I love watching experts do what they do best. A new-to-me YouTube channel allows me to do just that: Captain Retriever follows the efforts of Jesse Hofmeister as he both recovers and tows boats in and around Palm City, Florida. The videos have no narration, but it is so evident that this guy knows what he's doing.

Some of the skills he demonstrates on his channel include righting capsized boats, refloating sunken boats (a true challenge, it seems), and towing boats to safety. The video I've linked to below was posted just today, and shows his skill at navigating extremely tight canals with a boat in tow. I was truly amazed at how he knew just what to do to keep the towed boat safe from the numerous hazards.

Be sure to check it out.

I discovered this YouTube channel tonight, and it is delightfully odd. As a result, it's my instant July pick. Be sure to watch the videos in order (it starts with Episode 2 for some reason), as they build on each other. There are a lot of good running gags, making this a channel to keep tabs on. Here's the video that sucked me in:

My June YouTube channel recommendation is The Tim Traveller. Billed as "Travel Videos for Nerds," this channel has a number of delightful videos:

• How a Spectacular Piece of Pedantry Created an International Enclave
• What's the Oldest Surviving Building on Earth?
• The British Railway Station Where You Can Only Travel by Boat
• Can a Toboggan Beat the Oslo Metro?

Tim's humor is really enjoyable as are the little pedantic nuances he injects into almost each video. It's a crime that this channel doesn't have more subscribers. Below is a video on a strange political quirk that causes an island to revert its country of ownership every 6 months!

The latest Smarter Every Day video paints a dire picture of the United States' ability to manufacture anything complex. Definitely worth a watch. I definitely want to change the way I purchase products as a result of this, and likely will start avoiding Amazon when possible.

Also, I definitely want one of these scrubbers!

My YouTube channel recommendation for May is a brand new one: Grossman Woodworking & DIY. The host, Brian Grossman, is starting a woodworking business from scratch and with limited experience. He's documenting the entire process, whether he succeeds or not, and has some ambitious plans (including converting an old building into a woodshop).

The video I've linked below is an overview of his business after just 1 month. It's an honest take on becoming a business, which is refreshing in a sea of woodworking content replete with successful (and wealthy) hosts. This is definitely a channel to keep your eye on if you're into this kind of thing!

Lexington Lab Band is my YouTube channel recommendation for April. For my money, this is the best cover band on YouTube (and possibly the planet). I've embedded my favorite cover of theirs below, but there are so many other good ones. The one thing I appreciate most is that they cover a vast array of music genres:

• Hollywood Nights - Bob Seger
• Enter Sandman - Metallica
• Jessica - Allman Brothers
• Burning Down the House - Talking Heads
• Everybody Want to Rule the World - Tears for Fears
• Rainy Day Woman - Waylon Jennings

There's a lot of great musicianship here, so be sure to check it out.

Designs in Orbit is my YouTube channel recommendation for March. Since September of last year, this channel has been documenting the efforts to rebuild the Clinchfield Railroad in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, after its destruction due to hurricane Helene. Every video update has taught me something new about the efforts:

• A ridiculous amount of rock and dirt was washed away during the floods. It's amazing just how little effect one dump truck has on the rebuilding efforts; some of the videos on this channel showcase dozens of dump trucks all lined up to dump their loads.
• The amount of work that has already been completed is insane. From rebuilding bridges, to moving rock, to driving pilings to shore up the railroad's track bed, a literal army of workers has made tremendous progress.

The most difficult section of the rebuild is currently ongoing, and the most recent video (below) showcases some of the expertise that excavator operators are employing in this challenging section. It's amazing what humans can do in situations like this!

I love Rick Beato's interviews, but his most recent one might be the best yet. Rick sits down with Robby Krieger and John Densmore from The Doors, and they even play a few of their hits in the studio where they recorded previous albums. Great stuff!

I found another cool YouTube channel that I think is worth checking out, making it my pick for February. DevDuck follows the efforts of an aspiring game developer who is working on his dream game in his spare time. The development logs are reasonably short, they showcase the progress he makes from episode to episode, and they don't stray too far into the weeds. The production values are pretty nice, in my opinion.

I've embedded the first episode of the playlist below. There are 54 episodes (so far) in this playlist, and there's other related content on his channel as well.

