Category Archives: How-to

Ebooks and Audiobooks

I no longer wish to devote space to accumulating and storing physical books. As a former college professor I had more of them than most people, and tended to fill the house with bookcases and shelves. That made a certain sense in the pre-Internet years since I would often want to go back to them to look up things. But now I have more information at my fingertips than I ever had in those days, and I find it more convenient to just look up anything I need to know. And with Ebooks I can take my library with me anywhere I go. This means if I am sitting in a waiting room for a Doctor’s appointment (and at my age that happens often enough) I can just pull out my phone and open up a book. I always have at least one. Right now on my phone I have apps for Kindle, Google Play, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo Cantook (successor to Aldiko), Bookshop.org, and Calibre. As for devices other than my phone, I own a kindle, I once owned a Nook, and I will buy a Kobo reader when Trump is gone. Kobo is Canadian, and last time I looked Trump had put on a tariff that was twice what the device costs. And finally I have the Bookshop.org app and Calibre.

I started collecting Ebooks some years back, and at first the only option seemed to be buying them from large corporations. That has changed now, but I still have collections On Kindle, Google Play, Nook, and Kobo. I have all four because it seemed prudent to not put all my eggs in one basket. But now there are other options. One I like to use when possible is Bookshop.org. It is group of independent bookstores and I would rather support them than some giant corporation. And they seem to have all of the popular titles. Another similar site is Books-a-Million, which lets you order online and pick up at a local store if you need a physical book. Cantook and Calibre are both good for holding any miscellaneous Ebooks you have, and you can give them your Ebooks from the other sellers, though I have found that the native apps tend to work better. These days I rarely purchase books on Kindle, etc. But sometimes they have a special deals.

If you want to build your library, there are some good places to try. One is BookBub which will send you emails with deals on books. On any one e-mail you may not see anything you want, but I found that once or twice a month I did see books I wanted and at good prices. And Books-a-Million has 99 cent deals to check out. But if you want to get free books, you have several options. If you want a chance to read a popular Ebook but don’t need to own it, see what your local Library offers. Mine offers Hoopla which is good for Ebooks, Audiobooks, and streaming music. What you can find depends on what your library has in its collection, but my wife uses it almost daily for audiobooks. Then there are the works that have become part of the Public Domain. This varies somewhat by your country, but you might be surprised to learn how much is available. For Ebooks one of the biggest sites is Project Gutenberg. They follow US Copyright law for their collection, and they are a non-profit that can always use some support, so if you use them, give them a few Dollars or Euros. They tend to be the source for many or most other sites for Public Domain Ebooks They have over 75,000 free Ebooks. A newer site is Faded Page which is much smaller but focused on Canadian works. Standard Ebooks is a site that pulls from Project Gutenberg but does some additional formatting and is very easy to read online in your browser. For Audiobooks a good source is Open Culture, which advertises it has 1,000 free Audiobooks. We should also mention LibriVox, which also pulls from Project Gutenberg for its texts, but then turns them into Public Domain Audiobooks. They are always looking for volunteers who have a microphone and a computer to record Public Domain audiobooks. And last but not least the Internet Archive has tons of Ebooks and Audiobooks that are free.

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Audacity Update 20230702

I have been using Audacity for a variety of audio processing needs for some years now, and until lately I have been quite satisified. But lately it seems to have developed a hyper-sensitivity to errors and refusing to load files from my podcasts. I like to use Audacity to process those podcast files as described in my article “Preparing Podcasts for Listening“, and when those files won’t load that presents a problem. Among the errors I have gotten is a complaint about Bad Huffman Code, or Bad File Length, or Forbidden Bitrate Value. Now it is entirely possible that these are real errors of some kind, but are they really bad enough to just refuse to load the files? I think not. In fact, some online searching has disclosed that Audacity decided to enable error checking in libmad, which is the decoding library, which it had not done before. But they realized that it was picking up a lot of really minor stuff, so in the next version they may relax the error checking. I hope so, though I note that some of this information is from 2020.

