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

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

#211

Post by sireat »

redraga wrote: post #207
kragen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem i have with educational youtube is that it's competence porn. it's quite satisfying to watch lyle peterson, kiwami japan, grandpa amu, nigel braun, grant sanderson, andy george, or xyla foxlin working through the problems involved in creating something, to the point that hours spent getting satisfied that way displace the far more effortful hours required to work through those problems myself. but i don't…

I completely agree with this observation. In fact, you can use this to your advantage to save time. During the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, Blizzard released "Classic" World of Warcraft and I had this huge itch to play the game. I satisfied it by watching YouTube videos on Classic WoW instead. Did I waste time watching WoW YouTube videos? Yes. Did I save much more time by tricking my brain into thinking I was pla…

Similarly, Doug DeMuro quirks videos have saved me millions (which I do not have) on 80s and 90s dream cars.

That Porsche 928 or Lamborghini Countach or the ultimate teenage dream Vector W8? Fun to look at the videos but realistically it would not be fun to own and maintain one.

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

#212

Post by kiwijamo »

krick wrote: post #210
dom96 wrote: post #128

Tom Scott is one of the great YouTubers. I don't know him personally but he does come across as a genuine down to earth guy who just wants to share knowledge with the world. I also only recently learned that he has a newsletter. He mentions it briefly in some of his videos but I have never seen him ask people to sign up. The only reason I found out about it is because he included one of my articles in it[1]. Definite…

What's even the point of a newsletter in 2023 unless you need to gather people emails for marketing campaigns or other shady stuff? What does it do that RSS doesn't?

I like having a newsletter. Goes into my email inbox after signing up my email addtess. Doesn't need a separate app. Doesn't rely on a corporate who might kill my preferred RSS reader. Etc. I liked RSS in its heyday and used Google Reader to aggregate my feeds but that's long gone now.

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

#213

Post by keepamovin »

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…

please share your sub list it'd be fascinating! :)

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

#214

Post by permalac »

jgrahamc wrote: post #20
chris_wot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the story there?

As a teenager Tom Scott helped write the documentation for POPFile. By chance he interviewed me years later on stage at some conference and just before we went on stage he told me that some of his very first contributions to anything on the Internet were to POPFile documentation. I had no idea. https://getpopfile.org/docs/welcome

Is the project still active? I'd love to find a solution for my email issues.

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

#215

Post by lifthrasiir »

1letterunixname wrote: post #203

Ouch. Burnout and painting oneself into a permanent corner. Seems a bit drastic. Apart from burnout, one of the worst things is wasted talent.

FYI Tom Scott has several other active channels, and this only marks the end of weekly scheduled videos in the main channel after a full decade. It is not even the final video for the main channel.

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

#217

Post by jwestbury »

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…

> 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 as having gone way down.

This is actually something which is borne out by research, though in a slightly different context. Niro Sivanathan at the LBS has studied how arguments are presented, and essentially, recipients of arguments engage in an averaging function instead of an additive function, when evaluating strength -- adding one weaker point to a pair of very strong points actually detracts from the perceived strength of an argument.

It would not be at all surprising if we did the same sort of thing in different contexts, such as the example you gave here.

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

#218

Post by joepie91_ »

ropable wrote: post #197

With the excuse of there being a MOUNTAIN of high-quality content on YT, for someone like me who's never heard of nor watched Tom Scott: would anyone care to curate me a couple of his best videos to sample from?

I wouldn't say this about a lot of channels, but in the case of Tom Scott I think it applies: just pick a couple-minute video from his channel that seems interesting from the title, and give it a shot. The quality and enthusiasm are impressively consistent throughout all of it, if you ask me :)

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

#219

Post by ben_w »

krick wrote: post #209
ben_w wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cortex podcast: https://www.relay.fm/cortex It… isn't my thing. But CGP Grey has a nice voice and is like an excited puppy, so I find myself listening anyway?

Why isn't it your thing? Isn't it similar to his youtube stuff? What it's like?

It's a two person conversation between him and his business partner about productivity tips and what business things they've been doing recently.

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

#220

Post by twohaibei »

TheCleric wrote: post #191
JoBrad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A couple I don’t see that I love watching are good machinists and restoration. So here are my go tos: my mechanics Hand Tool Rescue Cutting Edge Engineering Inheritance Machining

This Old Tony
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