Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Expertise in the Age of YouTube

behavioralscientist.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 110 posts

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#41

Post by jammygit »

Wordball wrote: post #12
benterris wrote: post #7

What "absurdly demanding online game" is the author referring to in the first paragraph ? He mentions Overwatch later in the article but in another context so I'm not sure that's the one he meant.

Probably Fortnite, though all the players surely haven't "internalized its mechanical nuances to Ph.D. level" Mexico Population: ~128 million Fortnite Peak monthly players: 78.3 million LoL peak montly players: 111 million Fortnite total accounts: 250 million you can say whatever you want if it's a blog article

> you can say whatever you want if it's a blog article

I just want to de-normalize that a bit: blogs should strive for high standards, even though some don’t. They are a major form of information these days!

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#42

Post by kilpikaarna »

sedeki wrote: post #11
nefitty wrote: post #6

I'm interested to know how other developers on HN prefer to learn. I really like just running into a problem and Googling my way to a solution. I read snippets of docs, blog articles, SO answers, etc. and then try to piece together an understanding. I have a hard time incorporating videos into my ad hoc learning. What is your preferred method of learning new tools, techniques, etc?

I am prone to buying a book about the subject. Problem is I already have too many books and honestly I don’t read them all. I didn’t read much technical literature before Uni, and didn’t know where to find information about technical subjects growing up (even as I was of the geeky type). My main problem is what to focus on. Not how to learn it. I guess reading a blog post instead of paying Amazon would be good for me…

I find that amassing books or tools easily becomes a surrogate for actually putting in the effort to learn about a subject or do a project. When something piques my interest, it's pretty easy to just go online and order some stuff and get the satisfaction of having done something without having to put in much effort.

Then once the thing arrives my attention has been directed somewhere else and I'm much less motivated to actually read or do anything with the thing, and it just goes on the pile.

At least for doing practical projects, I've found that poverty is much more conducive to getting things done. Having to make do with what's avilable, free or cheap, and not getting distracted by shopping for the perfect solution. Likewise, I find that some of the most creative people on YouTube tend to be either pretty young or extremely frugal.

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#43

Post by matheusmoreira »

CM30 wrote: post #14

I think it's especially interesting to look at how quickly people master a brand new field too, since it seems the timespan between a new hobby getting started and people making professional quality works in said area has gone down significantly too. For instance, my go to example are video game mods and ROM hacks. In the olden days, these communities grew quite slowly, and it took a fair amount of time for people to…

The game hacking community does highly professional work. Many games have been completely reverse engineered and open sourced.

https://github.com/pret

https://github.com/sonicretro

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#44

Post by agumonkey »

resu_nimda wrote: post #36
jnellis wrote: post #4

As a finish carpenter for a number of years and having to deal with fixing homeowners attempts at doing their own remodel efforts based on them watching youtube videos, I've come to general law regarding expertise or 'how to' videos. There's an inverse relationship between quality of video and accuracy of information (or maybe just usefulness of information.) The majority of good polished videos have the least accura…

Any examples of great craftsmen with great video quality? I recently discovered the "Essential Craftsman" channel which seems to be pretty good all around. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzr30osBdTmuFUS8IfXtXmg

mathias wandel comes to mind

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#45

Post by the_cat_kittles »

agumonkey wrote: post #44
resu_nimda wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any examples of great craftsmen with great video quality? I recently discovered the "Essential Craftsman" channel which seems to be pretty good all around. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzr30osBdTmuFUS8IfXtXmg

mathias wandel comes to mind

lol this is funny because he is definitely better than some, he is absolutely not even close to a master craftsman

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#46

Post by the_cat_kittles »

jnellis wrote: post #4

As a finish carpenter for a number of years and having to deal with fixing homeowners attempts at doing their own remodel efforts based on them watching youtube videos, I've come to general law regarding expertise or 'how to' videos. There's an inverse relationship between quality of video and accuracy of information (or maybe just usefulness of information.) The majority of good polished videos have the least accura…

agree completely. and it makes me realize- there is a skill to recognizing who is and isnt full of shit on youtube. and that skill is very valuable

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#47

Post by tempestn »

This speaks to me. I do a bunch of DIY work on my cars and various maintenance on my house, thanks to youtube videos, that I highly doubt I would have ever had the skill or confidence to tackle in a time before the internet. Many of these things are literally less work to do myself than the hassle of getting someone else to do it, let alone the cost. But in an earlier time, absent knowing someone who could teach you the skill, it just wouldn't have been an option.

Despite the problems platforms like YouTube cause (or enable), I certainly wouldn't want to do without it.

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#48

Post by agumonkey »

jmkd wrote: post #2

A superb reflection on the accelerated potential technology affords learning. I would add an additional note that the choice of topics to dive into is now both more vast and accessible than it has ever been. Not only can you learn what you want to, but you can stumble across that which you'd never thought of or scarcely knew existed and discover more about yourself along the way. When you search for things to learn y…

I so often discard internet real educational value [0] but it might start to have an impact.

Even if I'd think fablab/shop per city or neighborhood might be more efficient, it's still great.

[0] to me the only good thing there was khan academy which was basically video tutorial you can rewind.

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#49

Post by agumonkey »

nefitty wrote: post #6

I'm interested to know how other developers on HN prefer to learn. I really like just running into a problem and Googling my way to a solution. I read snippets of docs, blog articles, SO answers, etc. and then try to piece together an understanding. I have a hard time incorporating videos into my ad hoc learning. What is your preferred method of learning new tools, techniques, etc?

I had a good run with the old library / book / pen / paper way. But it was mostly math or lisp, both things are nice to solve on paper.

Re: Expertise in the Age of YouTube

#50

Post by userbinator »

jnellis wrote: post #4

As a finish carpenter for a number of years and having to deal with fixing homeowners attempts at doing their own remodel efforts based on them watching youtube videos, I've come to general law regarding expertise or 'how to' videos. There's an inverse relationship between quality of video and accuracy of information (or maybe just usefulness of information.) The majority of good polished videos have the least accura…

Alternatively, some of the worst grainy, shaky cam videos I've seen, usually on the jobsite,

"on the jobsite" is probably the most important point, because then you get to see the actual process as it happens, instead of someone talking about it and a series of jump-cuts of them barely doing anything.

I feel like the quality-vs-accuracy thing happens with websites too; the highly-SEO'd flashy sites also tend to be the most devoid of actual detailed information, and personal/smaller sites have the most interesting detail, but unfortunately search engines almost always pick up the former.

Post reply on HN