My work around is to use online File Converters, which load the files just fine. Then I convert from MP3 to OGG, for instance, download the converted file, and then let my Audacity script run on the converted file, which it does perfectly. I have found a couple I like, though there is no shortage of converters out there. The two I have used are Convertio and Online Audio Converter. They are both fast and easy, and I note that both have now added some simple Video Editing tools. You wouldn’t use them for really serious work, but for combining two clips or cutting out footage they would probably work just fine.

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International Keyboard

The next learning experience for me involved learning about typing in Spanish on my American English computer. And the answer is actually quite simple, and involves software. There is a setting you can make to switch your keyboard to International Keyboard, and there are both British and American versions available. I first printed out the keyboard layout from the Wikipedia site linked above. I suspect that after a bit of practice I will get used to the added functionality, but I am keeping this printout around in case I need to do more. I have already discovered that this is so easy it won’t take long at all. And I want to give a shout-out to @pilum@octodon.social, one of my Mastodon contacts who steered me to this.

KDE for Spanish

To make the software change, I went into my System Settings in my Kubuntu 18.04 machine, then to Input Devices–>Keyboard–>Layouts, then click on Configure Layouts. That will make the next steps open for you. In the first drop-down, make sure it says “Any Language”, and in the second one the layout for your existing keyboard. In my case that is English (US). These settings may already be the default, but this is what I did. Then you pick your variant, and I picked English (US, international AltGr Unicode combining). Then you can add a label, and I picked Int as the obvious one. Click OK, and you should see something like this (in KDE).

Settings for Alternative keyboard layout

The last step is to click Apply in the lower right. Then go to the Advanced tab, click Configure Keyboard Options, and scroll down to Switching to another layout, and pick a keyboard shortcut. I picked LeftCtrl+LeftShift. Again, click Apply on the lower right. If you have done this correctly, you should see a new indicator appear. Mine is in the bottom tray, and looks like this:

You can press the shortcut key and watch it switch back and forth.

The key difference in this International layout is the Alt key on the right is now dedicated to producing International characters. For example, many European languages have the letter “n”, which we inherited from the Romans. But Spanish has an additional letter other languages don’t have, called the “enya”, which is ñ. With my keyboard in the International setting, all I do is hold down the right Alt key and press “n”, and I get an ñ. Couldn’t be easier. Some other Spanish characters are equally easy.

¿ = Right Alt+?

¡ = Right Alt+!

á = Right Alt+a

é = Right Alt+e

í = Right Alt+i

ó = Right Alt+o

ú = Right Alt+u

Other Languages

There is more than just Spanish, of course. There are versions of a, o, and u with umlauts for those with a need for German, and a few Scandinavian characters. Also, you get a few currency symbols like the Euro, Pound, and Yen. So this is a generally useful setting if you have any need for these things. Now that I know how to do it, I will always have this option available on any computer I have.

Windows 10

I mostly use Kubuntu as my daily operating system, but I do keep one Windows box around for things like Gaming, so I thought it was worth taking a look at how to add a new keyboard layout there. To begin, click on the Start button on the lower left, then Settings. Click on Time and Language. Then click Language, select English (United States), and click Options. Go to the Keyboards section on the bottom, click on Add a Keyboard, and go to United States – International. When this is added, you will see new indicator on the bottom Task Bar. It will say ENG US, but if you click on it a pop-up window will open that lets you switch. If you switch to the International keyboard, the indicator will change to ENG INTL. From here, everything works just the same as it did with KDE, The Right Alt key will let you add all of the special characters.

Chromebook

I have an old Linux laptop, but it is not only old, it is large and heavy, so about a year ago I purchased a Chromebook to replace both the laptop and my Android tablet that died. It has worked out well for me, and I decided to implement the International keyboard here as well, and it is quite easy. Open the laptop, and go to the bottom right and click on the Time. This will pop-up a window that has a Settings button. Click that, then scroll down to Advanced. Go to Languages and Input. The very top setting is also called Languages and Input, and in the bottom of that area is Manage Input Methods. Open that, and put a check mark in the box for US International Keyboard. As soon as you do, you will see a new indicator on the bottom tray (called the Shelf in Chromebook) that says US. Then click the Back button to go to the Input Methods area, and you will now see two keyboards. Click the one you want enabled. If you select the US International Keyboard, the indicator on the bottom tray will now read INTL instead of US. Then click the button for “Show input options on the shelf”. That will turn the indicator on the shelf into a clickable button marked IN (for Input) that lets you select your keyboard.

