stuff tagged with "youtube"

Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality and How to Get Unstuck

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2025-04-05

This is an episode of the Tim Ferriss show that I will undoubtedly revisit many times for years to come.

The best part is toward the end, where Jon asks Tim a question like, “What are the 5 things that you would possess if everything else was wiped away, and the only knowledge or inspiration or experience that you could draw from were of those five? Instead of the pursuit of more broad vision and connectivity, how can you go as deep as you can within a handful of things that are for you and leave the rest?”

After Tim answers the question, he flips it around and asks Jon, who in turn says, “Can I answer you with my piano?”

Another big takeaway from this episode for me was this mantra:

I feel good
I feel free
I feel fine just being me

At 9,000 Feet

🔗 a linked post to vimeo.com » — originally shared here on 2025-03-29

Permaculture has three main ethics: care of people, care of the earth, and ‘fair share’, or re-investing surplus back into the first two.

We do a lot of caring for the earth, and what the interns have taught me is how we can actually care for people. And through doing that: find ways of re-investing in ourselves.

Jon Batiste Hears Chappell Roan For The First Time

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2025-03-11

Watching Jon Batiste improvise over a song he’s never heard before is magical. If you need a shot of pure joy in the arm today, give this a watch.

3D Printing the Severance MDR Computer

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2025-02-24

Adding this to my “projects I’ll build when I get a 3D printer” list. It’s beautiful.

Horse kicks tree, farts on dogs then runs away.

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2025-02-01

Listen.

This blog doesn’t always have to share deep, thoughtful posts.

Sometimes, it pays to take a minute¹ and appreciate that we live on the timeline where this moment was captured, uploaded to the internet, and then viewed 54,000,000 times. Humanity isn’t always bleak.

Also, I wish more people were this honest about what they were delivering. Because this video is 100% what you see on the tin.

Wind Orchestra - Pokémon Red & Blue

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2025-01-26

This makes me miss playing in an orchestra, and it also makes me miss playing Pokémon as a kid.

Fabio and the Goose

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2025-01-02

Really not a whole lot to add here, other than once again, I am so pumped to get my own 3d printer and make ridiculous art like this.

Why creating is crucial to human existence

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-12-08

It’s easy to let ourselves get overwhelmed by the demands of our everyday lives or sometimes to become a bit obsessed with big, existential questions. But what both extremes can do is rob us of the opportunity to be present. Meaningfully present.

It’s so remarkable, and so improbable, that we’re all here together. We should probably focus on enjoying that.

Got a lot of good quotes from this one, including Kmele Foster (who hosted it) and artists Godfrey Reggio, Steve Albini, and Fred Armisen.

Why we can't focus.

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-12-07

Really great recommendation by my wife via Hank Green.

Everything in here, by the way, is completely true. Most of the technology you use every day is intentionally designed to keep you using it as long as possible.

I like the idea of going a full day without a phone to distract me. I really gotta finish getting my iPod working¹ and keeping up my book habit.

Jazz Band Covers Nirvana On The Spot (ft. Ulysses Owens Jr.)

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-11-12

If I walked into the Dakota Jazz Club and heard this, I’m not sure how I’d be able to go about living the next day.

What Ticketmaster Doesn't Want You To Know: Concerts Were Cheap For Decades

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-10-12

I’m sure most people are aware of how expensive it is to go out and see shows, but I’m not sure if most people are aware of why.

This video does a great job of explaining how the Ticketmaster + Livenation monopoly works.

We’re quickly approaching election season here in the US. Growing up, the importance of an informed electorate was driven into my brain.

This is the kind of stuff more voters need to be aware of. How do monopolies form? What market conditions lead to consolidation of power, and how do we hold those in power accountable?

Turning Disposable Vapes into a Fast Charge Power Bank

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-09-15

Disposable vape pens are incredibly unsustainable. I’m glad people are finding clever ways like this to recycle them.

How to talk to the worst parts of yourself

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-09-10

I finished this video and felt the same way I felt reading Hope and Help for your Nerves: seen.

