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Ask HN: What talks or videos do you suggest to watch on a long flight?

by tarikozket on 7/6/18, 3:44 PM with 159 comments

  • by girzel on 7/6/18, 5:38 PM

    I can't do anything productive or mentally taxing on long flights, I don't know if it's the air pressure or premature jetlag or what, but I have a very hard time exercising my will. What I do enjoy, though (in addition to the Marvel comics movies – I only watch them on planes) is reading documentation. It's a great time to sit down with an in-depth manual and just soak up information you didn't have before. You don't have to do anything, or make anything, you just learn how something works. Another related activity is reading a bunch of code that I know I'll be working on in the near future. There's something very pleasurable about absorbing a codebase while at the same time completely excusing myself from actually doing anything.

  • by PakG1 on 7/6/18, 5:07 PM

    Another one of those threads that causes intense navel-gazing, shame, and mounting disgust in my gut for myself as I realize that everyone around me is working hard to better themselves while I just binge-watch movies.... and then my eyes glaze over as I mollify myself with the movies until I forget that this thread exists.

  • by wymy on 7/6/18, 5:02 PM

    If you enjoy history, check out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series on WWI, "Blueprint for Armageddon." About 20+ hours of content.

    https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepr...

  • by pro_zac on 7/6/18, 4:57 PM

    I'm a huge fan of the series of Ultimate talks from C3 conferences.

    The Ultimate Game Boy Talk https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8029-the_ultimate_game_boy_talk

    The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9064-the_ultimate_apollo_guidanc...

    The Ultimate Atari 2600 Talk https://media.ccc.de/v/28c3-4711-en-the_atari_2600_video_com...

    More here:(Commodore 64, Amiga 500, etc.) https://media.ccc.de/search/?q=ultimate

  • by TripleH on 7/6/18, 4:14 PM

    It's kind of a classic, but I really enjoyed Richard Feynman lectures[0], especially on subjects I thought I knew well.

    [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk&list=PLLzGzdSNup...

  • by mcprwklzpq on 7/6/18, 7:51 PM

    Never had a mindset to understand what sometimes are they talking about in humanities. Recently found this series of short and clear leactures on many of such topics. Philosophy of the Humanities https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPeStI124dee1ByfcDzRv...

    Then this huge series of lectures on western philosophy introduces to a lot of ideas about everything. Can listen anytime. Arthur Holmes: A History of Philosophy https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0z...

    Then this category theory keeps popping up everywhere, completly incomprehensible, seems like mathematicians are gone mad. I found that this lectures help like no others to catch up to them. Category theory for programmers by Bartosz Milewski https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbgaMIhjbmEnaH_LTkxLI...

  • by scrollaway on 7/6/18, 4:38 PM

    I've started watching Raymond Hettinger's talks lately. He's a core dev on Python. I love them, the guy is charismatic, very smart and his Python knowledge constantly impresses me.

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRVdut2KPAguz3xcd22i_...

    My favourite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zinZmE3Ogk

  • by johnsonjo on 7/6/18, 7:33 PM

    Just as a side note for all these wonderful youtube resources. You can use this recently discussed tool on hacker news [0] youtube-dl [1] for downloading youtube videos. There's also this video transcoder Handbrake [2] that uses ffmpeg [3] under the hood if the previous tool spits out a video in a format that is not specifically mkv or mp4 (whichever of those two you prefer).

    [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17460060

    [1]: https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/

    [2]: https://handbrake.fr/

    [3]: https://ffmpeg.org/

  • by sdf43543t345 on 7/6/18, 6:20 PM

    I like to watch the map that shows the where the plane is. As the agony of travel bares on after hour and hour, you watch as you get closer closer to escaping your hellish existence in a tin can at 30k feet.

  • by crispyambulance on 7/6/18, 5:18 PM

    Kung Fu movies. Seriously. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, whatever.

    You need something engaging but not too mentally taxing while under the influence of jet lag.

    What could be better than the righteous grist of King Fu movies involving good guys and bad guys duking it out?

