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Comment by pugworthy | Hacker News Reader

For those that don’t know Project Farm, and are ready to hit ‘back’ after hearing him talk for 2 seconds, stick it out.

He’s incredibly thorough and detailed in how he tests and ranks things. And he tests all kinds of things, from drill bits and bed liner paints to portable battery banks.

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Exactly, I was initially put off by how weird his videos are, but dude has serious conviction to presenting pure content with no fluff. He pays for all the stuff himself, and reviews kinda weird things you wouldn't expect.

I've bought a few things based off of his recommendations, like bungee straps and wrenches. Not always his top pick because I don't always agree with his weightings, but he flashes the raw data so you can make your own calls.

I got bored with his shtick. He could condense each of his videos to the 3 or so graphs that he puts up, in the middle and at the end. Sometimes I fast foward to those if it's something I'm interested in. But he's usually too superficial anyway.

Torque Test Channel is a lot better and more watchable imho.

Some of his videos are result of testing things for a couple of years, like headlight restorers.

Also, some of the things he shows are pretty through. If it was a wall-of-text sans videos or images, it'd not have this kind of details and information.

Because as everyone and their horse say, while he has a ranking and weighing, you can decide what to buy (if you need it) through the video by seeing how it's applied/works/fails/excels. This is hard to convey with text only.

I appreciate that TTC goes the extra mile with the continually updated global rankings spreadsheet[1]. It’s a lot easier to poke back at the recommendations from TTC than it is from PF. It’s also another clever source of revenue to keep the channel running cleanly.

[1] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1152216140/torque-test-channel-...

Luckily, we can enjoy multiple channels. Thanks for the recc!

...and when you're ready to up the skookum level by a couple notches - for similar content - check out AvE.

Eh. AvE was amusing for a while, but the shtick grew old to me and it all feels much more theatrical and artificial (not necessarily artificial as in faking data, but artificial as in the entire process designed to be amusing rather than useful) as opposed to the no-nonsense "here's the methodology and the data" of project farm.

AvE was a big supporter of the truck convoy in Toronto which I find very off-putting

It's hard to find unbiased information on that. Care to elaborate? I feel that all the news articles are missing some critical context.

A bunch of truckers illegally parked in downtown ottowa and annoyed the residents for weeks.

But what's the other side of the story?

I don’t agree with canadian oilmen’s politics generally but I defend their (and everyone’s) right to protest loudly about whatever grievances they may have.

AvE is ok in my book. His channel is more posturing and fluff and in-jokes than useful content, but supporting legitimate political protests (even if you don’t share their political views) isn’t cancel-worthy.

The ottowa truck convoy went well past reasonable protesting into being a public nuisance.

Protests that aren’t a nuisance aren’t really effective protests.

Would YOU have been happy with one of the trucks parked outside your home idling and honking for weeks? I strongly doubt it.

My issue is that a large share of what he tests are Amazon products with alphabet soup brand names, where QA is likely nonexistent and the conclusions are often based on a sample size of N=1. Even if you wanted to buy the "winner", the exact same product may be sold under a different name a week later.

I also find his testing methodology inconsistent. In some cases he takes manufacturer specs at face value without actually verifying them, in others he goes out of his way to comprehensively measure things that don’t matter much (to me anyways), while skipping things that seem genuinely important (self-discharge of jump starter packs for example).

That said, he's doing this with his own time and money, and makes it available for free to anyone. A lot of this also comes down to personal preference in what you value in a test.

I’m honestly curious what drives this kind of response. You’re aiming a lot of negativity at someone who’s voluntarily spending his own time and money to do something that, until recently, simply didn’t exist at this level of detail. Yes, there are scientific limitations and fair critiques to be made—but the tone here feels less like constructive criticism and more like punishing the effort itself. That pattern is exactly what drains the internet of anything generous or experimental: people stop sharing when every imperfect attempt is met with hostility. It’s a bit like being stranded in the desert, dying of thirst, finally offered water, and rejecting it because it isn’t cold enough. You don’t have to call the work perfect to acknowledge that it’s valuable, imperfect progress rather than something deserving of contempt.

I don't know if the parent comment has been edited, but in its current form I read it much differently from you! It seems like fair criticism without any added snark or contempt. I don't want hostility or gratuitous negativity, but IMHO it's just not present here in the way you describe.

(Also the guy has millions of subscribers and a consistent weekly posting schedule, and this video is on the front page of HN, so I don't think his channel falls into the category of obscure hobby projects where it might be rude to criticise them at all rather than just ignoring them.)

Yup. He lays things out in a way that gives you power to make a decision. Perhaps you don't like his methodology or his weights, totally fine, you can understand what's important to you and feel pretty happy with a different pick.

Style wise, he's like a product reviewer version of kipkay lol. I do think that I'd prefer an NPR whisper version of his reviews though.

NPR whispering every video seems like a great app for AI.

Having watched 5 minutes, my main thought was 'this would be a lot more suitable presented as a table.'

You can fast forward to the tables he will show if you keep watching. If you have an alternative source of reviews with better UX please share!

No, sorry. I just can't listen to him for more than a few seconds, it's something about the way he speaks, the fast cuts, the flashing, it's simply too much for me.

I hate that all content that would be better off as text has to be presented as videos now. Thanks for nothing, big tech.

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