When I talk to myself, there are times that I say unpleasant things to myself. I’ve spent the better part of 20 years trying to completely silence those thoughts.

When I started listening to them and welcoming them, my depression and anxiety improved almost immediately.

If you feel like you say mean crap to yourself and are looking for a way to stop, start with the advice that Karen Faith gives in this TEDx talk. It’s pretty much spot on, with what I’ve experienced.

Intro to Large Language Models

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-08-05

One of the best parts of YouTube Premium is being able to run audio in the background while your screen is turned off.

I utilized this feature heavily this past weekend as I drove back from a long weekend of camping. I got sick shortly before we left, so I drove separately and met my family the next day.

On the drive back, I threw on this video and couldn’t wait to tell my wife about it when we met up down the road at a McDonalds.

If you are completely uninterested in large language models, artificial intelligence, generative AI, or complex statistical modeling, then this video is perfect to throw on if you’re struggling with insomnia.

If you have even a passing interest in LLMs, though, you have to check this presentation out by Andrej Karpathy, a co-founder of OpenAI.

Using quite approchable language, he explains how you build and tune an LLM, why it’s so expensive, how they can improve, and where these tools are vulnerable to attacks such as jailbreaking and prompt injection.

I’ve played with LLMs for a few years now and this video greatly improved the mental model I’ve developed around how these tools work.

Why Can’t I Motivate Myself To Work?

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2024-08-02

Leave it to Cal Newport to show up in my algorithm and give terminology to part of the struggle I’ve faced for several years now: deep procrastination.

Deep procrastination is when you’re physically unable to work up the motivation to do work that needs to be done. Even with external pressures like deadlines, your body is unable to find the drive to do the thing.

This is different from depression because deep procrastinators were still able to feel joy in other areas of their lives, but not work.

He also mentions dopamine sickness, an effect from being constantly rewarded by quick hits of dopamine for an extended period of time.

If you are dopamine sick, you are unable to focus for long periods of time because your brain is literally wired for short term wins, not for deep, difficult thinking.

His solutions to both of these problems are infuriatingly simple: use an organizational system to handle doing these tasks, make hard tasks easier, use time boxing, remember your vision for your life and aim your work toward that.

In the video, Cal says, “we appreciate hard things when we know why we’re doing them.” It reminds of the episode of Bluey called “Ragdoll” where Bandit agrees to buy the kids ice cream only if they are able to physically put his body into the car to drive them to the ice cream place.

After a series of mighty struggles, Bluey is finally able to take a lick of an ice cream cone and is instantly greeted with a moment of euphoria, made possible only after all that hard work.

There are several pieces of content that I’ve consumed today which are all colliding into one potential blog post about how I’m deciding to be done with my crippling anxiety. Maybe after this video, I’ll pull out my laptop and start some deeper writing.

The Death of Touchstone Pictures

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2024-08-02

I love videos like these because it highlights just how few major players there are in Hollywood.

I knew Disney was responsible for a large part of my childhood, but until this video mentioned movies like “Sister Act” and “3 Ninjas”, I didn’t realize the full extent.

? to one of the greats.

After 34 Years, Someone Finally Beat Tetris

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-08-01

An internet friend sent this to me when it happened, saying, “this seems like something you’d watch.”

This was so delightful. I love these nerdy, competitive communities who all rally around joy.

This joy was noticeable when Fractal was live streaming his reaction to when Scuti got the crash. He didn’t look mad or disappointed. He looked proud, excited, and happy for his competitor.

Supremely feel good nerdy content right here.

Joy Training: Rethink Your Approach to Performance

🔗 a linked post to m.youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-08-01

I am a big fan of Deena Kastor. She’s an Olympic bronze medalist and former U.S. record holder for the marathon.

Deena shared her approach for injecting joy into miserable situations in her TEDx talk, which is certainly something I can empathize with as a former marathoner myself.

Doing wind sprints up the hill behind Coffman Union doesn’t sound like much fun, but when you’re doing it with others and trying to make each other laugh while you do it, it’s an experience you’ll never forget.