  • by coolkarni on 7/6/18, 7:12 PM

    I know this is not answering the question from the poster but I found meditation very helpful during my recent 15 hours flight. It is very rare to find such a long time alone in an almost quite and non-stimulating environment. Getting meals served to you on your seat and knowing that you are stuck here for next many hours takes away the planning ahead part of the head. I found it easier to be with my breath and thoughts. I also drifted in and out of sleep during this time and felt very relaxed. It helped me upon landing to minimize effects of Jet lag. I believe it was more helpful than any talk or video and could also help getting some good insights.

  • by pdkl95 on 7/6/18, 5:22 PM

    Anybody even remotely involved in designing anyth9ing connected to a network should watch Raph Koster's GDC talk about the ethical issues involved in developing AR and VR games. Except it's not really about "games" as we usually use the term. "Twitter" is a "virtual world"/MMO where they only bothered to built the chat feature.

    This is really about the ethics and responsibilities that come with managing social spaces or infrastructure that people use to interact socially (which necessarily includes the problems that humans always have). The MMOs (and the MUDs/etc before 0them) have been working on these problems for decades. That doesn't mean they have the solution, but that experience does include a lot of lessons about what not to do; far too many projects are choosing to learn those lessons the hard way.

    http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024060/Still-Logged-In-What-AR

  • by DoofusOfDeath on 7/6/18, 5:55 PM

    For 5-6 hour flights, it's usually a combination of things for me:

    - Videos related to whatever technology will be pertinent at the meeting I'm flying in for.

    - Distraction movies: Bourne Identity, etc.

    - Anime I'm currently binge-watching.

    - Games on my phone.

    - Printed technical articles I've been procrastinating about reading.

    Honestly, how virtuous/edifying my in-flight activities are depends on how much sleep I got the night before. This is one reason I dislike early-morning flights - they leav me zonked and unable to make good use of my in-flight solitude.

    Side note: On Android, I just discovered "Movies Anywhere". It was a great tool for downloading DRM's movies/shows for my last trip.

  • by KirinDave on 7/6/18, 4:28 PM

    This is a talk by Professor Fritz Henglein about how to sort general datasets in linear time. Most people in industry do not believe this is possible, but it's actually part of a family of well-researched techniques. https://youtu.be/sz9ZlZIRDAg

  • by mastax on 7/6/18, 4:35 PM

    "Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion?" - Professor Dennis Whyte. https://youtu.be/KkpqA8yG9T4

    The title threw me off, but it's a very interesting and grounded talk about the different approaches to scaling fusion energy.

  • by TaylorAlexander on 7/6/18, 6:46 PM

    I really enjoy this Noam Chomsky interview on automation and the structure of society, and find it highly relevant today.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h_x0Y3FqkEI

    I also enjoyed the documentary Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, which can be found on torrent sites.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Power_Mixtape_1967...

  • by unixhero on 7/6/18, 4:14 PM

    Elevator hacking - 2 hour long walkthrough of elevator security and building security. So much fun in that one. Search for it on Youtube.

  • by Ologn on 7/6/18, 4:38 PM

    For that long time period you might want to watch "A Glorious Accident". Wim Kazyer sits down with Daniel Dennett, Freeman Dyson, Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks and Stephen Toulmin (and Rupert Sheldrake) to do one-on-one interviews. Then all of them sit down together for 3 1/2 hours at a round table and have a wide-ranging discussion. Wim Kazyer acts as a kind of moderator, Rupert Sheldrake, who has written books like "The Science Delusion" acts as a kind of antagonist.

  • by Syzygies on 7/6/18, 7:46 PM

    Talking Machines https://www.thetalkingmachines.com/ Human Conversations about Machine Learning

    Podcasts are better for flying. You can close your eyes, and if you don't stay awake, all the better.

