Looking for some hidden gems
Watched an hour long documentary on the history of the difficulty of making blue LED lights this weekend lol.
This was a great watch!
Saw the thumbnail for that and added it to my watch later. So I’ll probably never watch it
The Veritasium version is only 33 minutes 😉
It’s actually a cool story. The dude was a technician and was shunned by the phd’s and had to repair equipment which gave him the skills to modify the machines to eventually succeed… and he later got a phd like he always wanted…. If the story is to be believed…. Either way pretty sure that dudes family is loaded unless there’s a weird thing from his country where they don’t allow hereditary stuff but maybe not…. Dum dum dum…. Does he get rich I can’t remember but he seemed happy I think and proud rightfully so
The Post Apocalyptic Inventor. The guys about self sufficiency in machinery and workshop stuff. Pretty fun and relaxing. One of the more genuine and down to earth YouTubers I know for the moment.
I watch all sorts of urbex and abandoned exploration videos. The Proper People are great.
Rust to running videos about restoration of old cars and heavy machinery. vice Grip Garage is great, that guys a hoot.
Lately I’ve been into the guy’s channel who bought the old Cerro Gordo mine and had been doing cool videos where he explores the old mines like 900 feet underground.
I’ve been into Heavy D Sparks rescue and recovery videos too.
If you asked me a few years ago, I would have not even said I’m interested in any of these, but with the flood of useless “creator” content, I think they’re pretty interesting.
Synthesizer news and reviews, Dark Souls streams (Lobosjr is the only streamer I can tolerate), 80s and 90s music videos, cute cat videos, Rush covers, gadget teardowns, soldering videos.
Edit: Almost forgot robot sumo.
Mostly cooking videos. Some channels I enjoy are
- J Kenji Lopez Alt
- Ethan Chlebowski
- Adam Ragusea
- Imamu Room
The other half of the time, I’d probably be listening to a Lex Fridman interview.
Adam Savage’s Tested, watching his videos finally got me to start working on my 3d printing and costuming.
YouTube, for me, what MTV used to be. Music videos and live concerts. That’s all I use it for.
Explaining Computers
Digital Foundry
Summoning Salt
Carwow
Photo Owl Time Lapse
GCN
GCN Racing
Formula 1
The Slow Mo Guys
Dave’s Garage
Flossy Carter
First We Feast
Ahoy (@XboxAhoy)
Steve MouldLock Picking Lawyer - You’ll quickly realize that locks only keep honest people honest. I even got my own set of practice picks to play around with.
Deviant Ollam - A professional penetration tester. His job is to infiltrate secure facilities then tell them how he did it, so they can improve their security. He takes LPL’s expertise, and puts it into practice. Start with his “I’ll let myself in” talk.
Veritasium - Dude talks at a camera about some niche science and tech concepts.
*Tom Scott - Now retired, so no new videos. Same idea as Veritasium, with a different host.
Technology Connections - Charmingly dorky dude in an t-shirt and blazer explains how everyday items work. Everything from air conditioners to jukeboxes and coffee makers. He’s a big part of why I’m not afraid to troubleshoot my own appliances.
Primitive Technology - Dude goes out into the middle of a forest and builds stuff with nothing but handmade tools. Turn on closed captioning!
Macho Nacho Productions - Retro console modding and emulation, featuring installs and reviews for some of the most popular mods and emulation tools.
Pirate Software - Former Blizzard/Amazon game dev is making his own indie game. There’s also a healthy dose of offensive digital security sprinkled throughout, because he’s also a greyhat hacker.
Practical Engineering - An engineer explains and demonstrates all kinds of engineering concepts, in a simple and easy to follow format. You’ll start seeing examples of his concepts all around you.
Adam Savage’s Tested - Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) builds and shows off all kinds of fun stuff. He also has great insight into how to best utilize a bunch of different tools and equipment.
The Modern Rogue - Two professional idiots try not to injure themselves (and often fail) while stumbling through learning everything from simple bar tricks to knife throwing and Mongolian archery. One of the hosts is a magician of some repute, so there are occasional bits of illusion and sleight of hand thrown in too. It’s basically “what would happen if a couple of dads tried to teach themselves how to make ninja stars in a garage?”
William Osman - Dude with programming and electrical engineering experience uses it to create a musical bidet, and other equally dumb things.
Michael Reeves - See above. He’s friends with William Osman, and they often collab.
Dropout - The old CollegeHumor production crew. They have a variety of content. Game Changer is my personal favorite; Contestants compete on a game show where the rules change with every episode, and the contestants aren’t told what the new rules are.A man of class and taste. I chose to picture you wearing the in bread cat T-shirt while you wrote this.
I’m over 40.
Beau of the Fifth Column has a fantastic perspective on politics and world events, and is a great presenter. Politicon with James Carville, The Bulwark (for sane conservatives), The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight.
Perun makes entertaining PowerPoints on the nature of global conflict and defense.
Frasier Cain, Event Horizon, SciShow Space, Cool Worlds, PBS Spacetime, Isaac Arthur for space and science.
For comedy I like Taylor Tomlinson, Liz Miele, Sam Morril, Norm MacDonald, Josh Johnson… look, there are a lot of great comedians out there.
So many musical virtuosos to discover. Charles Berthoud, Justin Johnson, Bill Sutton, Doreen Ketchens, Too Many Zoos… just go find great musicians. It ain’t hard.
Professor of Rock, Team Coco, Adam Savage, Forgotten Weapons, InrangeTV, The Prehistory Guys, Stefan Milo, PBS Eons, Fall of Civilizations, Kyle Hill, Advoko MAKES, Primitive Technology, NileRed, ClickSpring, my mechanics, sreetips, Cody’sLab, shurap, Corridor Crew…
I waste way too much time on YouTube, you guys.
- Project Farm
- Lock Picking Lawyer
- History Matters
- GeologyHub
- Corridor Crew
- B1M
- Kurzgesagt
- Dave’s Garage
- Mattias Wandel
… and many others that are a lot more hobby specific…
Just about nothing besides a song I wanna hear really quick
Videos on urbanism and transit, video essays, tutorials, and music videos. I watch more YouTube than any other streaming service.
A bit of an outlier but I find myself watching quite a lot of DarkViperAU. I got into his stuff from watching his very amusing series where he tries to complete GTA 5 as a pacifist, but he also does a regular “rambles” series where he just chats shit about current events, while being fully aware of his own field of knowledge and being careful not to step outside his remit. On the occasion that he does and he gets something wrong, he fully owns the mistake and admits his shortcomings. It’s very refreshing!
You might be vaguely familiar with him if you’re aware of the ongoing drama around reaction streamers. He’s been railing against them for some time.
Kurzgesagt
Last Week Tonight
Veritasium
Map Men
Rob Words
Mr.Ballen
melodysheep
Space Matters
Technology ConnectionsThese are the ones I watch regularly. Most of these channels offer educational content.