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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

#191

Post by BeefWellington »

foerbert wrote: post #119
BeefWellington wrote: post #20

- 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 i…

> 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.

I don't know what to tell you if you believe Thunderf00t's "debunking" is more valuable than your own viewing of any given channel. Thunderf00t is someone who is on his own very problematic and misleading.

The question posed was about things for the intellectually curious, not for "who is the most accurate science communicator on YouTube" so I think including people who cover topics in a simple way are useful.

I'd encourage you to look at many of his videos that cover basic things like how geothermal heating and heat pumps work.

Regarding Veritasium, that is an even weaker argument IMO. If we're going to try to pillory everyone trying to make a living off communicating STEM topics I'm not sure who we'll have left in the space. The boring altruistic rich people?

I'd love to see examples of him outright lying or misleading his audience if you have it, because that would certainly change my mind on recommending his channel to people.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#192

Post by foerbert »

tinco wrote: post #126
foerbert wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Matt Ferrell's Undecided is great. Yeah he just explains interesting press releases, he isn't shy about that either. Why would he want/need to be critical about them? Unless he's reading press releases of companies that don't actually exist I don't see how this could be a bad thing. Disliking Veritasium because of some ads is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If he manages to sneak in an ad without me noticin…

> Disliking Veritasium because of some ads is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I don't think we're talking about the same things here. I'm talking about wholesale videos that are effectively a big, undisclosed ad. I don't mean I don't like how he does ad reads. I mean I don't like how he's created entire videos that are basically ads and then passed them off as his own original good-faith attempt to inform.

It's not so much actively annoying as is it actively deceitful.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#193

Post by BeefWellington »

recuter wrote: post #89
BeefWellington wrote: post #20

- 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…

> Undecided w/Matt Ferrel, for a look at emerging tech Person with soothing voice reads PR releases of mostly fluff and hype. It is like a tabloid of "science-y" things. I don't think he belongs on an otherwise fine list, just an opinion.

This is a misleading characterization. He does a lot of talking about emerging tech, so everything will sound hype-y and fluffy.

He also does a number of videos explaining basic concepts and also covers some first-hand experiences he has doing various things, such as adding solar to his home and what that did for his electrical bill.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#195

Post by evancordell »

baalimago wrote: post #14

* My mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/c/mymechanics He repairs old worn down items and shows every step of the way in high details. Very satisfying to both learn the elegant mechanisms of old items, as well as to see something broken become beautiful once more. * Andreas Kling: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling Continuously posts videos on him+his community developing the operative system SerenetyOS (I know he…

Hand Tool Rescue is another good channel in the vein of My mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCasG9kJWi1eVxM0QkyqKVJQ

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#196

Post by tunap »

Sean Carroll's: Mindscape is a pretty thought-provoking podcast by a bona fide "cosmological philosopher". The topics/guests cover a wide spectrum of specialties in the physical sciences, humanities, technology, psychology and more.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#197

Post by BeefWellington »

foerbert wrote: post #192
tinco wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Ferrell's Undecided is great. Yeah he just explains interesting press releases, he isn't shy about that either. Why would he want/need to be critical about them? Unless he's reading press releases of companies that don't actually exist I don't see how this could be a bad thing. Disliking Veritasium because of some ads is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If he manages to sneak in an ad without me noticin…

> Disliking Veritasium because of some ads is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I don't think we're talking about the same things here. I'm talking about wholesale videos that are effectively a big, undisclosed ad. I don't mean I don't like how he does ad reads. I mean I don't like how he's created entire videos that are basically ads and then passed them off as his own original good-faith attempt to inform.…

Do you have exact examples of that?

Whenever I've seen people trot this argument out in the past it's typically sourced from a couple of old Twitter threads and it's a 20/20 hindsight thing wherein he is talking about something exciting and new looks like a shill five years on because they were only talking about that one specific company's thing, ignoring the context of the video and the "at the time this was completely new" factor.

I've seen the same happen for things like ML as applied to a variety of things, most notably Tesla's autopilot features.

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#198

Post by magicalhippo »

In no particular order:

FarmCraft101 (repairs/restoration, woodworking and useful tips) - https://www.youtube.com/c/FarmCraft101

KYLE.ENGINEERS (aero and car tech) - https://www.youtube.com/c/KYLEDRIVES/

Machine Thinking (history of machining) - https://www.youtube.com/c/machinethinking/

Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles (historical, technical deep dives) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCynGrIaI5vsJQgHJAIp9oSg/

Huygens Optics (optics history and manufacture) - https://www.youtube.com/c/HuygensOptics/

w2aew (RF electronics and tutorials) - https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew/

Aaron Lanterman (electronic classes, esp audio) - https://www.youtube.com/c/Lantertronics/

MicroType Engineering (electronics and pcb design) - https://www.youtube.com/c/MicroTypeEngineering/

Project Farm (unbiased tool/hardware reviews) - https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/

Tod's Workshop (historical weapons) - https://www.youtube.com/c/TodsWorkshop1

rctestflight (RC stuff) - https://www.youtube.com/c/rctestflight

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#199

Post by bil7 »

hansword wrote: post #178
foerbert wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I want to very much second excluding Veritasium. Whenever he talked about something I was knowledgeable in, he made mistakes. This combined with branding himself as 'the element of truth' and the increasing over-clickbaity titles and thumbs made me stop watching him. It's an entertainment channel, and if you want light science entertainment, and expect to forget everything within a few hours, it's a good channel. If…

>the increasing over-clickbaity titles and thumbs

an unfortunate appeal to the recommendation algorithm that is now a must. You are leaving views on the table without employing these clickbait methods. One solution that many channels use including Veritasium is trying out various clickbait packaging for the first 24-48h, then swapping to something more descriptive.

When these videos represent not only one person's livelihood but also the salaries of a team of producers, camera operators, scriptwriters, etc it just makes unfortunate sense to appeal to the algorithm

Re: Ask HN: YouTube Channels for the Intellectually Curious

#200

Post by BeefWellington »

mkl wrote: post #144
BeefWellington wrote: post #20

- 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…

- Matthias Wandel, who creates woodworking machines to make all kinds of things https://www.youtube.com/c/Matthiaswandel

Matthias does great work! I sub to that channel (and many others mentioned here) as well. I didn't include it on the list because to recommend it to someone I think you'd want to be sure they had any interest in the area at all, though maybe the "intellectually curious" part would cover that.
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