THE ARCHIVE · EVERY DISCOVERY
3,553 videos with summaries and linked Hacker News recommendations, arranged by title.
Folding Ideas · 8 HN recommenders
Folding Ideas uses the rise and fall of the YouTube competitor VidMe to examine why platforms are not friends to creators. It argues that alternatives to big platforms tend to attract the users banned from the original and lack a core vision.
Bloomberg Originals · 3 HN recommenders
A Bloomberg mini-documentary on how Vienna keeps housing affordable through large-scale public and social housing. It presents the city as a model strategy for others.
Alexey Samoshkin · 2 HN recommenders
A screencast showing how to use the fzf command-line fuzzy finder in the shell and in Vim. It covers searching files and also using the Vim plugin for help tags, buffers, lines and grep matches.
Techmoan · 3 HN recommenders
Techmoan demonstrates the Tefifon, a vintage German audio player that combines elements of record and tape with a grooved elastic loop. He shows how it works and plays it.
allthingsfangirl · 2 HN recommenders
Footage of Stefani Germanotta, later Lady Gaga, performing 'Captivated' and 'Electric Kiss' at NYU's Ultraviolet Live talent show in 2005-era college days. It shows her singing and playing before she became famous.
Talks at Google · 4 HN recommenders
Slavoj Zizek discusses his book Violence in an Authors@Google talk in New York. He covers ideology, including his idea of the unknown knowns.
Angela Collier · 2 HN recommenders
Physicist Angela Collier rants for 42 minutes about why violin plots are a poor way to show data, citing papers on violin and bean plots. It is part lecture on how to read distributions and part opinionated critique.
LovelyVirus · 4 HN recommenders
A binaural audio demo, the 'Virtual Barber Shop', that places a barber moving around your head. It works best with headphones and closed eyes.
Saul Pwanson · 6 HN recommenders
A five-minute lightning demo of VisiData, a terminal tool for exploring and manipulating data. It uses two months of NYC 311 complaint data to drill down, plot points on a virtual map and save selected rows.
Agile on the Beach · 3 HN recommenders
Simon Brown's Agile on the Beach 2019 talk presents the C4 model, a lightweight approach to diagramming software architecture with a shared vocabulary and simple notation.
udiprod · 3 HN recommenders
An animated visualization of basic quantum mechanics using a free particle, with simulations based on the actual equations. It covers waves, particles, and how measurement collapses the wavefunction.
3Blue1Brown · 6 HN recommenders
3Blue1Brown builds visual intuition for quaternions, showing how to think about this four-dimensional number system using stereographic projection and rotations in 3D space. It is part one of a two-part series with an interactive companion site.
Lex Fridman · 3 HN recommenders
Lex Fridman interviews Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum, cryptocurrency and the future of money. The conversation also touches on technical topics such as quantum computing and mining.
Dr. John Campbell · 2 HN recommenders
Dr. John Campbell reviews studies on vitamin D deficiency and immunity, including links to influenza and COVID-19, with Public Health England advice. He walks through the sources he cites.
Yale University · 10 HN recommenders
Russian-American journalist Vladimir Pozner lectures at Yale on how US foreign policy toward Russia after the Soviet collapse shaped Putin, then takes audience questions on election interference, the Skripal poisoning and media independence.
Nicolas Bustos · 2 HN recommenders
A timelapse compilation of the night sky above the Very Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile, using ESO photographers' footage set to music. It shows the stars wheeling overhead and the observatory at work.
Dr Geoff Lindsey · 2 HN recommenders
Linguist Geoff Lindsey explores vocal fry: what it is, who uses it, how it relates to glottal stops and accents, and why some people dislike it.
Nysnø Klimainvesteringer · 3 HN recommenders
Vaclav Smil's talk on historic energy transitions and what they imply for climate investment. He argues that transitions are slow, technology improves gradually, and only absolute cuts in energy use would truly work.
jan Misali · 3 HN recommenders
jan Misali traces the history of the letter W, including why it is called double u. The video is part of a series of deep dives into individual letters.
