Episode: 3621
Title: HPR3621: Watching YouTube in 2022
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3621/hpr3621.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 02:16:47

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,621 from Monday the 20th of June 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Watching YouTube in 2022.
It is part of the series YouTube subscriptions.
It is the 140th show of Dave Morris, and is about 21 minutes long.
It carries an explicit flag.
The summary is, a few of the channels that distracted me through COVID19 and beyond.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Hacker Public Radio.
This is Dave Morris.
This time I suddenly realized that I'd been watching loads of YouTube videos in the past
a couple of years, which I thought might be interesting because when I've produced lists
like this in the past, there's been a lot of come of interest in it.
It's always good to know what other people are watching, so I've entitled this, Watching
YouTube in 2022, and it starts with the heading another YouTube list, yes, smiley face.
Anyway, I found myself watching YouTube a lot during the past two years or so during the pandemic,
and also the world falling apart in so many ways, as I'm sure you're aware.
YouTube has been something of a lifeline in past years for me, and it helps me find stuff I
actually want to watch, which mostly doesn't have all the fake crap that's on TV.
I really have reached a point where I can't stand TV.
I may be throwing away a number of babies with that bathwater, but I can't fight my way through
the TV way of doing everything. YouTube ain't perfect, and I do really detest the trend towards
shorts, like 30 seconds of somebody doing anything. What the hell is the point of that?
It's like seeing a glimpse of them as you're whizzed past in a car on the train.
What is the point? But they seem to be amazingly popular, don't know.
The channels that I chose in the past couple of years were different from ones I'd chosen before.
I was really heavily into Makers stuff, and I'm not watching them, but not to the same degree.
But I wanted to know what was going on with the pandemic, and I'm not going to expose those
ones too, because I'm sure you've had enough pandemic stuff. But there's also a fair bit about the
state of the world in terms of politics. I know that HBO doesn't like politics very much, so it's
hard to live without there being politics of some form, and unless you hide under a blanket all the
time, it's really hard to avoid. So I'm trying to change what was my old mindset of blanket pulling
over head and move on to something which lets me understand what's going on, and of course there's
climate change as well, which is another instance of a horror that's coming. So I did that,
plus also I added some more distractions, because sometimes you want to just watch something that
puts a smile on your face, makes you feel happier. I'm only sharing eight channels this time.
I think I'll hit you with, I don't know, 2030 in the past, but I ain't doing that this time.
Let me just go through, I'm going to just speak about them briefly, and give you a pointer to
them if they sound interesting. My notes pretty much cover what I'm going to say as well. I think
I tend to do. First channel then, it's called Just Have A Think. The guy who runs it, Dave Borles.
He talks about climate and sustainable energy, that type of thing. So he does some excellent
research and explains really, really well. There's only one a week usually. I think there's a few
instance where he puts out a second one in a week, but that's relatively rare as far as I can find out.
They are quite positive, mostly anyway, and he seems to be quite hopeful that we can come up with
technological ways, perhaps, to stave off the effects of climate change. We're not going to lose
them all, but we're going to maybe be able to slow them down and eventually stop the whole
nonsense, hopefully. So in recent episodes, he's talked about the IPCC Survival Guide,
which has come out within the past year, I think, and you should really check that one out,
actually, because he haven't been following what the IPCC has been doing. They've actually been
very helpful in pointing ways forward, which will be ignored by many countries, I'm sure, but still,
anyway, don't want to be too negative about this. He's also spoken about plastic eating enzymes,
which are discovered bacteria that will eat plastic, actually, or break it down into components
that can be useful to them. So there's some hope there that maybe we can get rid of all the
cursive plastic everywhere. And he's also spoken about CO2 removal from the oceans, which is
a possibility. Most of the CO2 that's not in the atmosphere is in the ocean, so if you got it out
of there, it would help. But I don't want to paraphrase what he's saying. Go and have a look if
that sounds interesting. I won't read out the link, it's there for you to click. Next one, number two,
is called Undecided with Matt Ferrell. The host, too, is obviously Matt Ferrell, looks at how
smart and sustainable technology impacts our lives. So he's tending to be looking at it from a
climate energy type of viewpoint. And he's also really clear-sighted and researchers extremely well,
one a week, and he's looking at technology in the world context, rather than just sort of talking
about the latest widget or gadget or something that we should all have. There's also a podcast that
he does with his elder brother, Sean, called Still to Be Determined. I list that, find it pretty
damn good. Recently, he has produced some episodes. I'm not going to do the mints of chronological
adrenaline, just to give you some ideas of what he does. He's done one on an improved method
of generating green hydrogen. He's also been looking at the use of machine learning to boost
renewable energy generation and reduce costs of wind farms. And he's also been looking,
it's a quite negative one, how plastic recycling is really a scam because it's just being taken away
in a different bin or bucket or whatever and chucked on the landfill, I think in most cases,
or sent to China for many, many years, who they've now rejected it. So I've got the YouTube link
and the podcast link here for you if they sound interesting. Another one which is more political,
second thought, and this is a channel devoted to educational analysis of current events
from a socialist perspective. Well, I think my perspective is quite socialist. I don't really
call myself a socialist, but there's certainly anti-capitalists and these sympathies of mine fit
well with the contents of this channel. So I'm finding myself learning from this and it's really
well done and there's a lot of effort going into producing this. I should say maybe that quite a
number of these channels that I particularly like I have become a patron, patron, patron, patron,
patron. So, you know, I like to make some contributions towards them. A couple of recent episode
titles from second thought. One is what if we just stop working? Why do we work is the question?