Inside An Apple Lab That Makes Custom Chips For iPhone And Mac

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2024-08-01

I am supposed to be camping with my family today, but I feel like death, so instead, I’m gonna lay on the couch and clear through my watch later queue.

First up, this inside look at Apple’s approach to chip fabrication.

It’s videos like these that make me feel as though hardware is an approachable hobby to get into.

Yeah, maybe I don’t know how to put a billion 6 nanometer transistors onto a piece of silicon… but I don’t think I need to know that in order to make something useful.

Also, this was delightful to experience with the hindsight of 8 months. We now know about Apple Intelligence, and we also know how the Vision Pro rollout went.

I haven’t felt like much of an Apple fanboy lately, but this piece made me appreciate how hard their engineers are working to build super useful products.

Non-Euclidean Doom: what happens to a game when pi is not 3.14159…

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-05-17

Once again, I’m amazed and terrified at how good YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is, because this is my kind of content.

I’m sure most of you non-nerds who read my blog will pass over this (as you maybe should), but I thought it was neat to see what happens to the physics of a game when π doesn’t equal 3.1415926535.

Fun fact: I didn’t know that Doom’s creator misremembered the tenth decimal of π when coding the game. I suppose it’s easy to forget that it’s only pretty recent in human history where we have instant, accurate recall to that sort of detail.

The Internet Needs to Change

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-03-27

I hate the internet.

...that's a lie. I love it, but I hate the algorithms.

That's also a lie... I love the algorithms.

I watched this video on the plane ride back from Nickelodeon Resort yesterday, and I have to say, it got me.

Hank's assessment of how the algorithms deployed by social networks come up short in actually giving us what we want is spot on.

It's why I love how many friends are spinning up their own newsletters. And this new newsletter was a no brainer instasubscribe.

Ever since my buddy Paul gifted me a premium subscription to Garbage Day, I've been a voracious newsletter subscriber. They do a great job of filling the void that Google Reader left in my life.¹

This website has been my way of curating the internet, sharing things I've found that interest me, but maybe I should start a newsletter myself and do things in both places.

Should I tell my impostor syndrome to shove it and start my own newsletter, y'all?

Juan L. Otaiza - System of a Down - Relaxing Piano Version

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-03-27

The algorithms¹ blessed me with this video last week, and I find myself coming back to it when I'm doing deep work.

I also am enjoying his Rammstein version, and I am eagerly looking forward to checking out the Linkin Park and Avenged Sevenfold ones soon.

If I could play the piano, this is absolutely the kind of stuff I would want to play.

you will become what you hate about yourself

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2024-03-12

This came up in my recommendations tonight, and it is certainly intriguing to me.

I have heard of Carl Jung before, but I don’t know much about his research.

This concept of dealing with your shadow and bringing it to light feels like what I’ve been going through for months now.

The Knowledge Project: #187 Dr. Becky Kennedy: The One Thing You Can Say That Changes Everything

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2024-02-28

I love Farnam Street. It's an amazing blog to which I hope you already subscribe.

While I devour the weekly Brain Food newsletter, I can't say I've listened to many episodes of The Knowledge Project podcast.

I've been pretty burnt out on podcasts over the past few years. I think this is due to three main factors:

1. A feeling of indifference to the shows I used to love.
2. Covid. I got way more into music during that time, which was easier to consume around my family than a deep podcast.
3. A feeling of guilt when I don't listen to every episode of a show. It's easy to fall behind when your favorite podcasts are weekly and 3 hours long per episode.

So while podcasts haven't been my favorite mode for consuming information lately, this episode of The Knowledge Project featuring Dr. Becky Kennedy caught my attention because of the Brain Food newsletter, so I decided to give it a go.

It was so good that I actually went back and listened to it twice.

Here are the elements from the podcast I took away, peppered slightly with my own commentary:

Respect your children like you would respect an adult

Your number one job as a parent is to keep your kids safe.

