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Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#61

Post by olau »

I enjoyed Rick Roderick's series on philosophy. They start here:

http://rickroderick.org/100-guide-philosophy-and-human-value...

There are probably more thorough ones out there, but I found his added perspective helpful - he's constantly asking, is this useful today? Today is 30 years ago now, but still. :)

Before listening to the series, I thought I wasn't interested in Nietzsche, but afterwards it feels like he has a point that modern culture still hasn't addressed, au contraire. Especially if you look at the dropping birth rates.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#62

Post by vrnmh »

avinassh wrote: post #35

Intro to Database Systems by Andy Pavlo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeYBdghaIjc&list=PLSE8ODhjZX... MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems by Robert Morris - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39...

Fun fact: Robert Morris is one of the founders of YCombinator and also the creator of the Morris worm!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#63

Post by everydayentropy »

olau wrote: post #46
cranium wrote: post #36

Human Behavioral Biology, a Stanford course taught by Robert Sapolsky. It's a thorough look on some of our behaviors through the lens of hormones, neural/nervous system, and how evolution shaped us. Also, Pr Sapolsky is a great speaker with a complete deadpan humor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL848F2368C...

This would be my choice too. He's a good storyteller. Although like all good storytellers, don't believe everything he says. I looked up a couple of his more bizarre anecdotes, and they usually turn out not to be true. The one example I can remember is women living close together sync'ing up their menstrual period. That turned out to be probably a case of the researchers underestimating the intricacies of the statist…

I have this thing when lecturers are engaging that I have even more trouble believing them going forward if they make an error.

I came to that point about the cycle synchronization in his lecture series and I had to stop. Not entirely because of the error, but because the phenomenon he cited was controversial well before he gave those lectures. That tells me he was not one to a) update his beliefs b) predisposed to falsifying his beliefs/seeking out contrary evidence or c) acknowledge disagreement about a phenomenon

Any one or combination of those qualities makes me skeptical when one is teaching a "science". So rather than spend the rest of the series second guessing everything he said, I stopped watching. It's a shame, he's really a great lecturer.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#64

Post by lab11 »

antipotoad wrote: post #25

Walter Lewin’s MIT lectures on Physics. Quite sad to see that they’ve been removed from MIT OpenCourseWare [1]. [1]: https://news.mit.edu/2014/lewin-courses-removed-1208

sad? I'd say tragic :(. I have never looked at rainbows the same since that lecture, I could stare at them for hours.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#66

Post by arisbe__ »

Bill Shillito - Introduction to Higher Mathematics | Just the clarity of presentation and pacing.

MIT Calculus Revisited - An almost perfect no nonsense presentation (I like black boards too)

Francis Su - Real Analysis - Very engaging lecture style and great board work.

Feynman Messenger Lectures - Well its Feynman, and the content is interesting if you are still somewhat new to it.

Also StatQuest and Luis Serano for intuition/conceptualization in Stats & ML.

I have a network of channels on YouTube trying to aggregate lecture courses/series. Here are just two: https://youtube.com/@a-guess-at-the-riddle

https://youtube.com/@tuva-or-bust

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#67

Post by lab11 »

spike021 wrote: post #31

I graduated with my CS degree back in 2016, but admittedly really disliked the curriculum at my university and have lacked some crucial knowledge. One of the series I've picked at and skimmed at times for reference and relearning some concepts is MIT OpenCourseware's 6.006 (and other courses) taught primarily by Erik Demaine. He's much better than any instructor I had at San Jose state university and I've learned thi…

true brilliancy expressed in teaching and research BTW. Did he not coauthor quite a revolutionary proof recently? Cannot put my hand on it or remember what it was.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#68

Post by slyall »

Exploring the Lord of the Rings by Corey Olsen

It is a very deep dive into the text of the book. A weekly episode that usually gets through less than a page of the book. It has recently passed Episode 250.

Episode so far are all on Youtube or downloadable as podcasts.

https://mythgard.org/lotro/exlotr/

Re: Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen?

#70

Post by Fezzik »

It’s a podcast (or started as one) but is much like a lecture series - The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. It is both as brief as possible yet as thorough as needs be, and is truly gap-less. Peter Adamson does a fantastic job explaining the historical context and progression of philosophy along with the interplay between philosophy, science, politics, religion, and society. I find the episodes consistently both informative and amusing.

https://historyofphilosophy.net/

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