[ragebol]

I could watch stuff like this all day.

Tim's stuff is so great. Easy to be jealous of, since being YouTuber seems easy, but to make quality content, it really can't be.

And then he's going around the moon, it's really mind blowing to see the success he's had. His interviews with Musk are a treasure trove as well, whatever you think of Musk.

[samwillis]

> His interviews with Musk are a treasure trove as well, whatever you think of Musk.

My main take away from those interviews is just how knowledgable Tim is, he's able to engage in low level and in depth conversations about how these engines work. It's not just superficial high level knowledge from making videos, he is thinking himself how to optimise and improve these things, and leading that conversation. The passion for it is electric.

In another life Tim would have been an incredible engineer, but that value he brings as an educator is immeasurable. Thats how he has earnt his way to a space flight.

(They also show that the common argument that Elon doest know his stuff is wrong (at least for rockets), but I really don't what to derail this conversation into that.)

[ragebol]

Absolutely. Imagine if all journalists had this level of depth in all of the topic they covered? I don't think that's possible though.

[nordsieck]

> Imagine if all journalists had this level of depth in all of the topic they covered? I don't think that's possible though.

It helps a lot that Youtube seems to have become the home of long form video. Not really something that fits into traditional media. But for the people that really want to dive deep into a topic, it's great that there are now often high quality creators that cater to those tastes.

[ragebol]

Does not fit in traditional media indeed. When I was a kid/teen, Discovery Channel, at least in my native Netherlands, had some interesting content. I could also gobble up something like How it's Made all day. Content like Tim's could definitely fit in there too.

YouTube enabled everyone to publish this type of content, for good and bad...

[kitsunesoba]

When I was younger I loved shows like Modern Marvels on History Channel that presented the engineering behind the various amazing everyday things that we take for granted in a format accessible to the layman.

It's depressing that good shows like that were killed off in favor of the "reality" TV and conspiracy/aliens/etc show junk food that took over Discovery and History from the mid-00s onward.

[prox]

I agree. You need that intersection of interest, presentable qualities (listening, digesting,responding, speaking) and quest for accuracy. Hard to get those all in one person.

[LargeTomato]

To be honest he's regurgitating a lot of information. He has large gaps in his knowledge but presents himself as extremely knowledgeable.

Understanding a rocket engine as a layman is easier than understanding a diesel engine. EDA acts like he's a genius but he is not.

I work in space. Some of my coworkers have met EDA. He is insufferable and extremely arrogant. A very difficult person to be around.

[sho_hn]

> but presents himself as extremely knowledgeable

I don't get this sense at all. I've been watching his channel for a couple of years, and I've consistently found him to portray himself as a fan/enthusiast trying his best to understand and summarize complex information he doesn't have first-hand knowledge of. He's never pretended to be an engineer.

I think the value is in getting inspired to dig deeper when he shows you something interesting.

[hinkley]

> I work in space.

My only defense is that Ted Lasso Season III lands next week:

YOU WORK IN SPACE?!?

Man the commute must be terrible.

[peterfirefly]

> He has large gaps in his knowledge

Yes.

> but presents himself as extremely knowledgeable.

No.

[LargeTomato]

Yeah he has an extreme level of confidence. Tweeting Elon about how to architect the landing fins to use "fish scale biomimickry"? That's ridiculous.

[LawTalkingGuy]

He didn't. He tweeted that he's surprised the tiles don't need to be overlapped to avoid blowing off but didn't suggest that Elon change them.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/14426315302...

[JshWright]

Perhaps he has gotten better at that in recent years. I got put off his early content for the very that very reason and haven't bothered to go back.

[lostlogin]

Can you clarify, do you ‘work in this space’, or ‘work in space’? Both work and it’s interesting.

[oger]

It's absolutely worth to go on a tangent here - Tim did a great job in explaining Elon (or showing him to the public in a probably not too filtered way).

[speed_spread]

> whatever you think of Musk

Musk is a clown but I'll give him one thing: he cares about technology. That's something that very few modern CEO in big tech have and probably gives him the edge in making his project successful.

[sangnoir]

> Musk is a clown but I'll give him one thing: he cares about technology.

His hot takes on software / software architecture have been disappointing[1], and made me question the validity of his assertions in domains I have no expertise in (rocketry, computer vision and manufacturing).

1. Also, he wants to remain in charge of "Servers and Software" at Twitter even after (if?) He steps down as CEO.

[speed_spread]

I was thinking of pre-Twitter Musk. I'm not sure what game the clown is playing now or even if it's a game at all anymore. It's so bad that it's almost like a trash artistic performance. GG Allin billionaire.

[dotnet00]

Tim's stuff certainly has the information content nailed down better than most typical "science" youtubers, but he comes off as slightly overexcited at times, which brings up negative associations with typical misleading pop science rags for me.