Here's an amazing survival story from Helene that I stumbled upon on YouTube. It's truly incredible that this guy made it out alive.

For my first new-to-me YouTube channel recommendation of 2025, I'm going with Ben Kilner. Specifically, the 100 Year Old Derelict Stables to Dream Workshop playlist, the first installment of which is embedded below.

This series has been so enjoyable! Each episode is not too long, and many of them have incredible timelapses of the effort this guy is putting into rehabilitating an old building. And what an effort! Ben is putting an amazing amount of "elbow grease" into this renovation, and he's come a decent way since the first episode. New episodes continue to get posted, so be sure to give it a follow if you are interested in this kind of thing.

Earlier this week Valve released a 20th (!!) anniversary update for Half Life 2. One of the major features added is developer commentary, which they shipped for Episode 1 and 2, but never for the original game. It's been very interesting to listen to the commentary so far (I'm only about half-way through the game), and I've learned several interesting things that I didn't previously know:

• In the very first platform puzzle, if you try to throw all of the crates out of the window (breaking the puzzle in the process), a new crate is spawned in while you aren't looking; very clever!
• Loot crates will typically drop whatever you're most in need of at the moment.
• Eli winks at the player when he says that Alyx is the only thing Gordon can't handle; I've played this game countless times and I've never noted that detail!
• If given long enough, seagulls will perch on the dune-buggy and poop on it! You can then clean the buggy off by driving through shallow water.

Also released was a 2-hour documentary on the making of the game, which I'm also about half-way through. It's always fun to peer behind the curtain on stuff like this.

The recent devastation in western North Carolina from hurricane Helene is truly mind-boggling. There is no doubt that it will be multiple years before the roads there are back to anything resembling "normal." I'm sure the death toll will also only go up from where it is now, which is heartbreaking. Watching on the news, one can't help but to feel utterly helpless.

One aspect of this ever-changing story that will be fascinating to watch will be how the North Carolina DOT chooses to repair the collapse of I-40:

In addition to the curved section shown above, a longer, straighter section also washed out, with the adjacent river coming perilously close to the road's edge. From a logistical perspective, it's going to be very interesting to see how they choose to fix this collapse. Is it better to cut into the neighboring rock and essentially shift the road away from the river's edge? Do you try to backfill the river somehow? I can only imagine the engineering challenges that await this repair.

A terrific YouTube channel to follow for this kind of content is Casey Jones - Professional Engineer. He often digs deep into stories such as this, providing his own insights as a certified civil engineer. The video below has some good footage of the damage the highway received, along with some brief commentary about the challenges ahead.

Here's an interesting video describing how the calories within food are determined.

Here's a terrific video from Rick Beato on why music is getting worse. He's a music producer (and has a terrific channel), so if anyone knows the ins and outs, it's him. Check it out.

I really enjoyed this video detailing the surprising history of blue LEDs (and why they were so difficult to produce).

The Essential Craftsman channel on YouTube occasionally has great philosophical videos (I've featured a few here on the site before). Today's video on "The Mindset of Doing High Quality Work" is worth a watch. In the new year, one of my professional goals will be to improve the quality of my work. In recent times, I've become much more lax in testing the code that I write. This has led to bone-headed bugs that ended up needing a hot-fix, often something that I could have caught had I spent some time testing.

One of the comments in this video really resonated with me: "Strive for perfection, settle for excellence." I think that will be my mantra in 2024 for my professional work.

Pretty cool video on the complexity of one of the greatest songs in Sesame Street. It's amazing just how intricate the musicianship is in this!

The latest Smarter Every Day video is engineering on an entirely different level. The math, software, and other challenges this company face are tremendously complex. It's amazing that people get to do this for a living! I bet we hear a lot more about this technology in the future; this seems like a promising area of development and manufacturing.

The Operations Room channel on YouTube has been killing it for a while now. Their top-down, animated videos show some of the most important battles and events in history. I've learned a ton about events in World War 2, Vietnam, the Gulf war, and even interesting isolated events. Their latest video, on the battle of Alligator Creek at Guadalcanal, is fascinating and I've linked it below. This is definitely a channel to follow; there's lots of terrific content.