UncommentatedPannen · 3 HN recommenders
Pannenkoek explains how Super Mario 64 handles wall, floor and ceiling collisions, including triangles, normal vectors, quarter steps and out of bounds. It is a detailed 37-minute technical walkthrough of the game's physics.
fireurgunz · 2 HN recommenders
A 1957 Walt Disney film in which he explains and demonstrates the multiplane camera, the animation tool that gave 2D films depth. It is a short behind-the-scenes piece from Disney's archives.
Ingsoc75 · 3 HN recommenders
An episode of Gwynne Dyer's 1983 documentary series War, about how military basic training turns recruits into soldiers. It covers the psychological side of conditioning.
PBS Space Time · 2 HN recommenders
PBS Space Time examines Roger Penrose's idea that consciousness arises from quantum processes in the brain, and reviews new evidence about microtubules. It ends with an estimate of what replicating consciousness would demand.
Practical Engineering · 4 HN recommenders
Practical Engineering compares modern concrete with that of the Roman Empire, covering modern techniques like roller compacted concrete and water-reducing admixtures. It explains the tradeoffs of Roman construction versus reinforced concrete.
Numberphile · 5 HN recommenders
Numberphile interviews cryptographer Ron Rivest about end-to-end verifiable voting. He explains how homomorphic encryption and receipts let a voter confirm their ballot was counted without being able to prove how they voted to anyone else.
AlphaPhoenix · 5 HN recommenders
AlphaPhoenix uses a custom high-speed measurement setup to watch voltage waves travel down wires and split at a fork. It answers how electricity knows where to go and how quickly that process happens.
CGP Grey · 3 HN recommenders
CGP Grey explains jury nullification, a juror's power to acquit despite the law, and why mentioning it can get you struck from jury selection.
ScienceClic English · 2 HN recommenders
ScienceClic explains why nothing can go faster than light by treating motion through space and time together, so everything moves at the speed of light through spacetime. It uses animated visuals to cover relativity basics in 12 minutes.
Brandon Sanderson · 3 HN recommenders
Brandon Sanderson's keynote on AI-generated art, arguing that the artistic process and the journey matter more than the finished product. He explains why he rebels against generative AI in creative work.
Benn Jordan · 4 HN recommenders
Benn Jordan details security vulnerabilities in Flock Safety license-plate-reading cameras and how easily they can be compromised. It includes citations from security researchers and discussion of police surveillance.
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · 2 HN recommenders
Kurzgesagt explains why exercise alone does little for weight loss, since the body compensates by adjusting its total energy expenditure. It argues exercise is still very valuable for health.
Louis Rossmann · 2 HN recommenders
Louis Rossmann discusses failing keyboards on newer MacBooks, comparing a Dell keyboard repair with an Apple keyboard repair and explaining why Apple's design is costly and hard to fix.
IGN · 2 HN recommenders
IGN plays through the first episode of the original Doom with its creator John Romero providing commentary. Romero shares stories, design secrets and behind-the-scenes details about the levels, including E1M1.
Kyle Hill · 2 HN recommenders
Kyle Hill explains what nuclear waste actually is and how it is stored, arguing that the problem was effectively solved decades ago. It covers solid shielded waste and deep geological storage.
TED · 8 HN recommenders
In this TED talk, Lawrence Lessig argues that American politics is corrupted by Congress's dependence on funding from a tiny fraction of citizens. He uses rapid-fire visuals and calls for a bipartisan push to reclaim the Republic.
CGP Grey · 12 HN recommenders
CGP Grey narrates an animated adaptation of Nick Bostrom's Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant. The story uses a dragon that demands a daily toll of lives as a metaphor for aging and society's acceptance of death.
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · 6 HN recommenders
Kurzgesagt's animated take on climate change argues that, despite alarming headlines, there are real reasons for hope as technology, policy and public attitudes shift. It surveys trends and solutions while acknowledging the scale of the problem.
TED · 6 HN recommenders
Technosociologist Zeynep Tufekci argues that the machine-learning systems used to serve ads also decide what political and social information people see. She explains how opaque algorithms can nudge, segment and manipulate users, and warns that the real danger is powerful people using AI to control populations.
politizane · 8 HN recommenders
A short infographic video on the distribution of wealth in America, contrasting what people believe, what they consider ideal, and the actual numbers. It highlights how top-heavy US wealth is.
