Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos [video]

Post by graypegg » Mon, Jan 01, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

georgesimon wrote: post #43

Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

Are those fifty Tom Scotts all competing with each other to become 'experts of the week' on the same topics in slightly different ways? (that's what my 5 or 6 Tom Scotts do) I wish YouTube channels could be viable by following the Periodic Videos model - stick to a single domain but keep it fresh by improving on old content.

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Jan 01, 2024, 5:52 PM UTC

janvdberg wrote: post #17

Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1]. And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it, what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine enthusiasm that put him on the map for me. One of the best to do it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MijmeoH9LT4

Post by jfengel » Mon, Jan 01, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #30

janvdberg wrote: post #17

Tom is why I understand UTF-8 [1]. And it is not so much WHAT he explained but HOW he explained it, what really made it stick. It was his sheer unbridled genuine enthusiasm that put him on the map for me. One of the best to do it. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MijmeoH9LT4

This is a great video! I’ve been writing about UTF-8 on my blog and I noticed that many programmers don’t understand it, after 10 or 20 years The main impediment seems to be that languages like Java, JavaScript, and Python treat UTF-8 as just another encoding, but really it’s the most fundamental encoding. The language abstractions get in the way and distort the way people think about text Newer languages like Go and…

Post by JoBrad » Mon, Jan 01, 2024, 5:55 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #31

graypegg wrote: post #12

Tom Scott’s work stands out as some of the best examples of how interesting and valuable web content can be. In a sea of short derivative junk-food content, he made things that i honestly learned from, without demanding more than 10 minutes of my time a week! There’s of course a lot of people also doing the same sort of great content, but it does feel like a slowly dying breed. Tom definitely deserves an indefinite b…

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

Post by zikduruqe » Mon, Jan 01, 2024, 6:00 PM UTC

JoBrad wrote: post #57

Waterluvian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! But the thing is— I’ve got about fifty Tom Scotts in my subscription list. I’m perplexed by doomsaysers’ laments about the state of online educational media. I’ve got far more high quality content for a huge variety of topics than I’ve ever had before. My theory is this: your favourite hobby store expands and adds one more aisle of fantastic products and five aisles of garbage. You’ll likely perceive quality…

I’ve also been watching Tom Scott since he started, and love his content. I’ve put a few others that I enjoy below, that also produce what I consider to be high quality and entertaining content. Mind sharing any others? Nile Red Nick Zentner Practical Engineering Real Engineering Ivan Miranda Joe Makes Tom Stanton Veritasium Numberphile Deep Sky Videos Objectivity (Honestly all of Brady’s channels are great) 3Blue1Br…