Ask HN: What are the best computing-related videos you've watched recently? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are the best computing-related videos you've watched recently?

92 pointskick18 comments

Everyone talks about books and sites they read all the time, but I barely ever see videos talked about on HN, despite videos containing some of the most interesting (and, unlike text, unsearchable) bits of computing history, information and anecdotes.

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Two of the most interesting ones I've seen this year:

Brian Kernighan (of K&R fame, and much more) interviewing Ken Thompson (initial author of UNIX, though you probably already knew both of these): lots of interesting anecdotes, like getting a chess machine seized by the US government:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6q5dv_B-o

Drew DeVault, (sway/sr.ht/much more author) hacking on his Wayland VR desktop inside of his Wayland VR desktop (don't believe the people who say you can't do programming inside of VR yet!):

https://spacepub.space/videos/watch/f60bee0e-31d3-4aca-9e49-...

NB. the second video is on a PeerTube instance. PeerTube is a federated and decentralized YouTube alternative.

The second video is truly impressive. On the other hand I'm getting a bit scared for the expectations for the average office worker 10-20 years from now.

Anything by Bret Victor.

Inventing on Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QiPFmIMxFc

Future of Programming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4

The following documentary is an important record of the early days of the BBS/comms world of computing. Particularly as in most cases it includes interviews with the individuals responsible for creating so many of the standards used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary

The BBS documentary site notes that they are completely sold out [0] but I found one in eBay [1].

[0] http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/

[1] https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eb...

I watched the old https://archive.org/details/computerchronicles a while back. First reactions on Windows 3.0 or the Pentium, discussing different flavors of Unix, calling anything that fits onto a desk a micro computer. And any interview with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall may he rest in peace.

Good explanations of low-level computing by Ben Eater https://m.youtube.com/user/eaterbc/playlists

Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklMpRiTeTA

Can't wait for the change Quantum computing will bring to humanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8d77KV__gI Peristent Virtual Memory in the Great New Operating System In The Sky -- probably the only video on YouTube talking about KeyKOS besides Norm Hardy's ocap talk in 2017.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEDCXTpx0R8 OCAP 2017 Keynote Norm Hardy -- Much oral history about KeyKOS and successor systems by Norm Hardy (sadly now deceased), who was one of the main originators of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVm938gMWl0 RustConf 2017 -- Closing Keynote: Safe Systems Software and the Future of Computing by Joe Duffy -- Joe Duffy's retrospective talk on the Midori project at RustConf 2017.

There's a lot of stuff out there, but I thought I would drop these three in particular because they don't have particularly high viewership compared to their historical value as anecdotes.

How to be agile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtkouFS-GSQ

Inventing on Principle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QiPFmIMxFc

REST/GraphQL alternative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS3i3DTUnAI

Not an instructional video, but I rewatch the Facemesh scene from "The Social Network" over and over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSKoVsHs_Ko

IMO, everything about this scene is fantastic, starting with the fact that the bits of text are taken from actual court proceedings.

Infosec CTF walkthroughs e.g. https://youtu.be/ozqOlUVKL1s

An excellent conference video explaining the event loop in Javascript (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ)

Lean and Functional programming.

Especially the first part where he explains history of lean during and after WW2.

https://youtu.be/5s55LA2Renc

David Khourshid - The Visual Future Of Reactive Applications With Statecharts:

https://youtu.be/o84Xw8qiTCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh9WXPu0hw8

curiousmarc's videos on repairing an apollo guidance computer. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdli...

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