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YouTube, the jewel of the internet

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Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#261

Post by cronix »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #182
crazygringo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I'm the same. I've totally given up on navigating anything except my home page, I'm actually astonished at how good it is. The newest videos from my favorite channels are always listed first, and then it's a smattering of older popular ones from the topics and channels I watch the most, and a handful of things "adjacent" to those that are sometimes not for me but sometimes become my new favorite rabbit hole, so…

I am hooked as well. (But, please, stop with the YouTube Shorts, I'm just not that into you.)

On the website I just click the X next to that section and it disappears for a month.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#262

Post by nomilk »

sitkack wrote: post #177
crazygringo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I'm the same. I've totally given up on navigating anything except my home page, I'm actually astonished at how good it is. The newest videos from my favorite channels are always listed first, and then it's a smattering of older popular ones from the topics and channels I watch the most, and a handful of things "adjacent" to those that are sometimes not for me but sometimes become my new favorite rabbit hole, so…

I have had the YT algorithm "hunt me" for a weeks, keep recommending some what looks like a dumb-ass video, only when I finally cave in and watch it, I get it, I needed to see it. The thumbnail and the title didn't did it the opposite of justice. I even tried using the yt api to see if I could scrape the recommendations but they aren't in there. You would have to scrape the browser while logged in.

Russ Roberts (host of Econtalk podcast) says: take the teacher, not the class, meaning (at least in economics) you'll get more value from a great teacher of a boring topic than from a poor teacher of an exciting topic.

I feel that describes my YouTube preferences: I'd prefer to see amazingly intelligent/engaging content on any topic than just average content on topics I'm ostensibly very interested in.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#263

Post by karmelapple »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #226
brewtide wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 9 and 7 year old and we are constantly enjoying such YouTube channels as "smarter every day", "veritasium" (spelling?), "Stuff made here", to some extent Colin furze, "technology connections", and other such edutainment. Not sure it speaks about differences in kids, in ages, in households, or likely a combination of sorts. Also, not a judgement on your kids, just a counterpoint about the resources available…

But those channels you listed are not educational, theyre "educational" e.g. you may learn some factoids about physics are learn about some cool experience but in no way will they impart to you a deep understanding of any subject. Those sorts of edutainment style videos are not ever going to compete against say, a college degree. Now there is excellent serious educational material on youtube, stuff like khan academy,…

The person you’re replying to has kids in the single digits for age. Thinking about a college-level education for a 7 and 9 year old seems fairly unrealistic, and learning “educational” topics like you point out at that age is perfectly fine. You’re still learning addition and subtraction at age 7.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#264

Post by amscanne »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #226
brewtide wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 9 and 7 year old and we are constantly enjoying such YouTube channels as "smarter every day", "veritasium" (spelling?), "Stuff made here", to some extent Colin furze, "technology connections", and other such edutainment. Not sure it speaks about differences in kids, in ages, in households, or likely a combination of sorts. Also, not a judgement on your kids, just a counterpoint about the resources available…

But those channels you listed are not educational, theyre "educational" e.g. you may learn some factoids about physics are learn about some cool experience but in no way will they impart to you a deep understanding of any subject. Those sorts of edutainment style videos are not ever going to compete against say, a college degree. Now there is excellent serious educational material on youtube, stuff like khan academy,…

I don't think any of those channels are trying to replace an actual science education in any given subject. But they are certainly imparting a lot more than physics "factoids", and some are probably closer to intro lectures on specific topics intended for a general audience (done by a talented and engaging educator).

It's not directly equipping the audience with professional skills for a scientific career, but it is generating interest in science, and indirectly encouraging people to expand their own STEM skills and knowledge. I'm sure that dozens (hundreds? thousnads?) of people have gone into mathematics at least in part due to an interest generated by the likes of numberphile, etc.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#265

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

Recommendations are good when I've found myself in a sort of ecosystem of people who are all into the same thing. For example, independent comedians who play multiple characters in solo videos. And I believe that I've had more recommendations turn me on to really good stuff that I've followed long-term; for example, I seem to recall that I was watching Ginny Di and Mann Shorts awhile and YT found Deerstalker Productions for me; that was a really great rec. And then they held up VLDL and I resisted because it looked dumb and silly, and when I finally gave in, VLDL had another loyal follower who binged their back catalog in the space of a week or two. And this story keeps playing out.