[lhoff]

He recently was a guest in Lex Fridmans podcast.

https://lexfridman.com/tim-dodd/

[adolph]

To pile on the Tim Dodd praise, be sure to check out his music too (which is used in the videos). Solid stuff that reminds me of Tycho. So glad he got picked for the Dear Moon mission.

[hoot]

Did anybody else feel like the musk interview got really awkward towards the end? It seemed like he became really bored of it and just shut down.

[raylad]

Tim was trying to be too knowledgeable and not letting Musk shine enough.

I would be surprised if Musk gives him another interview any time soon.

[localplume]

He, like most big Youtubers, probably have a large crew of people working with them. The article was written by Trevor Sesnic, the video was likely edited by others, I don't know if he did the graphics, but Tim still did a lot (and arguably did the most fun stuff). Smaller Youtubers need to do all of that, and from what I've heard editing is the absolute worst given how time consuming it is. Many Youtubers struggle with burnout centered around how time consuming editing becomes.

Tim's content is really great though, and he does a fantastic job of explaining complex topics in a welcoming way. Very similar to smartereveryday IMO, where it is just really engaging and informative content presented in a great way.

[AshleyGrant]

I support Tim on Patreon. He also utilizes a cadre of Patreon donors who provide commentary on early cuts of videos and even drafts of scripts. I personally have never understood why people would pay to do work for him, but they must get satisfaction from it, and the final product is better because of it.

[MichaelZuo]

From the about page: > In 2019 the team grew from just Tim to a small army of incredible helpers who make this website amazing, the videos higher quality, and help foster a fun and positive online community.

So the 2017-2019 period where the channel took off was all done by him solo, apparently.

[somenameforme]

I'd also add this standard. Another amazing YouTuber is Veritasium. He went from [1] to [2]. The production quality is more than slightly improved, but the "spirit" remains identical. And I think that spirit is what drives success or failure. The production quality is just icing.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJPyQtoB5E

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eW6Eagr9XA

[Retric]

Veritasium videos are often subtly misleading which really annoys me.

It’s great for views, but terrible for science education.

[jaywalk]

Whenever he drops a new video, I just look for the "Here's how Veritasium was wrong" videos to get the real story.

[ace2358]

It’s pretty rough because those ‘you’re wrong’ videos are actually just as wrong as he was. The main issue is that these complicated topics are difficult to describe properly is a 20 min English video that has to be edited to be interesting.

How electricity propagates is really complicated topic involving 3D vector calculus, for the EM waves. Most people don’t do electronic circuits by evaluating the vector field, they use the model of electron flow and the elements model (capacitance, inductance, resistance, voltage etc).

Ultimately these models are difficult to understand and most people (including my lecturers) make mistakes explaining them.

[Diederich]

Is one example his recent set of videos about how quickly electrical energy travels travels?

[Retric]

Yea, like “Darth Vader killed your father” they are true from a specific viewpoint, but people walk away misunderstanding what’s being described.

A more clear approach would be to say what we mean by electricity is the net flow of energy even if no electrons move from A to B, but that’s not going to get the same number of clicks.

[dylan604]

> and from what I've heard editing is the absolute worst given how time consuming it is. Many Youtubers struggle with burnout centered around how time consuming editing becomes.

This totally depends. If you're an editor, there is a great sense of pride of turning the pile of content handed to you into something cohesive and compelling is quite a skill. Some people just don't like it, and that's fine. I don't like building UIs, but sometimes I just gotta do it. It makes me appreciate those that do the task I don't like that much more. walk a mile in another person's shoes so to speak.

Just like coding, you can get in the zone with an edit and things just start flowing. It usually comes after multiple sessions of sitting there scrubbing through the content thinking to yourself "wtf do I do with this?" when inspiration finally hits. You just start remembering a shot from this clip that flows nicely with this next clip and it suddenly "makes sense". It gets really spooky when you then try to find some audio clip like music and drop it in and it pretty much lines right up. That's for unscripted stuff that's just kind of produced like film is cheap kind of shooting.

When you have scripted stuff that every shot has been logged and tagged where there's variations on delivery or any other slight thing that makes it appear to be the same thing over and over again comes with its own challenges and rewards. Sometimes, there's a perfect delivery but something doesn't line up continuity wise, so it looks like it can't be used. Then, you scrub some other angle or reverse or cutaway and hide the edit so that you can use that perfect delivery or borrow that perfect reaction that otherwise might not have made sense.

There's a reason it's an art. Not liking it doesn't mean you're wrong for not liking it personally, but it doesn't make it the absolute worst.

[ragebol]

I'm sure he does. I guess it's like a bootstrapped business: you start small and build from there and hire to do what you can't or don't want to do.

[Gordonjcp]

> and from what I've heard editing is the absolute worst given how time consuming it is.

It can be, but as with many things it comes down to learning the techniques as well as the tools. You can learn how to edit quickly and effectively with a couple of simple rules, but the most important is "don't worry too much about throwing stuff away".