Well, to make money, but it's not as simple as that really, but I won't go off on a
dire tribe about that. See what you think. If you can take watching that, then you might find
it quite revealing. And he also talks about how consulting firms secretly run entire countries.
It's a very interesting viewpoints here. I don't know the name of the host I'm afraid I don't
make a note of it. Anyway, next is, I don't know if you'd call it economics. It's also quite
political. And it's called, the channel's called democracy at work. The main host on this is
Professor Richard D. Wolf, who is, I've heard him on the American radio stations I listened to.
He seems to be popping up in lectures and that sort of thing. So, he's got a lot to say.
Quite interesting stuff. His channel, I've put the channel description in here. It says the democracy,
it workers a non-profit 501c3 that produces media and live events. Our work analyzes capitalism
critically as a systemic problem and advocates for democratizing workplaces as part of a systemic
solution. I won't read it all, but I think you've probably got the gist of it. So, he does do some
excellent analyses of what is going on in the world from the point of view of economics.
Concentricks on the USA, of course, but he's also points out that there's a lot of similarities
in the UK as well. There are other presenters on the channel. Dr. Harriet Frad does a series of talks
with the heading capitalism hits home and Professor David Harvey does a series called the anti-capitalist
Chronicle. He's an interesting guy. He's a originally, anyway, a British academic who I've come across
definitely learned a lot from from that channel. See what you think. Moving on to some lighter
weight stuff. I stumbled across a channel called AT Restoration and it's run by a guy called
RT, HTI, who's located in Estonia and he's a furniture restaurant and he makes stuff. Well,
the quality of what he does is amazing. I do enjoy watching people making stuff and repairing
stuff is also pretty exciting. He takes what look like complete wrecks, wrecked piece of furniture,
totally ruined and he turns them into beautiful items and the way he does this is astonishing.
You can certainly learn a lot if you want to ever repair something in your in your house. A wooden
wooden piece of furniture most likely. He does some restorations for clients but some for himself
and in recent episodes he restored an art nobu chair which must have been, I don't know,
a hundred years old something, that sort of age looking really, really wrecked but he managed to
take it apart and put it back together again with massive improvement. He had a mirror seat,
really tall mirror with a sort of bench seat in front of it and covered underneath, draws underneath,
which had been water damage so all the veneer had fallen off everything. The client wanted it
to be repaired but didn't want it to look new and shiny so the way he handled that was quite
interesting and third one he did for himself was a 19th century coffee grinder which did require
some of the metal work as well as a fair bit of woodwork but it's it's great how he managed
to turn what you would class as junk into into something quite admirable. Channel number six in
my list is just entitled Marty T just the guy's name the host's name and in his description he says
I suddenly this channel to share my ideas creation adventures and to show people how easy it is to
live off the grid and save money. So Marty this host he lived with his family in the north of the
South Island of New Zealand. The area is called Marlborough Sounds which is right up in the top
the north west of the area where there's lots of amazing hill tie hills, small mountains and
inlets and fjords and that type of thing looks gorgeous but they live out on a hillside and I don't
know quite what he does for work I think he manages the land he's got a lot of land. Anyway he shows how
he recovers all the banded machines like tractors and excavators and then he puts them to use on
his land where he does a fair bit of logging so I imagine some of the species there have been
planted not sure that family live in a house which is off grid and their electricity comes from
a turbine that he built from an abandoned scrap washing machine so he put a turbine in it
on these things with spoon shaped things that catch the water and he's got a fairly fast-flowing
stream that runs down the hill how do he attaches it to so I think that and a generator provide
for all of their power to run everything in the house it's amazing it looks like everybody in
New Zealand that's away from the cities he's doing the same sort of thing because
people seem to have had all manner of heavy equipment like bulldozers and excavators and whatever
which they've used perhaps in a farming context but also people seem to be up on these hillsides
cutting their own roadways and that type of thing and when they break down they just sort of
abandon them and he goes and rescues them and brings them back to life again these old machines
a couple of highlights have pointed out there's lots he he's not producing frequent episodes
but he's got a lot to look back at so I've been binging his older episode one I particularly enjoyed
was salvaging an abandoned TD-9 bulldozer from the forest will it start well the answer is I'll let