Sometimes I need to purposely search out channels, and also ignore recommendations, because YT got the wrong idea. For example, right now I am interested in local Irish performers from Donegal, but YT has decided that I want to see any old Irish country-and-western performers. False on two counts: genre matters less than specific location.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#266

Post by deepzn »

switchbak wrote: post #252
deepzn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i had this happen to me. ive lost videos I wanted to see when i clicked one instead of another.

That's what watch later is for though. I keep getting recommended the same damn set to videos which I've passed over a hundred times. Not sure why the "algorithm" is getting so much love, it's got some attributes that are pretty clearly crap.

I use watch later for completing videos, but these are just I think may be interesting from the homepage, like seeing the title and background pic. I sometimes open multiple tabs for them.

One of things I found the coolest, was when I am watching a video, and if the video mentions for example some event that happened a while ago or a person being referenced, I would immediately search for that, and I would see it already recommended on the search bar.

Maybe lots of others have also done the same, and it recorded that as a meaningful suggestion. Or maybe it's standard ML techniques, or the new Transformer models diffused across Googles products I'm not sure but was noticing this even around 3 years ago.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#267

Post by climb_stealth »

fsckboy wrote: post #148
Waterluvian wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I really have no complaints. Of all “we feed you content” thingies online, YouTube has been the most adequate. The only complaint I have is what human behaviour forces even the intelligent creators to do: have a title card with an excited looking person.

this is how low we've sunk, you don't even say that youtube is adequate, you say it's the most adequate Just to add my anecdata to the mix, I'm waist deep in logging-in to gmail and workplace apps, etc, but to compensate have abandoned android for iPhone, and I never use google search, and while I watch plenty on youtube, it's never required me to log in so I've never logged in, I don't even have any idea how much it…

It is definitely worth logging in. For each recommended video you will then have the option of selecting 'not interested' or 'don't recommend this channel'.

I would say it makes all the difference.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#268

Post by jsrcout »

nomilk wrote: post #262
sitkack wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had the YT algorithm "hunt me" for a weeks, keep recommending some what looks like a dumb-ass video, only when I finally cave in and watch it, I get it, I needed to see it. The thumbnail and the title didn't did it the opposite of justice. I even tried using the yt api to see if I could scrape the recommendations but they aren't in there. You would have to scrape the browser while logged in.

Russ Roberts (host of Econtalk podcast) says: take the teacher, not the class , meaning (at least in economics) you'll get more value from a great teacher of a boring topic than from a poor teacher of an exciting topic. I feel that describes my YouTube preferences: I'd prefer to see amazingly intelligent/engaging content on any topic than just average content on topics I'm ostensibly very interested in.

I can vouch for that idea. I dreaded taking statistics in college, because I'm just not a mathy person. But the teacher was fantastic. I actually enjoyed the class - which was 100% due to his passion for the subject, and deep interest in teaching it to the next generation.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#269

Post by TMWNN »

rcarr wrote: post #218
pcthrowaway wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s an awesome resource and I think Gen Z are at a massive advantage because of it. They can literally leave school and already be professionally competent. I think we’ll see them leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had a youth where they could spend their entire time learning literally everything there is to know about their passion for free I don't follow this. I'm a millennial, graduated…

A guy a few years older than me at school was massively into maths and took out every book he could find from all the local libraries. When he finally arrived at Cambridge University to study, he ended up going to third year lectures because he already knew all the material in the first and second year classes. He went on to do a Phd in maths there. Imagine if he had access to YouTube. He probably would have ended up…

I've heard that reading about a subject for 30 minutes a day will, in six months, make you among the world's experts.

Re: YouTube, the jewel of the internet

#270

Post by ge96 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #182
crazygringo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I'm the same. I've totally given up on navigating anything except my home page, I'm actually astonished at how good it is. The newest videos from my favorite channels are always listed first, and then it's a smattering of older popular ones from the topics and channels I watch the most, and a handful of things "adjacent" to those that are sometimes not for me but sometimes become my new favorite rabbit hole, so…

I am hooked as well. (But, please, stop with the YouTube Shorts, I'm just not that into you.)

Random tip, can take short id and put it into ?watch form to view/add to playlist
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