Topic
video
- Tank!
The new medium in COVID times for musicians is the live session on Zoom. This is a fun one from Seatbelts, playing their theme song from the 90s anime Cowboy Bebop.
- Stalin, Putin, and the Nature of Power
Stephen Kotkin is a historian that has studied and written mostly about Soviet history and Josef Stalin. This was an excellent interview with him by Lex Fridman — Lex asks simple, broad questions and let's Kotkin go d…
- The Revolt of the Public in 10 Minutes
Author Martin Gurri posted this quick 10 minute summary of his book The Revolt of the Public. It was one of my favorite recent reads, and in this video he does an excellent job summarizing his key diagnosis of what's…
- Live Writing with Jason Fried
A couple of years back, Jason Fried recorded this video of his writing process for drafting an article: I like seeing the behind-the-scenes of how others work.
- Sönke Ahrens on How to Take Smart Notes
{% include video-vimeo.html id="275530205" %} I'm currently reading his book How to Take Smart Notes, which is based on, and talks a lot about sociologist Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten system.
- Roam I and Roam E
A neat concept demo from Dhrumil Shah showing possible enhancements for Roam Research. He calls them "Roam-I" and "Roam-E": Roam-I — for reusing old knowledge Roam-E — collaboration Most of this is user interface on t…
- The Pseudonymous Economy
In this talk, Balaji Srinivasan lays out a number of places where pseudonymity is decentralizing identity on the internet. Pseudonymity is distinguished from anonymity through maintenance of a sense of accountability…
- David Deutsch on Brexit and Error Correction
I ran across this interview with physicist David Deutsch, with his thoughts on Brexit. A lot of great stuff here on resilience, error correction, individualism vs. collectivism, Karl Popper, and Britain's first-past-t…
- Bill Gates on Coronavirus
A solid interview with Bill Gates with his thoughts on the COVID response. There aren't many folks outside of the medical field more versed in this topic based on empirical experience than Gates. Interesting to hear h…
- Funky 4 + 1, 1980
Rare footage of the Funky 4 + 1 from a 1980 show. Great quality for something of that era, particularly a live show.
- The UNIX System
Today on the nerdy computer history feed, we've got a 1982 video from Bell Labs: The UNIX System: Making Computers More Productive. Most of the video has Brian Kernighan explaining the structure of UNIX and why it's d…
- The 5 Revolutions in Cancer Treatment
This talk from Jonathan Lim gives a good overview of how the newest treatments for cancer work — radiation/chemo, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and ecDNA. I wrote about my experience with immunotherapy and how it…
- Weekend Reading: Figma's Typography, Xerox Alto, and a Timeline of CoVID
⌨️ I Pressed ⌘B, You Wouldn't Believe What Happened Next An entertaining talk about the complexity of typography, from Marcin Wichary at Figma's recent Config conference. 🖥 Restoring Y Combinator's Xerox Alto An tech…
- Inventing on Principle
I refreshed myself this evening on Bret Victor’s amazing talk from 2012, “Inventing on Principle.” {% include video-vimeo.html id="36579366" %} He’s been working on and promoting his ideas on interactive, responsive t…
- Innovator's Dilemma in Video
I was looking around for a summary of Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma and ran across this neat YouTube channel that does book summaries in visual form, with drawings representing the concepts in the book. It…
- The Tech History Playlist
As I've been reading more into the history of technology, specifically computers and the Internet, I'll go on side trails through Wikipedia or the wider 'net back to many of the source papers that were the seeds of ce…
- Tech in 2020: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Benedict Evans does a talk each year assessing the state of the tech industry, macro trends, and where we are the technology adoption lifecycle for big, trendy technologies like VR and AI. This year’s deck from the Na…
- 1917
Last night we watched Sam Mendes's 1917, his latest, a war film set during that year during the First World War. The entire thing is shot to look like a single take following two soldiers attempting to deliver a messa…
- Dissolving Realities
What a cool idea for a new type of "photography", if you could call it that. This combines 3D photos, photogrammetry, point clouds, and Unity rendering to fly through the streets of Hanoi. {% include video-vimeo.html…
- Daniel Kahneman on AI Podcast
I don't know what Lex Fridman is doing to recruit the guests he gets on his show (The Artificial Intelligence Podcast), but it's one of the best technical podcasts out there. This one is a good introduction to the wor…
- Some Reflections on Early History by J.C.R. Licklider
I'm currently reading the fantastic book The Dream Machine, a history of the creation of personal computers, and a biography of this man, JCR Licklider. This is a talk from an ACM conference in 1986 where he discusses…
- Wernher von Braun and the Moon Landing
This is a neat clip from Walt Disney's Disneyland "Disneyland") TV series. Wernher von Braun explains the future technology that'll take us to the Moon, in 1955, several years before the Mercury program even began.
