A video on the same subject: https://youtu.be/e0elNU0iOMY
I really enjoy Tom Scott. Everything he puts out is wonderfully concise.
I really enjoy Tom Scott. Everything he puts out is wonderfully concise.
See, for example, his video on microwaving frozen hamsters back to life[0], in which he interviews the 101-year-old J. E. Lovelock, the scientist who did the work back in the fifties.
I can see the passion in his tones in the video.
Chances are that good written explanations already exist, just a Google search away, for those who want to learn more.
Tom’s video and this blog post are perfect combo that complement each other.
Extreme detail is great for those that want or need it, but it's far from the only reasonable option for learning things.
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Re the general flood of these kinds of videos: oh yeah, I think it's excessive. I suspect YouTube is pushing that category lately (which is FAR from the worst to push, so I'm largely okay with that). It feels like all the popular, algorithmically pushed ones are making sure to cross the magic 10 minute mark, and try to look like TV/movie editing, regardless of what those do to the content. Bonus points for obtuse video titles that tell you nothing about what topic is covered.
Which is part of why I like his. They almost never hit 10 minutes, or even close. There's little fluff, little drama, little algorithmic gaming - videos today look very similar to several years ago.
If I start a class by saying "computer code will run line by line on your processor, one instruction set at a time" this might be a useful way to get someone familiar with writing code. If someone raises their hand and says "well don't CPUs perform optimizations to try to do branch predictions other optimizations so that it doesn't execute exactly as written, and isn't some code able to run on GPUs, and can't cosmic rays cause bit flips in memory so that your code doesn't execute exactly as written, and..." Sure, but I'm teaching you a wrong thing because it's functionally right at this resolution.
The reason they're high quality learning material is because the explanations of the various concepts respect weaker math backgrounds, without being desperate to be as reductive as possible or have clickbaity titles , and sometimes with downright wrong claims, to generate more audience.
An example of a channel that consistently follows this latter pattern is Veritasium i.e. see the electricity video controversy.