IBM's 1981 CGA graphics system, including how composite output and artifacting produced extra colors beyond the nominal palette. He argues CGA looked better in period than it does on RGB monitors.

A long Technology Connections video arguing that public understanding of renewable energy is distorted. It covers solar economics, land use compared with ethanol corn, and battery myths such as cobalt.

An Every Frame a Painting video essay on how Akira Kurosawa used movement, weather and composition to tell stories. It draws on clips and interviews with other filmmakers.

Matt Parker analyzes the Minecraft speedrunning controversy in which Dream was accused of cheating via improbably lucky drops. He walks through the probability and the statistical arguments in the original accusation and the reply.

Veritasium explains why analog computing may suit AI workloads, covering old analog computers, The Analog Thing and Mythic's analog chips that use flash memory for neural network inference. It argues digital hardware is hitting limits.

Veritasium traces analog computers from the Antikythera mechanism and Kelvin's tide-predicting machines to fire control and modern analog approaches. It explains how these machines computed continuously rather than digitally.

Engineering Explained works through whether electric cars are really worse for the environment than gasoline cars. It covers battery production emissions, the electricity mix used to charge, and how long an EV takes to break even on lifetime emissions.

CGP Grey explains Mixed-Member Proportional representation, the system used in New Zealand where voters get two votes. It covers how it differs from first-past-the-post.

Techmoan's beginner introduction to the compact cassette, testing metal tapes and Dolby S noise reduction on a Sony TC-S1 deck. He checks whether a cassette can sound close to a CD when good tape and equipment are used.

The first episode of a Cities: Skylines series on urban politics and planning, focused on parking. It uses the game to show how parking minimums shape cities, drawing on Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking.

3Blue1Brown's discovery-oriented introduction to error correction codes, building up Hamming codes from the puzzle of locating a flipped bit. It explains the parity-check idea and why it is so efficient.

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.

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.

Wendover Productions explains how overnight shipping works, covering the hub-and-spoke logistics of companies like FedEx and UPS and the use of cargo aircraft. It touches on the economics that make next-day delivery possible.