- The Magic of Hong Kong
This footage really makes Hong Kong feel like it's from the future:
- Microgravity Will Change How We Make Everything
Bloomberg has been publishing this video series on future technologies called "Giant Leap." It's well-done and a nice use of YouTube as a medium. This one explores a number of new companies doing R&D in microgravity m…
- The Mother of All Demos
One of the great things about YouTube is being able to find gems of history like Doug Engelbart’s “Mother of All Demos” presentation from 1968. How amazing it must’ve been to see something like this live, 50 years ago…
- A Network of Science
A beautiful visualization project from Nature converts 150 years of scientific papers into a 3-dimensional network diagram, making concrete the network of citations and references linking together the history of disco…
- Checking In On Tool Restoration YouTube
I’ve been home the past couple days to attend to some projects — getting an aluminum patio cover installed and having shutters put in on most of the windows. My time’s been occupied by holiday season preparation, gene…
- Mount Rainier Timelapse
Mesmerizing shots of Mount Rainier. The timelapses with the night-time starfield are gorgeous.
- The History of Steel
Since I’ve been following the progress studies movement and Jason Crawford’s Roots of Progress blog, it was cool to see video of his talk on the history of steel from a San Francisco meetup a few weeks ago.
- 4 Amazing Things About Language
Dialect expert Erik Singer is back with a short video on some fascinating features of language: I find anything about language or linguistics immensely fascinating. It's amazing the way humans so naturally develop the…
- Green Tech Bringing Life Back to the Sea
This is an interesting startup out of Tel-Aviv called ECOncrete that's creating a new concrete recipe and technology that's safer for coastal wildlife and actually strengthens over time in the water. They create diffe…
- Russ Roberts on Key Economic Concepts for Founders
This is a good interview with a great interviewer, Russ Roberts of EconTalk. His is probably my favorite podcast — if I only listen to 1 episode a week, it's the latest EconTalk. On Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sen…
- Adobe Wall Hut
Another fun one from the Primitive Technology channel. I previously linked to his videos a few months back. This time he builds a stacked brick wall around a new thatched hut out of clay bricks. The patience and craft…
- Kind of Blue 60th Anniversary
This year is the 60th anniversary of Miles Davis's legendary Kind of Blue. This video is a great explainer of the origins of Kind of Blue's modal jazz style and the history behind how the group came together to make i…
- Steve Jobs in 1981
I saw this Nightline interview clip with Steve Jobs from a recent Steven Sinofsky post. In this clip is his famous "bicycle for the mind" quote about the personal computer. This is a 21st century bicycle that amplifie…
- Growth, Sales, and a New Era of B2B
This talk from a16z's Martin Casado covers how the market for B2B SaaS go-to-market is changing from sales-driven to a marketing-driven. We've been thinking a lot about this lately in the context of Fulcrum — how the…
- Cairo to Cape Town on a Bike
Endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont is best known for his "around the world in 80 days" ride starting in Paris and crossing 3 continents in 78 days, putting him in the Guinness Book for the accomplishment. A few years bac…
- The Bacteria Light of the Future
A French startup company called Glowee is working on being able to produce light using bioluminescence: Glowee reinvents light production with technology nature has already created to make lighting more sustainable an…
- THEMOVE Podcast for the Tour
Lance Armstrong's been doing THEMOVE podcast on the Tour for 3 years now, the first being the 2017 Tour when I spent so much time watching both the Tour itself and the podcast (then known as STAGES). On the show they…
- Neuralink
Yesterday was Neuralink's unveiling of what they've been working on. Their team of engineers, neurosurgeons, and computer science experts are working on a "neural lace" brain-computer interface. Elon Musk announced th…
- The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence
Most of the popular conversation around intelligence these days (at least in circles I follow) is about the artificial variety — AI, deep learning, neural networks, and the like. Neuroscientists Jeff Hawkins and his c…
- Watch Karl Friston Explain Free Energy
Neuroscientist Karl Friston is the world's leading authority on brain imaging science and on the forefront of our understanding of how brains actually work. He's the creator of the free energy principle, an idea that…
- Interview with Naval Ravikant
Naval’s thoughtful, measured perspective on most issues I find insightful and novel in a sea of people with hot takes and commentary around political issues in the zeitgeist. He’s got an interesting “long view” on a r…
- Primitive Technology
I just ran across this YouTube channel called Primitive Technology, created by an Australian from the North Queensland bush country who attempts to recreate building things with Stone Age technology. He makes his own…
- Liverpool's Comeback
I didn't get to watch the match live yesterday, but Liverpool's 4-0 trouncing of Barcelona at Anfield in the second leg of the Champions League semi might be the biggest (most improbable) win I've seen. Goals from Ori…
- The Deadly Logistics of Everest
Earlier this week I finished reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, his account of climbing Mount Everest and surviving the 1996 Everest disaster. The book reads like a thriller, giving the account of how an expedition…
- Clippy: The Unauthorized Biography
One of my favorite tech figures, a16z's Steven Sinofsky, gives a history of "Clippy", the helpful anthropomorphic office supply from Microsoft Office. As the product leader of the Office group in the 90s, he gives som…
- 2,650' Rappel off El Capitan
If you need your daily dose of palm sweating, check out this clip of a climber rappeling down nearly the entire height of El Capital in one motion. Free dangling by 1500' of rope 50 feet from the wall is just terrifyi…
- Product is Hard
I linked a couple weeks ago to a piece from Marty Cagan. That led me to this talk that covers a lot of his thoughts on approaching product issues. Wide ranging and thought provoking stuff for product managers.
- David Foster Wallace Interview with Charlie Rose
I'm currently reading David Foster Wallace's collection of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, so I went back to look at some interview clips with him on his nonfiction writing. This one with Charlie R…