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Comment by ryan-allen | Hacker News Reader

That guy is amazing. I've watched all of his video many times over.

For the new to the channel, he does all commentary via subtitles so if you want explanations of what he's doing and why turn them on!

Some people seem to like watching them without the commentary as it's relaxing, others want to know what and why. I watched 5 videos before I realised there was explanations.

I hope he goes back to his furnaces and metal, I'd like to see some metal tools from nothing!

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Him and Mathias Wandel (woodwork shop) have some tangible zen effect on my mind. It may be subjective but crafting with simple material, and mostly your hands* is extremely satisfying to watch and also very tempting to do. Society creates a distortion in which every pleasure sits behind some door but here they do tons of fun stuff outside just like that.

I totally agree with you and I love Primitive Technology, but let's not lose track on that these videos are edited too. All the failures and retries are left out, what is left is only a clear path from start to finish that looks deceptively easy.

Well, yeah, the advantage he has is all the accessible knowledge available via the internet. He would have done hours upon hours of research before embarking upon experiments that took humans thousands of years to discover and develop. It's still bloody cool!

Heh good point. It's mentally more pleasuring in timelapse where every steps only takes half a second instead of 10.

Some of the woodworking videos I've seen solve this by speeding up the video during the boring parts after you get the general idea. That way you can see there's no man behind the curtain. The ones that include the sped up audio as well are fun.

Yeah, but if you have ever tried any wood working or home repair with modern tools I have a hard time you would believe this is easy. For example, when he makes cordage or whatever that is a skill you need to learn and practice for a solid 40-80 hours over probably at least a few weeks to really get the hang of it. He probably had many mini skills like that that are invisible or just explained as some specific technique. The editing is fine I guess, it fits with my attention span, at least. If he included all the un-edited stuff you would end up with hours of footage of those mini-skills being applied. Fast forwarding gives some context without hiding it, but it is still nice to just cut scenes I think.

Other channels in that vein:

Wranglerstar - https://www.youtube.com/wranglerstar

Pure Living for Life - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChhBsM9K_Bc9a_YTK7UUlnQ

Paul Sellers - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3EpWncNq5QL0QhwUNQb7w

Not quite the same aesthetic but still interesting:

Steve Ramsey - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBB7sYb14uBtk8UqSQYc9-w

Essential Craftsman

Currently in the process of building a spec house out in Oregon; has been filming the entire process so far. Very craftsman-zen, not to mention chock full of good info for anyone building/buying a house.

Link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRZePj70B4IwyNn1ABhJW...

Thanks I think I knew .. none of them. :)

WJP004 is also good https://www.youtube.com/user/WJP004/videos

Also doing much of the work himself.

Paul Sellers is amazing. He's such a positive, down to earth guy. And great craftsmanship if you're into woodworking.

Mr. Chickadee - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHkYrJ2Fbe7pBjEZvkFzi3A Goes so far as to mill (or hew) his own wood. Makes his own tools.

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