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Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

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Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#111
* Not Just Bikes - urban planning and public transit - https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

* Real Engineering - in-depth videos with amazing visuals on all sorts of subjects like how and with what materials were used for supersonic planes, what went wrong with the Concorde design, how did logistics for D-Day work, how does pumped up hydro work, etc. - https://youtube.com/c/RealEngineering

* Real Time History - historical channel, the team behind The Great War channel (highly recommend as well) with long in-depth videos on historical subjects such as the Russo-Japanese war, Napoleon's invasion of Russia, Franco-Prussian war - https://youtube.com/c/realtimehistory and https://youtube.com/c/TheGreatWarSeries

* similarly to The Great War channel/Real Time History, World War 2 and TimeGhost - WW2 week by week, with extra focus in separate videos on crimes against humanity, spying, etc. - https://youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo and https://youtube.com/c/TimeGhost

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#112
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clickable links. Math: - 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/c/3blue1brown - Numberphile: https://www.youtube.com/c/numberphile CS: - Computerphile: https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile Physics: - PBS Spacetime: https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsspacetime Philosophy and Pop Culture: - Philosophy Tube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thephilosophytube - Folding Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/c/FoldingIdeas - ContraPoints:…

The amusing thing about Computerphile is it makes me wonder how inaccurate or inexact Numberphile is, as I'm very knowledgeable about the former and clueless about the latter. Computerphile is unwatchable to me, they'll just say stuff that is flat out wrong, but I eagerly await each new Numberphile vid. There's a term for this, I can't remember. You read a newspaper article about a subject you know, and can't believe…

It's similar. Two issues with Numberphile videos I can remember:

Their video on 1+2+3+... = -1/12 was so bad that another Math channel (Mathologer, which is highly recommendable btw) did a whole 40min video tearing it apart: https://youtube.com/watch?v=YuIIjLr6vUA

In their video on fluid mechanics, they say that the Navier-Stokes equations describe all fluids on earth, while they only show the incompressible version (without clarifying). The examples shown on screen at that moment also include a Ketchup bottle, and they don't discuss non-Newtonian fluids either (Ketchup is non-Newtonian, that's why you can get a lot of it coming out at once if you shake a bottle too hard). It's a bit nitpicking though, because apart from these missing caveats it's a great video (with a guest lecturer from Tom Rocks Maths, another great math channel).

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#115
post #92

Less techy stuff: - Kirsten Dirksen, for videos about self-sufficiency and architecture https://www.youtube.com/user/kirstendirksen - Hainbach, music-making using test equipment and esoteric synthesizers https://www.youtube.com/c/Hainbach - Linus Boman, graphic design https://www.youtube.com/c/LinusBoman/videos - Sebastian Lague, game programming 'coding adventures' https://www.youtube.com/c/SebastianLague - Great Ar…

Another one for the non-tech pile:

Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't: https://youtube.com/c/CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

A foulmouthed, self-taught botanist walking through deserts: urban, sub-urban and actual; talking about the origins and habitats of plants he encounters, while slagging off shitty city planning, dying lawns and ocasionally, Wholefoods.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#116

Sports are not regarded as intellectually fulfilling but these channels would change your perspective on how much Technique and Game Planning is involved at the highest level: The Modern Martial Artist: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheModernMartialArtist Adam Ondra (Olympian Climber): https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamOndra Wylie’s Art and Science of Boxing: https://www.youtube.com/c/LeeWylie1 Also, I see no one mentioning…

As whitebelt who recently started Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I was aware of how strategic it would be but I wasn't fully prepared for how dumb I would actually feel. At the start everyone always seemed two steps ahead of me. So far the journey and the growth I've seen have been incredibly intellectually simulating.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#117

Math: - 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/c/3blue1brown - Numberphile: https://www.youtube.com/c/numberphile CS: - Computerphile: https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile Physics: - PBS Spacetime: https://www.youtube.com/c/pbsspacetime Philosophy and Pop Culture: - Philosophy Tube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thephilosophytube - Folding Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/c/FoldingIdeas - ContraPoints: https://www.yout…

Trying to limit this to channels not mentioned here or in other comments yet:

Math:

Mathologer (university-level math explained with visualisations) https://youtube.com/c/Mathologer

Black Pen Red Pen (calculus problems) https://youtube.com/c/blackpenredpen

Tom Rocks Maths (in the style of a university tutorial, not surprising since the guy is a university lecturer) https://youtube.com/c/TomRocksMaths

Politics:

VisualPolitik EN (they also have a Spanish channel, the original, plus some other languages) https://youtube.com/c/VisualPolitikEN

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#119

- Technology Connections for general household "how stuff works" - DIY Perks, which is on the project/creation end of things - Xyla Foxlin for a variety of projects - Veritasium for well basically anything and everything science - Simone Giertz does a lot of projects to solve problems in both ridiculous and entertaining ways - Element14 Presents, if you're interested in building your own electronics - Hugh Jeffreys f…

Familiar to a greater or lesser degree with most, but not all of those. I'd take exception to a couple inclusions.

- Undecided w/Matt Ferrel

This one is probably the most questionable. I was always a bit leery due to the titles being a bit too accepting of anything you might find on r/Futurology, and then happened on a Thunderf00t Busted (not a regular viewer there either) about some of his videos and yeah. I think it's safe to say he's not doing much of a critical evaluation of anything as he is just reading whatever cool sounding press releases he finds. I'm usually fairly allergic to more absolute statements (part of the reason I'm not such a regular viewer of Thunderf00t's), but even with the limited amount I've seen I'm pretty confident in writing off Undecided w/Matt Ferrel. At the very least, it deserves the same kind of credibility as anything you might find on r/Futurology.

- Veritasium

Yeah, I know. But his repeated issues with basically doing ad-spots as videos, and his lack of acknowledging the issue, really soured me on him. If I'm learning about something through somebody like Veritasium, it's not a topic I'm well versed in to begin with and it's unlikely that I'm going to pursue it all that much further independently. That sort of format is also particularly prone to causing me to drop my more rigorous filters. All of that means credibility is particularly important there, and Veritasium completely lost my trust that he wouldn't try to slip advertising by me while pretending it's relatively unbiased information that's been checked in good faith.

Even before that, he seemed to me to tend a little too far towards fully selling high school style explanations, without making it clear that that's what he's doing. By high school style explanations, I mean those that are nearly outright lies, serve to help students work their way to the point that they can make use of the next more nuanced and complex explanation which is closer to the truth.

There's nothing inherently wrong with using those sorts of explanations, but when addressing such a wide audience with no expectation that they will be looking deeper later, I think it's very important to be clear about the limitations of the information provided. With Derek, you get exactly as much nuance as he thinks makes for a good story, and he does his best to leave you with the impression that's all there is.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#120
PBS Nova and Frontline often have their latest episodes on Youtube, they go more in depth than commercial documentaries. "Boeing's Fatal Flaw" in a great example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXMO0bhPhCw

Georgia Tech professor Aaron Lanterman has class lectures on music synthesis, electric guitars amps and effects, and general electronics: https://www.youtube.com/c/Lantertronics

Documentaries Particle Fever CERN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lx109jdGCc

Slingshot, Dean Kamen - has the origin of FIRST Robotics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AsJXjK0CSo

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