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> 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.)




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.


> 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.


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...


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.


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.


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.


> 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.


> 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.


> He has large gaps in his knowledge

Yes.

> but presents himself as extremely knowledgeable.

No.


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.


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...


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.


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


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).




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