  • by jtmarmon on 7/6/18, 4:13 PM

    literally anything by rich hickey. especially his presentations on Datomic

  • by NVRM on 7/6/18, 4:23 PM

  • by bdz on 7/6/18, 4:27 PM

    Harvard digital photography course, all (12) lectures are on Youtube

    http://digitalphotography.exposed/#schedule

  • by swlkr on 7/6/18, 5:18 PM

  • by onemoresoop on 7/6/18, 5:04 PM

    Bracing for Impact: True Tales of Air Disasters and the People Who Survived Them (paperback version)

  • by lcuff on 7/6/18, 5:11 PM

    It won't take up a whole long flight, but one of the best TED talks ever is Jill Bolte Taylor's talk. She's a neuro-anatomist who had a stroke and reports from the inside about what goes on, with significant implications for what kind of choices we make in life:

    https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_strok...

  • by metabagel on 7/6/18, 7:13 PM

    If you have an iPad, play FTL. It'll make the time zip by.

    http://subsetgames.com/ftl.html

  • by bmcusick on 7/6/18, 4:16 PM

    Snakes on a Plane

  • by everdev on 7/6/18, 4:43 PM

    Wild, Wild Country on Netflix

  • by petercooper on 7/6/18, 6:31 PM

    It might be a good opportunity to close your eyes and listen to many of the amazing (but nearly always way too long, IMHO) interviews available on developer podcasts like Software Engineering Daily, Microsoft Research, Hanselminutes, IndieHackers, etc. You get to listen to some great conversations and if you fall asleep, it's a bonus!

  • by acobster on 7/6/18, 4:51 PM

    I found Stephen Wolfram's talks about complexity and computation extremely rewarding.

    https://youtu.be/cbu_bCQ2Lkg

    https://youtu.be/_eC14GonZnU

  • by baby on 7/6/18, 4:27 PM

    Get the coursera app and download a week worth of courses.

  • by murkle on 7/6/18, 6:44 PM

    Richard Hamming "The Art of doing Science and Engineering" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30

  • by wnissen on 7/6/18, 4:58 PM

    Netflix now lets you download many (most?) of their films, I always get some documentaries and fictional shows of my destination. For France I watched a documentary on the national soccer team and a comedy special by Jacky Bloom.

  • by mattbierner on 7/6/18, 7:51 PM

    Hurtling through the air, surrounded by 200+ of the most fascinating and complex entities in the universe—fellow beings who share many of my hopes and fears—I always end up watching Batman vs Superman

  • by rorykoehler on 7/6/18, 4:17 PM

    Jeremy Rifkin 3rd industrial age talk https://youtu.be/QX3M8Ka9vUA

  • by jchw on 7/6/18, 4:26 PM

    The Ultimate Gameboy Talk from 33c3 is a good one if you haven't already watched it. Frankly a large amount of CCC videos would also fit the bill.

  • by adrice727 on 7/6/18, 5:36 PM

    Terence McKenna's lectures from the Earth Trust Foundation conference are really great, if you're into that sort of thing. There are four parts, totaling ~6.5 hours.

    https://archive.org/details/PsychedeliaRawArchivesOfTerenceM...

  • by dpeck on 7/7/18, 4:46 PM

    Split my time between documentaries that can be downloaded from Netflix, usually of middling quality, and whatever audiobook caught my attention in the days before flight.

    Being a bigger guy, unless I get the upgrade I can’t do anything with a keyboard so doing much productive is out of the question.

    Recent highlights have been Sour Grapes and the Rotten series on Netflix, and Ray Dalits Principles on Audible.

  • by pretty_bubbles on 7/6/18, 4:58 PM

    I usually read long articles I have saved in Pocket.

  • by wenc on 7/6/18, 7:55 PM

    I'm one of those people who are slightly susceptible to motion sickness, so I can't do anything that requires intense focus on an airplane.

    My two go-tos are:

    1) Noisli - white noise app to help me sleep.

    2) BBC's Sherlock - the slickness of the production values keeps me engaged.

    I find I'm more productive when I land if I don't try too hard to be productive on the flight.