So, I now have the International keyboard installed on all of my computers, and that is a good thing. It should help me with my learning of Spanish.

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Spanish Tools, Continued

In the previous post I looked at smartphone apps and Web sites that have helped me learning Spanish. Now I want to mention some YouTube channels and Podcasts that I have used.

YouTube Channels

All Language Resources

Channel Address: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3iaeeUxWOgUXFK6kfIp_Ig

This might be a good place to start since it is pretty much a review site for the various tools that are available. Like all review sites, it is people’s personal opinions, so it takes a little time to figure out how reliable they are. I’d try a few of the free resources they recommend and see if you also like them before I would spend money on a paid site just because it came recommended. They also have a blog for their Spanish reviews at https://www.alllanguageresources.com/spanish/. Of course, they cover many languages, not just Spanish.

¿Qué Hora Es? Spanish For Beginners (Season 1)

Channel Address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyLl_0d0EBw&list=PLTpetkN815Qyuc2RbC1kxxMQvxjQ3RnYG

This is a television program produced by AIB network, which appears to be based in Georgia in the United States. It is presented as a classroom-style series of lessons, with the instructor, Dr. Danny Evans, writing on a white board as he presents to material. I find this to be a very valuable addition to the other tools I use because it provides the more systematic background to the grammar of Spanish that is not so easily grasped from the smartphone apps. Lessons run 15-20 minutes each, and I try to do one every day. Of course, as a YouTube channel I can repeat a lesson, and I have on occasion taken the same lesson two days in a row just to help cement my understanding. At the end of each lesson is a brief bit of culture information as well.

Culture Alley Spanish

Channel Address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWEXFfqwh7w&list=PL80Flen6gkH_9j4OxsDucs9mbKjl5ccvU

Culture Alley is a YouTube channel offering free language instruction in several languages, Spanish being one of them. The language courses are offered in a PowerPoint style as a series of slides with a voice-over. They are well done, and like the ¿Qué Hora Es? channel above offer a systematic look at grammar which supplements the more flashcard-oriented approaches of many of the smartphone apps. Lessons are 15-20 minutes long, and there is a little bit of culture at the end.

Daily Practice

The key to learning anything is daily practice, so my approach is to set aside some time every day to work on my Spanish. My daily schedule for this starts with the smartphone apps I mentioned in the previous posts, which will take me about 15-20 minutes. I get a daily nag on my phone for those, so I start there. Then I go to the YouTube channels above, which will take me 30-40 minutes to hit both ¿Qué Hora Es? and Culture Alley. On some days that is all I do, and it ends up being about an hour. But if I am not pressed for time I will hit a few of the Web sites I mentioned in my previous posts. I find I look forward to my daily session and that after about 3-4 weeks of work it is starting to sink in. If I keep it up for a few years I should be able to survive a trip to Mexico.

Podcasts

I listen to a lot of podcasts in general, so it was natural for me to add Spanish language podcasts. But they are not part of my daily cycle. The way I listen to podcasts is driving in a car, or working around the house. If you are going to be washing dishes or mowing the lawn, why not listen to podcasts while you do these things so the time is more productive? I also like to walk for exercise, and listening to podcasts while doing that just makes sense. So while these are not in my daily routine exactly, they are a nice supplement. Now a note on getting these podcasts : Many of them do not have an RSS feed. I got a lot of them through iTunes, which I do have installed on my one Windows machine.