Those safety bounds, however, need to be defined with a fair bit of common sense respect.

When I'm building an app, it's my job to keep the user safe. I want to make sure that they are aware of what they are doing when they give me their data, and I want them to understand what could happen if they choose to make an adult decision to share that data.

Children often don't have that understanding of consequences yet, so it's my job to expose them to danger methodically and let them learn about consequences on their own.

But that doesn't mean I need to be a jerk about it.

On that same topic of actions/consequences, it's helpful to think through in which ways I'm trading long term skills for short term gains. If my kid forgets their homework at home, do I provide them with the short term gain of remembering for them, or do I provide them with the long term memory of the pain associated with forgetting to bring their homework?

Boundaries

I loved Dr. Becky's definition of a boundary:

A boundary is something I can tell someone else I will do that requires them to do nothing.

As an example, my wife and I struggle with keeping our kitchen counters clean because they're the place everyone just dumps their stuff when they come into the house. Mail, school work, and various toys start piling up.

I've made requests in the past like, "hey, can you kids please keep this area clean?"

These are just requests. They don't help define expectations.

Instead, I sat my kids down this weekend and said "okay gang, here's the deal: I'm going to clean these counter tops every night after you go to bed. If there is anything on these counters that isn't put away, I'm going to throw them away."

Unlike me requesting them to keep their stuff tidy, I've established a boundary that requires them to do nothing.

Get on the same side of the table

A common (probably basal?) way of communicating is advisarial.

Imagine a table sitting in a conference room. Many arguments feel like I am sitting on one side of the table and you are sitting on the opposite side.

A better way to communicate is to find a way to be seated next to each other on one side of the table, and place the problem we are addressing on the opposite side.

Dr. Becky gives an undeniably relatable example in this episode about her son and his towel. He kept leaving his towel on his bedroom floor, and she kept getting frustrated that he'd walk past it and do nothing about it.

She could've just done what most of us do: fly off the handle.

Instead, she framed the conversation as "us versus the towel." She said something like, "we both know towels don't go on the floor, what's going on here?"

Her son, to her surprise, said "you know, it's funny... I don't even see the towel on the floor."

That's me. I'm the son.

It took years of frustrated rants from my wife before I started noticing things like piles of dishes in the sink or scores of unfolded laundry baskets piling up.

Something recently started clicking in me, though, and I have been getting better about being a good house mate!

The lesson here: make it "us versus the problem." It's a lot more productive to attack a problem as opposed to a person.

A good measuring stick for the strength of your relationships

Ask yourself: "would they come to me with a problem even if it might get them in trouble?"

Confidence

Confidence is not feeling good about yourself.

Confidence is about self-trust.

It's about being okay being yourself when you're not the best at something.

What to do when someone comes to you with deep feelings

When someone shares a feeling like shame, embarrassment, regret, sadness, disappointment, etc., here's a three step process for what to say:

"I'm so glad you're talking to me about this."

This one phrase shows you are interested in what they are saying, and it naturally invites them to tell you more.

"I believe you."

This helps build confidence. As we described earlier, confidence is about self trust.

Even if you don't necessarily agree with them, just the acknowledgement that they have feelings and that they are feeling them is a way to help them trust their own feelings.

"Tell me more."

Just let them share until they have nothing more to share.

And that's it.

Once you've done those three steps, you have, in the words of Dr. Becky, "crushed parenting." Or marriage. Or friendship.

Helping someone learn they can trust their emotions allows them to take the energy they'd otherwise use to process the feelings and use it to address the problem.

Why we shirk responsibility for our actions

People shirk responsibility for their actions when they equate the outcomes with being an indication of who they are.

Let's say you identify as a smart person. If you get a bad score on a test, that conflicts with the identity you've chosen. After all, smart people don't get bad scores.

Instead of being able to process why you got an F, you might seek external sources to blame. "The teacher never said this would be on the test," or "The teacher is out to get me," or something similar.

We do it as adults, too. "I'm sorry I'm late, traffic was terrible."

