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Tildes Video Thread
So, quite a few people don't like/watch video content, and don't like seeing the homepage filled with videos. Let's try something new, see if it sticks.
What are the best videos you have watched this past week/fortnight?
The story of Doom's most terrifying mod
I'm not a big fan of Doom, but this video had me sucked in. Even if you're not a fan of video games, I'd recommend watching this.
Related topic:
https://tildes.net/~games/15hr/myhouse_wad_inside_dooms_most_terrifying_mod
And to supplement this extremely good video about that weird map there's a video series which looks at how all the tricks involved are done which I find quite interesting.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Personally, I think "The Thing You Can't Defeat", a.k.a. the WAD where Doomguy has dementia does a better job.
I keep seeing this pop up in my recommended. Gonna give it a shot.
More well known for his video on NFT's, Dan Olson's (Folding Ideas) video In Search Of A Flat Earth is a truly excellent demonstration of the curvature of the earth, as well as a great documentary on flat earth ideology in general. I've always appreciated Dan's format and how thorough he is in his analyses. His demonstrations are towards the beginning of the video, I believe in the first 20 minutes. At least take a look at that, but if you have an hour or so to watch the whole thing, I would highly recommend it.
I've been a Folding Ideas fan ever since his horrified seven-minute "existential crisis" about Cats
Great video! The "behind the curve" documentary on Netflix is also a fascinating insight into the conspiracy mindset. It doesn't follow the progression of flatearth into the more modern conspiracies though like this video does.
If you're feeling like a similar debunking conspiracy video hbomberguy's documentary covering how the "vaccines cause autism" bs came about and created the modern anti-vax movement is fantastic and well worth a watch.
The Ingenious Design of the Aluminium Beverage Can
I always find myself rewatching this video every few months when YouTube re-recommends it to me, it really scratches that “How Is It Made?” itch and I enjoy the presentation
Can you fit a whole game into a QR code?
Technical challenge videos like this are one of my favourites, and code optimisation is my favourite kind of programming content to watch. The rest of his channel is also overall excellent
going fast is about doing less
In a similar vein the last video, this video does a deep dive on the optimisations you can apply to Day 19 of the Advent of Code 2019 (an annual coding challenge every December). Extremely satisfying seeing how smart people have solved complex problems!
Shiey & The Art of Trespassing
Less this video in particular, but the channel that this video introduced me to. Shiey instantly became one of my favourite channels to watch on YouTube
Star Wars - The Genius of John Williams
Despite me having no musical knowledge or experience, this video is enthralling, it also helps that you’re listening to John Williams excellent music while watching
How We Made MuseScore 4 - Music App Design is Challenging
One of the most interesting Devlog style videos I’ve watched, very well presented and has a variety of topics such as UI/UX, Technical challenges, some product management and a piece at the end on the importance of Open Source
Why Iroh is the Pinnacle of Masculinity and The Philosophy of Uncle Iroh: What does it mean to be a man?
Media analysis videos are another of my favourite genre of video, and it definitely helps that Avatar Last Airbender is the media being talked about in these videos.
Oh man, the Genius of John Williams video is so bittersweet for me. I ADORE John Williams and Star Wars, so when I stumbled across that video I was so excited. It's perfect. I LOVE how he dives into the music.
And then the channel (Listening In) went dark. Argh.
Absolutely love Engineer Guy. I discovered him while I was in middle school and I attribute his videos as one of the reasons why I wanted to attend UIUC. Sad I never got to meet him during my time there.
The Story of the First Video Game Cartridge | Gaming Historian
The Gaming Historian is always excellent and this one is no exception.
Hands on a Hardbody (1997)
A quirky but surprisingly entertaining mini doc about the characters in a Texas dealerships contest where the last person to take their hands off a truck wins the truck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SfVXyOnj2E&ab_channel=LeifFuller
My cousin worked at a movie rental place here in town and this was a cult classic that kept getting checked out. She brought it over one Thanksgiving and we were all mesmerized. Good stuff.
I can see how it became a classic. You start out thinking, why would this old school, blurry film even be interesting. And then slowly get drawn into the characters and the drama of a pretty odd event. Its well edited too for what appeared to be a very low budget film. And it leaves you in suspense guessing who the last person standing will be - I definitely got my guess wrong.
I find that a lot of movies made 30+ years ago (or hell even 20) can sometimes be more watchable for me when they're bad (compared to a modern bad movie) as they act as a sort of time capsule of that time period with things that are fun to pay attention to, especially documentary footage or just candid footage where I'm like "Oh yeah... people weren't on their phones all the time!"
...although tbf I feel like news aggregation websites just replaces newspapers and talking to people about headlines in the third place.
That video was great. Already hard to imagine thousands of people walking down a crowded street, just... thinking. Thinking about life, work, their families, the pretty woman they just passed, the weather, a health problem, the world... just thinking without a single algorithm directing their attention to this or that. Makes me nostalgic just watching, but I think it would just plain gobsmack my grandkids - "What do you mean people didn't have phones? No Google? No socials? How did they find stuff? What did people DO?"
Yeah, thats also what I liked about Hands on a Hardbody. Look at that cap, those big glasses, those shorts. Even that truck. Look at the lady using her Walkman to play cassettes with corded headphones. And toothless contestants? Hmm, no implants or dentures? I enjoyed it all.
