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by r-johnv 142 days ago
I absolutely love that Grady includes full transcripts of his videos.

It's much faster to read the article than watch the video, even though that hurts him by 1 view.

I just watched parts of the video after reading because I wanted to see his explanations.

One of the few really good creators out there.

1 comments

Reading the transcript doesn’t even give you 10% of the information actually conveyed in the video which is why it’s so much faster.
I guess his area is really close to my field (Mechanical Engineering + Robotics) so what I learn from his videos is less the concepts themselves and more the interesting examples of them in the real world.

For example that hydroplaning is a real consequence on runways; or that higher takeoff weight has an order of magnitude greater effect on runway wear than the shear force of braking during landing.

I also learn from Grady's phenomenal skill at communicating technical concepts from our field in layman accessible terms! Most times I prefer to watch his videos and appreciate what he does, but there are days that I'm in the mood to read rather than watch. I'm glad that he gives us that option.

If you already understand the concepts you're not gaining much by watching the video.

If you don't then I'm sure it's better than nothing but idk if stock footage is where you should be developing your mental model of how a tire hydroplanes or how a paved transfers load into what's below it.

Some of it is stock but Grady has a lot of custom animations and miniature scale replicas in his videos all the time.
Writing off Practical Engineering's videos as "stock footage" is utterly hilarious to me.
C'mon. I know everyone on HN just can't help but glaze anyone who deals with "real world things" rather than 1s and 0s but this is absolutely not one of his more original content videos. You can't simulate landing aircraft using a clear plastic box (one of his better props) like you can soil conditions so you get what you get.
If you watched the video you would know he didn’t. Animations only in this one.