{"id":3873,"date":"2011-04-20T23:41:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T06:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/?p=3873"},"modified":"2011-04-20T23:41:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T06:41:37","slug":"after-5-years-of-surfing-reddit-these-are-my-favorite-discoveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2011\/04\/20\/after-5-years-of-surfing-reddit-these-are-my-favorite-discoveries\/","title":{"rendered":"After 5 years of surfing reddit, these are my favorite discoveries…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Marauder<\/a><\/p>\n

In no particular order are the most interesting things I have found in surfing reddit for 5 years.<\/p>\n

Chemistry a Volatile History<\/a> is a great review of science and how we got to where we are today. If more programs like this existed, I might actually watch TV.<\/p>\n

\"\"Mechanical Computers<\/a> Training videos from the 50s show the basics of fire control computers. Anyone want to help port Portal 2 to one of these?<\/p>\n

The making of Star Wars<\/a> An very good fan documentary. I don’t know how I never heard about this. I’m not really a Star Wars geek so I learned all sorts of things I didn’t know.<\/p>\n

James Burke’s Connections<\/a> Three series of Connections episodes can now be seen on youtube. I really liked the first series. If you are interested in science, history or both you really should watch.<\/p>\n

Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land<\/a> While not completely accurate, if find it interesting to see how much cartoons have changed. Are there any educational cartoons today?<\/p>\n

Ever wondered how a differential in a car works?<\/a> This video makes me wish all instructional videos were this good.<\/p>\n

The half-a-handy hour<\/a> A rather eclectic collection of videos on repair and how things work.<\/p>\n

Acme school<\/a> More videos like the ones above but with better production.<\/p>\n

My favorite Airfare search engine<\/a> I find it more flexible than travelocity or expedia. I would have never found it at all without reddit.<\/p>\n

A dynamic periodic table<\/a> I wish I had this in high school chemistry class.<\/p>\n

Apollo 11 launch revisited in slow-mo HD<\/a> The most interesting commentary I have ever heard on a historic video. History Channel, are you paying attention? Why aren’t you running footage like this that has to do with actual history?<\/p>\n

Why are thin people not fat?<\/a> A fascinating look at how genetics plays a role in obesity.<\/p>\n

The banned book of chemistry experiments<\/a> A children’s book published in the 1960s that was intended to explain to kids how they could set up a home chemistry lab and conduct simple experiments.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Zander on music and passion<\/a> One of my favorite TED talks.<\/p>\n

Doom code review<\/a> How could you be a programmer and not love this?<\/p>\n

The Feynman Lectures in Physics<\/a> Posted by microsoft believe it or not.<\/p>\n

CosmoLearning<\/a> More documentaries than you can shake a stick at.<\/p>\n

The difference engine no. 2<\/a> The world’s first computer.<\/p>\n

Drawing Marilyn Monroe<\/a> Eight fascinating minutes. Would that I could draw as well as this.<\/p>\n

Hand making vacuum tubes<\/a> Just in case you ever need to go back to vacuum tubes, here is how you go about it.<\/p>\n

Test your eyeballing skills<\/a> If you are a web designer who notices even a single pixel out of place, don’t click on this or you will spend the rest of your day seeing if you are up to the test.<\/p>\n

Speed demos of Duke Nukem<\/a> Each level is completed as fast as possible. You have to see it to believe it.<\/p>\n

Swiss Alps Cheese Making<\/a> The pictures alone are worth clicking on the link.<\/p>\n

Harry Porter’s relay Computer<\/a> wow. That’s a lot of work.<\/p>\n

How products are made<\/a> Don’t click on this link or your day will disappear if you have even the slightest amount of curiosity.<\/p>\n

All of the basics of land navigation<\/a> I’ve always liked using a map and compass.<\/p>\n

The secret Life of Machines<\/a> One of my all time favorite set of videos. My dream in life is to create something so entertaining and educational. I’m working on it but progress when you have a 9-5 job is maddeningly slow.<\/p>\n

That’s it. The reason I keep coming back to reddit is for gems like these. I hope you enjoy them too.<\/p>\n

Edit: Wow! I had no idea this post would be so popular. I would have done a much better job or going through my bookmarks. I really just grabbed items from my reddit saved folder at random. I just assumed that everyone knew about Cosmos or KahnAcademy both of which are mentioned in the comments so I didn’t include them. I should have included Fantastic Contraption<\/a> because for mechanical engineers that game is like crack. That was one of the very first links I clicked on reddit that cost my employer productivity. Several people have asked how reddit has changed over the last 5 years. I can only say that I have seen a lot of memes. (I hope these will be helpful during the zombie apocalypse) I’ve noticed that reddit has become faster paced, more humorous and more noisy. It’s made me into a faster reader. I only ever upvote. I didn’t even know that the down vote was a different color until today. My browsing philosophy has been simple. Look for gems (posts and comments) and upvote them. Ignore reposts and everything else unless it is blatant spam. I learned to do this process very quickly or I would spend my whole day on reddit. I wish I had really witty or interesting things to post but I usually don’t. Even after 5 years on reddit, I am still learning all sorts of interesting things. (Maybe at a slower pace. Could be reddit or could be me.) Somehow now I have reddit gold for a month. It’s kind of cool. Do I get that because I made it to a top post? I’m a major tightwad so I’m not sure I would pay for it but it is kind of fun. Like that year that they made us all admins for a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Marauder In no particular order are the most interesting things I have found in surfing reddit for 5 years. Chemistry a Volatile History is a great review of science and how we got to where we are today. If more programs like this existed, I might actually watch TV. Mechanical Computers Training videos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3873"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3876,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3873\/revisions\/3876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}