(You know what this feeling is called, by the way? Shame. More on that shortly.)

One way you can help deal with shame is to frame the situation like this: "you're a smart kid who got a bad score on a test."

This, instead, allows you place the identity you've chosen in one hand, and the event which contradicts it in the other. It sort of frames it like the "get on the same side of the table" example I gave above.

If it's "you against your son" because he got a bad score, it's gonna be advisarial from the jump, and there's too much wasted energy on sorting through blame and feelings.

If it's "you and your son against the bad score," you can start to address the actual problem.

Shame

We often talk about "fight or flight" as a response to an external stimulus, but the "freeze state" is common for when someone feels shame.

This is helpful for me, personally, because I feel like I've been frozen for the past few months.

The frozenness is a response to me feeling ashamed and embarrassed with losing my job and not knowing what the next move is.

It feels like getting an F on a test. And frankly, I haven't gotten many F's on tests before, so I haven't really learned how to process and deal with shame constructively.

As I've reflected on this, I think about a story I often tell when giving my life story: the time I failed so spectacularly on a physics midterm.

My response to that situation was to give up and switch majors. I chose "flight."

And maybe that was the right response to the situation, and maybe not. But it's interesting to revisit these defining memories in our lives and evaluate them with new information like this.

I probably still would've dropped out of engineering school. But now, in my mid-thirties, I actually think I'd do a better job in college than I did in my early-twenties.

Feelings are like passengers in a car

We often have voices in our heads from sources like impostor syndrome, depression, anxiety, and so forth.

Imagine these voices as passengers inside a car. The car is our mind.

Our goal isn't to kick the passengers out of the car. There's no way to eliminate these feelings altogether; they're part of what makes us human. They belong in the car just as much as any other feeling like happiness.

The goal is to learn how to not let them take the driver's seat.

What's the "ideal" headspace to be in?

This is a question I'd like to explore some more. It seems like the point I just made serves to learn how to compartmentalize troublesome feelings, but we never really talk about compartmentalizing manic emotions like excitement which are often lauded.

So that begs the question: is there an equilibrium we should be striving for? Am I approaching this problem with a video game-like mindset of "winning" when, in fact, there is no game to be played here?

Kids learn to regulate their emotions through their relationship with their parents

When we shush our kids and tell them to get over things, we're not allowing them to feel those feelings. We're, instead, putting that bandaid solution on top of them, which forces them to learn other ways to cope with their feelings.

And yes, that means we, as parents, learned how to regulate our own emotions in the same manner.

This presents a great opportunity, and it's a tact I've taken with my kids: be honest and open about how you are processing feelings.

Repair

Repairing is the process of taking responsibility for your actions and apologizing for them to your partner or child.

This, according to Dr. Becky, is the most powerful relationship tool you can cultivate.

The first step of repairing is, ironically, to repair yourself. You need to say something like, "I'm not proud of what I just did, but it will not define who I am."

The second step is sitting down with person you've wronged, name what happened, take responsibility, and state what you will do different next time.

It sounds so obvious. All this stuff sounds so obvious. But I can't be the only one who struggles to do the obvious thing in the heat of the moment.

AVP

AVP is a technique you can do to learn how to build confidence and handle emotions.

• A is for Acknowledge. Name the feeling and greet it. Something like "Hey, anxiety!"
• V is for Validate. All feelings have a place in our bodies. It doesn't mean they need to explode out of our bodies, but it makes sense for them to exist in there, and it's okay for them to exist in there. Say something like "It makes sense that this feeling is here" or "I believe myself" (meaning you believe that you are, in fact, feeling that feeling)
• P is for Permit. Allow yourself to fully be OK with experiencing that feeling. (An added bonus would be to add "...and I can deal with it.")

I have been trying this technique when I've felt anxiety attacks come on this week, and it actually really helps to keep myself in the driver's seat, so to speak.

Technology/screen overuse

A large section of the podcast is devoted to dealing with kids and their addiction to cell phones or video games.

