v0.5

I recently caught up with a good friend who shares many common interests with me. At some point he mentioned that he hardly watches YouTube. This is something I do a great deal of, so I decided to create this list for him and others who may not be so exposed to the ’tube.

YouTube is where I spend much of my non-work, internet time. I have a very long subscription list - below is just a sampling. I tend to watch videos from my subscriptions as they are published, rather than watching what ever the algorithm serves me. Though sometimes it serves bangers. I am always eager to find new goodness, so please drop me a line if you have any recommendations or would like to critique my taste.

Each title is a link to the channel. I recommend looking at their videos and filtering by popularity to start. I have included a video that is either my favorite or what I feel to be the best representation of the channel. I will use footnote ¹ to indicate channels that I think would be good for kids.

Top Tier

These are creators that I hold in highest regard. I will watch any video that they publish as soon as I can.

Applied Science

Very detailed videos on things that you wouldn’t expect someone to be able to do in their garage. Ben does a good job of explaining things, and his tutorials are very good.

Steve Mould ¹

Persistent curiosity about the physical world combined with humour.

Bobby Fingers

Like looking over the shoulder of a multi-medium artistic and comedic genius. Worth watching in order, but if you want to go straight to peak Fingers then watch the Bezos head boat video below. I should also mention that coincidentally this is not the first time I’ve encountered Rob McGlynn’s rather enigmatic work².

Breaking Taps

Similar vibes to Applied Science above. Really great videos on a broad variety of topics, all of which seem beyound the reach of someone in their home shop. As with many on this list, Zach is clearly a very smart and curious person.

Smarter Every Day

Destin shares his excitement for the world and how it works along with his respect and appreciation of people - especially blue collar or people he feels are under-appreciated or under-estimated.

3b1b

An exploration of mathematics and physics with exceptional animations produced with an Manim, an animation scripting library developed Grant Sanderson.

Stuff Made Here ¹

Application of mechanical and software engineering to solve problems that don’t really need a solution.

Clickspring

Chris has been making extremely detailed, ‘from scratch’ watch and clockmaking videos for many years. In recent years he has been focusing on reproducing the Antikythera mechanism. Not only is he reproducing the mechanism, but he is also practicing ’experimental archeology’ by using techniques that would have been available at the time to make the parts. This video is my favourite because it shows how one can go from simple materials to quite precise pieces - essentially bootstrapping precision manufacturing.

Welch Labs

Thoughtful and often well animated, contemporary and historic, math and science explainers.

Chemistorian

The history of how we know things. The video on how the noble gasses were discovered is my favourite and merits a place in the top tier.

This Old Tony

Lighthearted and humorous exploration of mechanining, welding, and various other mechanical acivities that someone could pursue in their garage or shed

engineerguy ¹

To-the-point exploration of examples of exceptional engineering.

Calming

So calming that I use them as my soundtrack to fall asleep. I want to be clear here that I am not calling these channels boring. I enjoy the content and level of detail, and I am grateful that they exist. They hold my attention enough that my mind does not wander to stressful topics, but not so much that sleep is delayed. Probably a bad habit.

Asianometry

Jon follows his curiosity through history, technology, and history of technology. These are essentially video essays, not dissimilar to podcasts. The visuals are interesting but not required. I find his videos excellent to fall asleep to, but I will often listen to them multiple of times, starting later each time, so that eventually I listen through the whole video.

Technology Connections

Intensely detailed breakdown of different household technologies, often with highly rationalized arguments for why, or the right way, to use them. Interesting, and great for things like learning how to use your dishwasher correctly, but in this category because the videos are always so dang long.

Horses

Unusual and often very interesting video essays. Sometimes not calming.

General Interest

Good wholesome watchin’

AlphaPhoenix

Exploration of physical phenomena.

Stand-up Maths

Wry explorations of interesting and sometimes mundane mathematics.

Veritasium

At over 18 million subscribers it’s hard to imagine someone on the internet not coming across one of Derek’s videos at some point. Usually interesting, though sometimes a little too ‘popular’.

MinuteEarth ¹

Short videos about the natural world.

MinuteFood ¹

Short videos about the science of food, cooking, and cooking tools.

MinutePhysics

(Usually) short videos about physics.

CGP Grey

Usually a well rationalized argument for why something is the best, often with commentary on why what we do, or some common instance of something, isn’t.

Kurzgesagt - In A Nutshell ¹

Animated videos about current scientific knowledge and speculative futures or scales.

Jeremy Fielding ³

Electromechanical engineering projects and explainers. Jeremy is a very thoughtful and curious person - this video is not representative of all his videos, but it demonstrates this.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Kenji’s exploration of food science and art is prolific. I recommend following his method for salting scrambled eggs.

Numberphile

Explanations of mathematics by practitioners. I especially recommend the Tadashi Tokieda playlist.

Nile Red

Exploration of chemistry through experimentation and practical demonstrations. His alternate channel, Nile Blue, has some more “extreme” experiments.

Essoterics

These are more niche or more for information than entertainment. I enjoy them, but in a way you need to have some context or reason to want to learn what they’re teaching.

Dan Gelbart

Deep dive videos into mechanical prototyping and manufacturing methods and novel mechanisms. I recommend his 18 video series on building prototypes to anyone doing such an activity. I especially appreciate his words at the end of the last video: “If something is 100% functional it is always beautiful”.

Huygens Optics

Videos for “his fellow nerds”, mainly focused on optics and lithography. I really enjoyed learning about glass ceramics from this video.

Signal Ditch

I found Nick’s channel while looking for information on technical glassblowing. His video on pressure swing adsorption oxygen generators, and the one he built, is inspiring. The thing that really stands out about his other videos is that he explains how he finds the obscure parts and information that he needs, often without even knowing what they are called when he first starts looking.

ElectrArc240

I found this channel while trying to learn more about power electronics. I really enjoy how he breaks things down practically into elements.

Mamlambo Fossils ¹

Amateur archeology from the coast of New Zealand.

RC Test Flight

Exploration of different aeronautical and hydrodynamic designs through the lens of RC hobby hardware - though not all of his vehicles are controlled remotely…

Infotainment

Ze Frank

A great deal of interesting information wedged between silly humor. This video on how beetles wings fold inside their elytra is fascinating.

GoodWork

Comedy with some journalism(?) mixed in.

Casually Explained

Deadpan, often sarcastic observations. (In this video one learns ways to mitigate the risk of my humerus suffering spiral fracture while arm wrestling)

Wendover Productions

Makers

Scott Brown Carpentry

Master of b-roll, this is the only channel I consistently watch with my partner. Mostly aspirational, but it’s very interesting to learn the little tricks and tools that make someone a master builder.

Inheretance Machining

Pretty videos of by a man on an unhinged mission to design and machine by purely manual, mechanical means.