  • by Timpy on 7/6/18, 5:01 PM

    I like Hello Internet https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwez9XDNV_wS0WNDZteXjgw

    It's in the genre of "two dudes talking" podcasts, but technology and futurology are some of the topics they touch on often.

  • by 7373737373 on 7/6/18, 6:09 PM

    I found these great brain anatomy lectures (WARNING, real brains!): https://library.med.utah.edu/neurologicexam/html/brain-disse...

  • by chrisbennet on 7/6/18, 7:42 PM

    I like to listen to the "Coding Blocks" pad cast on long drives (most every weekend). They go over a book like "Clean Code"[1] a chapter at a time and distill the high points in an entertaining fashion.

    [1] by Robert C. Martin (aka "uncle Bob")

  • by s_kilk on 7/6/18, 5:12 PM

    All three parts of Adam Curtis's "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace"

  • by 7373737373 on 7/6/18, 6:25 PM

    This talk, by a DARPA project manager on brain computer interfaces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVuSHjeh1Os

  • by eigenvalue on 7/6/18, 5:09 PM

    If you are interested in machine learning, I thought this was a very thought provoking lecture:

    https://youtu.be/N5oZIO8pE40

  • by LarryDarrell on 7/6/18, 5:14 PM

    Old episodes of the Computer Chronicles: https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerChroniclesYT

  • by SurrealSoul on 7/6/18, 7:22 PM

    I am currently studying a language so long flights are just the perfect time to "quiz myself" in that language. Either by flash-card videos or un-subtitled dubs of a movie in that language

  • by _nrvs on 7/6/18, 5:04 PM

  • by fenesiistvan on 7/8/18, 3:40 PM

    One more flight, and I will be an expert in javascript. At least theorically, since I never wrote a single line of js code ...i can only read books while on flight, but not to code.

  • by Exuma on 7/6/18, 8:26 PM

    My favorite video of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs

  • by Kerrick on 7/6/18, 4:52 PM

  • by hangonhn on 7/6/18, 6:50 PM

    Watch something you normally wouldn't watch if you had a choice but might find interesting. It's a good way to force yourself out of your comfort zone.

  • by tmaly on 7/8/18, 8:09 PM

    I would recommend the audio book of Thinking Fast and Slow. I have been listening to it during my commute and it is fascinating.

  • by cranjice on 7/6/18, 4:48 PM

    Fight Club

  • by taf2 on 7/6/18, 4:58 PM

    Grubby playing Warcraft 3! Let your brain rest

  • by Biba89 on 7/6/18, 6:38 PM

    Course in miracles:

    https://youtu.be/nrmFlDpeF-k

  • by royalharsh95 on 7/6/18, 4:29 PM

    Final Destination

  • by seattle_spring on 7/7/18, 2:26 AM

    The entire Bojack Horseman series on Netflix.

  • by joshuaheard on 7/6/18, 7:28 PM

    To answer your question, Jordan Peterson's video lectures series, "Maps of Meaning" (You would need internet access to YouTube).

    For long flights, I buy magazines in the airport shop (Wired and Scientific American). I also have my music collection on Spotify on my phone with wireless Bose headphones to listen to. Also, several books on Kindle on my phone (now reading "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"). Don't forget a spare battery. Or, sometimes I check the plane's movie list for a new release I haven't seen and watch that.

  • by gargarplex on 7/6/18, 4:23 PM

    write a complete program with pen and paper

  • by mabynogy on 7/7/18, 12:42 AM

    A serie like The Handmaid's Tale.

  • by samrohn778 on 7/6/18, 6:12 PM

    if you like interviews, then check out these podcasts:

    How I built this

    Masters of scale

    Akimbo

    Software engineering daily

  • by spitfire on 7/6/18, 6:59 PM

    Airplane.

  • by dustingetz on 7/6/18, 6:01 PM

    Read

  • by santoshmaharshi on 7/7/18, 7:51 AM

    I mostly use a very long form podcast like Joe Rogen, Sam Harris, or videos hosted on Internet Archives.

  • by samirm on 7/6/18, 8:59 PM

    read a book