There are a couple of points that I thought would apply even to those without kids:

Equating phone use to tobacco use

As a society, we collectively determined that children cannot control themselves with other addictive products like tobacco, so we drafted legislation to protect children from purchasing tobacco.

It bums me out that we aren't able to have productive conversations about the addictive properties of social media or cell phones in general in the halls of our legislative branches.

Do as I say, not as I do

Before leaving JMG, I hadn't had a single vacation in my career where I completely unplugged from work and lived in the moment.

Even at Bionic Giant, I still felt myself compelled (obligated?) to have my laptop with me, just in case someone broke something and I was the only one able to fix it.

We've allowed cell phones to seamlessly invade and consume our lives. Besides perhaps when I'm going swimming with the kids, I can't recall the last time I wasn't within at least 10 feet of my phone. When I am with my kids, I can't go more than several minutes without impulsively checking my phone for some sort of update.

That's truly sick behavior, no matter how you slice it.

And I'm a 36 year old dude.

If I can't regulate my own behavior, how can we expect our children to regulate themselves around these things?

Of course, there's lots of angles to this problem, right? "Just because you can't handle yourself doesn't mean you have to punish the rest of us" is a easy retort to that. And I'm not here saying "let's let a bunch of legislators determine how to parent our kids" because, of course, I am an American after all.

But we aren't even at a point where we can have these conversations without resorting to attacking each other.

We're sitting on two sides of the table instead of both of us on one side focused on addressing the problem.

It's depressing.

The fact is we do have precedent around establishing guard rails for behaviors our society deems destructive. We should be relying on the opinions of the experts who research these topics and drafting rules that protect the most vulnerable in our population.

---

Alright, that was a pretty long recap. If any of those topics sound interesting to you, I highly recommend checking out the episode!

Why "Random Access Memories" is a Masterpiece

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2024-02-19

This album essentially served as the soundtrack of the early days of the Jed Mahonis Group.

Whenever we needed a day to be heads down, this album would be turned on repeat.

Whenever there was a late night push and we needed the extra motivation to get through it, this album was on repeat.

I came across this video describing the inner turmoil that Daft Punk was feeling while making this album, and I couldn’t help but feel the similarities to my present day situation.

I have long considered this album to be in my top 5 favorites of all time, but this YouTube video made me understand and appreciate it a whole lot more. I should see if there are similar videos for my other favorite albums.

File this video under “reasons I love the internet.”

How Spirit Halloween Transforms Strip Malls Into Vibrant Wonderlands

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2023-10-19

So, if there’s one thing we can praise Spirit Halloween for, it’s maybe not their great urban design elements or place making chops, but just for making it as transparent as possible that this kind of built environment simply isn’t built for long term success.

And instead of trying to build more of it, maybe we should be moving a lot more aggressively to retro fit what we already have.

Andrew Ng: Opportunities in AI

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2023-09-18

Andrew Ng is probably the most respected AI educator out there today. I am certainly among the 8 million students of his that they tout at the beginning of the video.

This 30 minute chat describes some of the opportunities out there for AI right now.

While his insights on AI are worth your time alone, I found a ton of value in his approach to product development and getting a startup off the ground towards the end of the talk.

Hank Green, Vlogbrothers/VidCon - XOXO Festival (2014)

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2023-06-20

There is one person I can say objectively that I am smarter than, and it is me four years ago.

He knew all of the things I currently know except less.

He had all the life experiences that I currently have except fewer.

So why do I have an obligation to a guy who is not only dumber than me, but literally does not exist?

This talk is nearly ten years old, and it slaps in all the right ways.

I feel a tremendous debt to myself and my goals and aspirations, but some of those goals and aspirations are just... not me anymore.

I can't run like I used to, lest I want to have a knee replacement in five years.

I don't think I'll ever end up getting to all the breweries in the state, even though I run an app devoted to that purpose.

It's okay to let the dreams of your past self go in favor of newer, more relevant dreams.

By the way: I saw a follow up to this talk yesterday where he ended up concluding:

I do not have no obligation to my former self.