you find that out if it sounds interesting the other one was salvaging an abandoned tractor
a David Brown 25 just the sight of somebody sort of forging out into the it's not jungle it's
some sort of rainforesty stuff but it's it's yeah it's distinctly New Zealand and just going out
there and finding these things covered in bushes and then extracting it and driving it back home
it's this time I just love that I wish I could do that my attempts to improve machinery like
that has always led to failure number seven Jeff Geerling you might have come across him before he's
a techie guy who does quite a lot of stuff of a technical nature involving raspberry pie a lot
of the time but not exclusively and he's got lots of projects and ideas to teach you things
for example he was the one who made me aware of the touring pie which is a board which can take
multiple raspberry pie compute modules and former from a cluster so he's he's got compute modules
and all the other types of raspberry pies as well so in the past few months he's done two two shows
that stand out top ten raspberry pie projects of 2022 is an interesting thing and also the petabyte
pie project where he's he has got he's got some sponsor discs which he's putting into an array
which he's managing with a pie several pies I'm not sure exactly if I forgot but a petabyte of
this space is involved it's not going to be the quickest thing in the world but certainly
yeah in entry last one then this always puts a smile on my face this one at the end anyway
because it's a bit a bit unpleasant in some respects it's from the channel's called ocean
conservation Namibia and the description says ocean conservation Namibia is dedicated to the
protection of Namibia's marine wildlife that's hard to say ocean was started by and I'm not
sure he pronounces name now dear I think it's the French in the African area they call him an idea
anyway and his wife Katya Dreyer they started in January 2020 to create global awareness of ocean
and plastic pollution and it's horrible and avoidable impact on animals and specifically seals
so all along the coast where he and his team do they apply their trade is where there are many
fur seals and in huge great big hoards whatever I'm not sure the collective word is what they do
is they go out on a daily basis and scout the the groups of seals to see if there's any
that are entangled in plastic or any other item so they're a distance of binoculars if they spot
anything like that they run in with large nets on on poles and grab the animals some of which can
be massive the bulls get to be a hell of a size but quite a lot of pups especially the latest ones
fairly grown pups might you but anyway they find them in wound up in all manner of entanglements
they reckon that the seals find these sort of loops and hoops and nets and whatever and play
with them and then eventually they get the head stuck in them or they get looped around with it
and if that goes on for any length of time especially on a younger seal which is growing the plastic
will cut into them and eventually kill them they often spot dead seals which are entangled
but a lot of times they are rescuing these guys and so they take the plastic off whatever it is
that they need to do and then let the seal free again so three recent ones that I thought you
might be interested in was one very recent or that I've just used the titles here rescuers use
saw to save baby seal very headlining but you know it's good what they had to do here was there
was a seal had got his head stuck in plastic spool that fishing line would have been in and it
must have put his head in when it was small though it was a young pup and now it's grown into it
can't it's no way it's going to get out and as it grows it will it will be killed it will be able
to fish or eat and soon not be able to breathe so they they they use a a tool with the saw in it
to cut this off very very carefully another one hook in seals I tied to another seal the seals
often encounter discarded fishing tackle which includes lead weights and hooks this one was not
in the eye but it was in the the eyelid and luckily had no bars on it so they once they caught
it they were able to take the hook out so that they the two seals who were all tied together
this way were rescued and the last one seal entangled in ball of fishing line you'll often see
that where for some reason or other these really heavy duty lines unbreakable stuff for commercial
fishing get chucked in the seal fall in the sea and just make a sort of knot of this stuff
presumably the seals get caught up in them when they're fishing or when they're playing or
something but once they're in they're not going to get out without help so yeah it's really
positive because they they rescue a lot they do get a lot of seals out with these these things
but it just gives you an indication of how much crap there is out there in the sea to trap
unwary animals and do them a mischief I usually come away from it with a smile on my face even
though I've been a bit horrified by what's happening to the poor seals and on the way but that's
it that's it so I hope you find these channels interesting and maybe useful and some cases positive
some cases a bit too close to reality but hopefully persevere anyway so that's it okay bye
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