Top Media Picks

5 min read

Recommended websites, podcast, video and more

People sometimes ask me about media I consume (and I often recommend without being asked 🙃). This page contains some of the things I recommend most (updated every few months or so). In all categories, I’ve really tried to hand-pick items and not make it just a dump of everything I consume.

Websites

• Hackernews: My go-to website for a daily dose of technology and programming news.
• WaitButWhy: Very good and funny long-form articles about a lot of big-picture stuff. Highly recommended.
• Awesome lists: List of lists to learn just about any topic in Tech.
• Wikipedia: for whenever I’m looking for something interesting to read
  • List of Vital Articles
  • List of unusual articles

Books

I don’t read a whole lot of books (like most of us, I wish I’d read more), but here are some that I recommend.

• Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto Space
• Why Dinosaurs Matter Science
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind History
• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Futurology
• The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces that Will Shape our Future Futurology
• Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Space

• An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth Space
• A Short History of Nearly Everything History Science
• The Body: A Guide for Occupants Science
• S.U.M.O (Shut Up, Move On): The Straight-Talking Guide to Succeeding in Life Personal Growth
• Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems Software Engineering
• The Phoenix Project Software Engineering

• The Martian Fiction Space

Podcasts

I routinely listen to podcasts while commuting (car, train, walk, bike) or working around the house. Here’s a few of my top recommendations.

• Hello Internet: CGP Grey & Brady Haran talking about YouTube, life, work and whatever. Equally hilarious as captivating.
• 13 minutes to the Moon: Short series telling the full story of the people who made Apollo 11 happen. Very high production quality and highly recommended.
• This week in Tech: Latest tech news discussion. Been listening on and off for more than decade; recommended.

YouTube

While I don’t watch traditional TV and a limited amount of streaming TV (i.e. Netflix/Prime/…), I do consume a large amount of short-form video online on a daily basis. Here are a few of my recommended YouTube Channels.

= top recommendation

Science

• Smarter Every Day: Science and Technology explanation videos by Destin Sandlin who really comes accross as a genuine and nice person.
• Kurtzgezagt : Super high-quality animated videos about Science, Technology and Society.
• Veritasium: Science and Technology videos. Similar to Smarter Every Day.
• Two Minute Papers: Layman explanations of state-of-the-art AI and CGI papers.
• 3Blue1Brown: High-quality math videos.

Making

• Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: The whole Tested channel is good, but the One Day Builds are particularly entertaining.
• StuffMadeHere: Crazy (robot) inventions. This guy is next-level.
• Simone Giertz: Self-proclaimed Queen of Shitty Robots. Funny.
• PhysicsAnonymous: Workshop tool building. Look for their Lathe Rebuild videos in particular.
• Colin Furze: From the channel description: “Crazy inventions, brilliant world records and constant disregard to health and safety”.
• Jeremy Smidt: Small wood and metal working channel. High production quality.

Electronics

• Ben Eater: Building a computer from scratch. Impressive and educational.
• ElectroBOOM: Funny as well as educational videos on electronics.
• bigclivedotcom: Electronics tear-downs.

Technology

• MKBHD: Largest (?) Tech YouTuber with high-production value videos and reviews on the latest tech and gadgets.
• Linus Tech Tips: More in-depth and wide-ranged tech reviews and content.

Art

• BaumGartner Restoration: Painting restoration. Oddly satisfying to watch.
• Bobb Ross (Twitch): Boss Ross’s painting and voice are the perfect background content for when I need some help falling a sleep.

History

• World War Two: WW2 retold in detail week by week.
• Historia Civilis: Roman (and ancient) military and political history.
• History Buffs: Historical movie reviews.

Jack-of-all-trades

• Ave: Power tool breakdowns, CNC Milling, and a lot of swearing. This guy knows a lot about a lot of things.
• Andrew Camarata: Long-length videos of a guy doing property maintenance.
• J Mantzel: All-arounder building a new life and house off-grid in Panama.

Gaming

• Lirik (Twitch): My favorite streamer. Beware: swearing included.
• NoClip : Professional video game documentaries.
• SummoningSalt: Speedrunning documentaries.
• Joseph Anderson: Long-form video game reviews.

Misc

• Primitive Technology : Guy building stuff using prehistorical techniques only. Enable Closed Captioning for extra information in the videos.
• LEMMINO : In-depth high-quality videos on intriguing mysteries.
• Mark Rober: Tinkerer, Science Communicator. Some of his videos get quite popular.
• CPG Grey: Animated videos on all sort of interesting topics.
• Tom Scott: Short videos on all sort of interesting topics.
• Dude Perfect: Bunch of dudes (a bit macho) doing insane sport trick-shots.
• Binging with Babish: Cooking with a dash of comedy.

Gaming

I tend to only play 2-3 video games a year, mostly on the PS4.

Some recommendations from the last few years:

• The Last of Us: 10/10 - Must play. Best story telling in any game, ever.
• Unchartered 4: A Thief’s End: Exceptional. Get ready for a rollercoaster with excellent world building, game mechanics and story-telling.
• PSVR: Astro Bot: Rescue Mission: Outstanding VR game. Hours of pure joy - highly recommended.
• PSVR: Beat Saber: I generally dislike rhythm games, so I was completely surprised when I came semi-addicted to Beat Saber for a few weeks. Recommended!
• Assasin’s Creed: Black Flag A bit older, but arguably the best Assasin’s creed game ever made.

Misc

I didn’t know a better place for these items :-)

• Morningbrew: Excellent newsletter on upcoming technology.