24h hour by hour documentary of dday https://youtube.com/@D-Day24Hours-sm5pe
Nothing to add really but just wanted to say I like this idea. A weekly "What's the best thing you watched this week?" would be very welcome in my book.
Children of Doom 1998: Half-Life
Errant Signal is working on a series of videos surveying the various games that were inspired by and made possible by Doom. Even though this one has "Half-Life" in the title, it covers quite a few games that were released in 1998.
A few of my favorites have already been posted but here are some I've enjoyed. I've gone for a bit of a techy/maker theme. These are mostly deep dives and are for a pretty specific audience, but if you're into this sort of thing I think you'll like them!
Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) restoration - if you're interested in the history of computers and space travel then this very long but thorough series is for you. It starts off a bit rough around the edges but there are loads of absolutely fascinating insights into how the AGC works. This team manage to restore one to original functionality and run real Apollo code on it. They take you step by step through their process. It's brilliant seeing such smart and passionate people nerd out about everything they see and do.
Ben Eater - Building an 8 bit breadboard computer - following the digital electronics theme, this series by Ben Eater is also a long watch but he goes step by step through the building blocks of a computer as he builds one from scratch from individual components. He's absolutely incredible at explaining concepts, and is a master at making truth tables engaging. If you just want a taster of his content check out his two parter where he builds a VGA video card using basic electronics.
Stuff made here - building a robot to solve jigsaw puzzles - another favorite channel of mine. This guy used to work at formlabs and spends months on projects solving weird and wonderful challenges he sets himself. Very high quality content.
Compiling C to printable assembly instructions another pointless but fun deep dive into compilers. This guy builds a compiler which creates assembly code using only hex values which are ASCII printable. Pointless but fascinating.
JDH - building an OS that only runs Tetris this guy's videos are always interesting. In this case he builds an operating system which runs Tetris. In later videos he builds breadboard computers, graphics cards, creates gave engines from scratch.
https://youtu.be/8Wv3oDeO3Mo
50th anniversary of Tubular Bells. The university of Barcelona orchestra.
My favorite videos released this week was Angela Collier explaining why dark matter is not a theory.
My favorite videos I watched this week (but were released earlier) are probably:
Weatherbox examining why there were no sirens or warnings for the 1986 Saragosa F4 tornado.
The Rise and Fall off Minsweeper's Greatest Player by kiraa96
The Sex Raft
A Matt Orchard video that hasn't been released on YouTube yet. Keep an eye out. Should be dropping any day now. And keep your hands to yourself in the meantime.
Stanford Professor Robert Sapulski has an great behavioral biology lecture on schizophrenia. The illness isn't at all what I thought it was, and although devastating, the mechanisms behind what causes it are pretty wild.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but those are the ones off the top of my head that stood out to me this week.
The Soviet Union's Deadly Abandoned Nuclear Generators
A video by a relatively small Youtuber, Andy Mcloone, that details development, "decommissioning" and orphan source stories for Soviet RTGs, a form of "radioactive" battery that got its power from a strontium fuel pellet's decay heat.
It is very well made, and contains real videos and images from the 2001 Lia Incident, including recovery efforts!
Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business with Jason Cohen
1hr 53m
If you ever wanted to start your own business this video covers lots of concepts and ideas well worth watching it in full.
The channel Atrocity Guide posted a 75 minute documentary on an unusual cult from the 80s and 90s run by Dr. Frederick Lenz: The Enlightenment Fraud of Zen Master Rama
Atrocity Guide is one of these channels like Fredrick Knudsen (aka Down the Rabbit Hole) who do these deep dives into obscure and fringe topics. I really enjoy longform content, so both those channels are very much my thing. Anyone have any recommendations for other channels that do this kind of content?
The Engineering Puzzle of Storing Trillions of Bits in your Smartphone / SSD using Quantum Mechanics -- I had no idea quantum tunneling was already being used in NAND devices. (All of Branch Education's videos are really very good.)
The man who tried to fake an element -- The scientific scandal in which physicist Victor Ninov fabricated data in an attempt to win the race to discover elements 116 and 118.
Throttle House Adventure: Road to Enlightenment (Part 1)
This is a three part road trip adventure from the dudes at Throttle House. Not an educational video like everyone else is posting but still an amazingly produced video series. I already loved the regular Throttle House review videos and the chemistry between Thomas and James. This series really just highlights their chemistry and shows off two cool cars from the 80s.
Metal Gear Solid 4 Was A Mistake A humorous but detailed breakdown of MGS4 and the plot issues that drag it down.
The Lincoln Highway: Across America on The First Transcontinental Motor Route A video follows the original 1913 route of the Lincoln Highway, crossing 14 states starting at the Pacific and ending at the Atlantic. I didn't think I'd like this video as much as I did, really obscure piece of American history.
Machining the Antikythera Machine Playlist. A watchmaker and amateur historian builds the Antikythera Machine using period accurate methods.
YouTube algorithm being a bit slow for me this week.
What Supernova Distance Would Trigger Mass Extinction? - by PBS Space Time.
For my fellow space enthusiasts. A video about at what distance a supernova's radiation would reach the earth, and the effects it would have on our planet. I love the entire PBS Space Time playlist. Their videos are always very in-depth scientifically, and some of the subjects are beyond my comprehension, but none the less always interesting to listen to!