I have the obligation to my former self that I want to have.

And I want to have some.

Which means I should save my knees for a marathon with my kids.

(If that's what their dream is, of course.)

Why Japan’s internet is weirdly designed

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2023-02-21

As I’ve mentioned in the past, this website’s redesign was specifically the result of me looking back at, and pining for, my old web days.

It’s a shame (but not entirely a surprise) that search engines and slow internet caused us to lose an entire generation of fun websites.

It would be stupid for me to suggest the youths will start getting into web design like I did when I was a youths. But maybe the idea here is to keep looking for how the young people are finding ways to express themselves despite whatever perceived limitations by which they are encumbered.

Also, does this mean I need to try my hand at a redesign again? Or should I find a new hobby?

Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2023-02-21

What a whirlwind of a video! I knew I would be captivated by this, but the ending really moved me.

To those of you who bring your all to the random, seemingly minor tasks you accomplish for clients in your day jobs: thank you for everything you do.

Everything I learned about concurrency and reliability I learned at the Waffle House

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2023-02-20

A friend recommended this video to me while I was out with Covid a few months back and I just got to watch it.

Now I get to recommend it to you!

If you are a nerd for process, you will love this. Just one small fact to entice you to watch this: did you know Waffle House employs their own meteorological staff?

The Beauty of Bézier Curves

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2023-02-20

The pen tool in Photoshop has long felt extremely inscrutable and unapproachable to me, so in my search to better understand how to use it, I came across this video.

I never realized how lacking my math education was on me in high school and college, but I feel like if I had content like this to help explain it, I would’ve fallen head over heels for math.

Kunal Shah - Why choosing your friends matters

🔗 a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on 2023-02-20

When he said “I do businesses to hunt more insights”, I really felt that. Great little snippet from the great Knowledge Project podcast.

How To Simplify Your Life

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2019-12-29

It's well understood by good parents that life should only get so exciting for a baby.

After friends have come around and brought presents and made animated faces, after there's been some cake and some cuddles, after there've been a lot of bright lights and perhaps some songs too, enough is enough.

The baby will start to look stern, and then burst into tears, and the wise parents knows that nothing is particularly wrong, though the baby may by now be wailing.

It's just time for a nap.

The brain needs to process, digest, and divide up the wealth of experiences that have been ingested.

Boy, this hit home. It's a short video, but I kept finding myself saying "hmm, that sure makes an awful lot of sense."

I particularly liked the bit about needing to have 10 minutes to digest an hours worth of activity. I think that's why I love going on walks so much.

RailsConf 2019 - Opening Keynote by David Heinemeier Hansson

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2019-06-06

I've never heard any of DHH's RailsConf keynote speeches before, so I guess I kind of expected it to be more about the state of Rails and where things are going.

In a way, I suppose this is that. But really, it's a personal manifesto about the intrinsic value of software, human worth, and capitalism.

This was mind bending and well worth the watch.

A Conspiracy to Kill IE6

🔗 a linked post to blog.chriszacharias.com » — originally shared here on 2019-05-12

The bittersweet consequence of YouTube’s incredible growth is that so many stories will be lost underneath all of the layers of new paint. This is why I wanted to tell the story of how, ten years ago, a small team of web developers conspired to kill IE6 from inside YouTube and got away with it.

As someone who got started developing websites on IE2, IE6 continues to haunt my nightmares to this day. This story made me feel some semblance of vengeance. Kudos to these unsung heroes of the internet.

Accordion Idol

🔗 a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on 2012-02-20

A really great video about a woman who wants to get rid of an old accordion she has been holding onto for a long time. Instead of simply selling it on craigslist, however, she puts an ad up with an interesting proposal: you come to a dinner party that she's hosting and perform in front of her guests (and judges a la "America Idol"). The winner receives the accordion for free.

I think my favorite part about this video, however, is the guy you see in the bottom corner at 3:24. Keep looking for him throughout the video, because his reactions are simply amazing (I just about spit my water all over my iPad when I first saw his annoyed/apathetic reaction).