Michael Wesch · 2 HN recommenders
Michael Wesch's five-minute video about Web 2.0, showing how the read/write web, XML and user-generated content change how people create and share information.
O'Reilly · 2 HN recommenders
Clay Shirky argues at Web 2.0 Expo NY that the problem online is not information overload but filter failure. He says the real challenge is building better ways to filter and organize what we see.
Engineers.SG · 2 HN recommenders
Elias Martenson presents his Emacs-based workflow for building a web application (the Potato chat platform) with Common Lisp on the backend and ClojureScript on the frontend. He demonstrates SLIME, Paredit, CIDER and debugger-driven interactive development. The talk is 79 minutes and was given at Emacs SG.
Folding Ideas · 2 HN recommenders
Folding Ideas examines weird, algorithm-gamed children's content on YouTube, from automated toddler videos and educational spam to exploitative prank channels. It looks at how autoplay and recommendation systems reward this material.
DIY Perks · 5 HN recommenders
DIY Perks builds a webcam mod using a two-way mirror in a box so the camera sits behind the screen image. This allows real eye contact on video calls.
boburnham · 4 HN recommenders
Bo Burnham's song from his special Inside, a satirical take on internet culture, attention and extremism.
Well There's Your Problem Podcast · 2 HN recommenders
An episode of the Well There's Your Problem podcast on the 1987 Goiania radiological accident in Brazil, based largely on the IAEA report. It goes through the event day by day.
Well There's Your Problem Podcast · 2 HN recommenders
An episode of the Well There's Your Problem podcast on five-over-one buildings, wood-frame floors atop concrete bases, with engineering background and some oil industry news. It is long, rambling and has NSFW language.
Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik · 5 HN recommenders
A CAD-based animation from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics showing how the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator is configured and what its fusion research aims to achieve. It runs about 11 minutes.
JerryRigEverything · 2 HN recommenders
JerryRigEverything tours Li-Cycle to show how lithium-ion batteries from EVs, phones and tools are recycled. It walks through the process of shredding batteries and extracting materials.
Coffee Break · 3 HN recommenders
Coffee Break analyzes about 40,000 videos from seven months of YouTube's trending tab. It examines whether trending is biased toward mainstream media and late-night shows.
Paolo fromTOKYO · 3 HN recommenders
A day-in-the-life video following a move between apartments in Tokyo using a Japanese moving company. It shows how the movers work and what the experience is like.
Andrew Huberman · 7 HN recommenders
A two-hour Huberman Lab podcast episode on the physiological effects of alcohol on the brain and body at different levels of consumption. It covers genetic predisposition to alcoholism, alcohol metabolism, and how it causes cellular stress and changes thinking and behavior.
The Artificial Intelligence Channel · 12 HN recommenders
Michael Levin's NeurIPS 2018 talk on bioelectric computation outside the nervous system, showing how cell electrical networks shape development and regeneration. It covers morphological information processing in living tissue.
UniversityGreenways · 3 HN recommenders
Seattle landscape architect Fred Young gives an hour-long visual tour of Dutch cycling infrastructure, covering design details, continuous networks and how cycling fits daily life in the Netherlands.
Noodle · 3 HN recommenders
Noodle explores how retro pixel art was designed for CRT displays and why games look different on LCDs, with input from pixel artists and CRT researchers.
3Blue1Brown · 6 HN recommenders
3Blue1Brown explores infinite sums from convergent to divergent, with an introduction to the 2-adic metric, themed on the cycle between discovering and inventing mathematics.
Asianometry · 2 HN recommenders
Asianometry traces how the Japanese zaibatsu families grew into vast industrial combines and how postwar reforms abruptly broke up their wealth and control.
Veritasium · 7 HN recommenders
Veritasium explains, with expert input, that in general relativity gravity is not a force and objects follow straight paths through curved spacetime, including why standing on the ground means you are accelerating.
Curious Droid · 2 HN recommenders
Curious Droid asks what traces human civilization would leave in the geological record 65 million years from now. It considers how thin the fossil record of humanity might be.
Razbuten · 4 HN recommenders
Razbuten has his wife, who has never played games, try a sampling of titles and shows where she struggles. It highlights unspoken game conventions that experienced players take for granted.