Coffee Break Spanish

Web site: https://radiolingua.com/category/coffee-break-spanish/

Reviews

This is one you will hear mentioned by a lot of reviewers, and it is a good one. Short episodes of 15-20 mins. are conversational, and you get to hear words and phrases and repeat them. I think the name of the podcast is that the episodes are short enough that you do one on your coffee break, if that is a custom where you live. The host, Mark, is a Scottish man who is also the founder and CEO of the Coffee Break series. Seasons are set in levels that go from beginner (Season 1) to more advanced (Season 4). Advanced is all relative, of course, so it probably is more accurate to say it gets to maybe high Intermediate. This is also available through the Google Play store. They also have a YouTube channel.

DuoLingo Podcast

Web site: https://podcast.duolingo.com/spanish

Reviews

This podcast is a bit different from the others. It presents stories narrated by native speakers in different countries. So it is in Spanish, but they do speak more slowly than normal speech. And there is an English narrator who intercuts some material that helps explain what is going on. The idea is that you may pick up some words and phrases in the Spanish narration, then the English part helps you stay on track and confirm what you heard. They are putting out one episode a week of around 25 minutes. The first one, for example is narrated by a reporter in Mexico about his favorite fútbol star, and how he met and became friends with him.

From a Zero to a Hero

Web site: https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/babbels-spanish-podcasts

Reviews

This is an introductory level Spanish podcast from Babbel with a student, Catriona, who is Scottish, and her teacher Hector, who is Spanish. This is very beginner-oriented, so I would recommend this for anyone starting out who does not know any Spanish (which describes me!) Babbel also has an higher level podcast for when I get to that level. Also, while I have purchased a subscription to Babbel, this podcast is free. I think it serves as marketing for their product.

Spanishpod101

Web Site: https://www.spanishpod101.com/helpcenter/getstarted/itunesfeeds

Reviews

When you read the reviews you will see a certain common view, which is that the content is good but the marketing is annoying. And I think that is a fair assessment. I think I get more out of accessing this content directly on the Web site than as a podcast because I can download transcripts and read along as I listen to the audio

Notes in Spanish

Web Site: https://www.notesinspanish.com/

Reviews

This is actually three separate collections, for Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced. It is presented by a husband and wife team where the husband (Ben) is British, and the wife Marina is from Madrid. The focus is on peninsular Spanish and culture, and it works well as a podcast.

News in Slow Spanish

Web Site: https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/

Reviews

I mention this only because I see it praised in so many places. It is really aimed at the Intermediate or above student, so I am not quite ready for that as yet. I did note that they have two different series for Intermediate, one that focuses on Spain, the other on Latin America. I’m definitely going to be getting this when I am ready for it.

Summary

The first thing I want to repeat is that I am not claiming that these are the best tools available, or that you are guaranteed to learn with them. As a former teacher I know that the student matters more than the instruction. I aim to put in 1 hour every day using these tools, and I know that if I keep showing up I will make progress.

Second, many of these places have a podcast, plus a Web site, plus a YouTube channel, and so on. If you want to learn a language find the tools that work for you. I watch a lot of YouTube, listen to a bunch of podcasts, always have my smartphone handy, and have a web browser open in front of me pretty much 24×7, so I have picked tools that work for me. A lot of these tools are available for free, but I find the ones that I pay for tend to push me a bit harder. You decide what works for you.

Finally, there are lots of languages, and at least for all of the major ones there are similar sites, often from the same companies I mentioned here. I have seen other European languages, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and so on. I had my reasons for picking Spanish, but I think it is a good idea to learn another language in general.

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¡I’m Learning Spanish!

As long as I have to stay in all of the time In the Year of the Plague, why not do something productive, like learn a language? I decided to do just that, and since there is a whole lot of Latin America that I have not seen (I have spent one day in Mexico), I thought I should learn Spanish so that I could talk to people when I can resume tourism. I am trying to spend one hour each day on this, and I have found some tools that I like and find helpful. Some are free, some are paid for, and some have a free level and a paid level. For those latter, I can use them at the free level until I know whether I would spend the money. The tools come in four forms:

Smartphone apps
Web sites
YouTube Channels
Podcasts

Now, in many cases they overlap, like a web site or smartphone app that also has a podcast, but here is what I have been using. Please note that I am not saying these are the best, just that they are ones I found and use. So your mileage may vary here.

A note on dialects and pronunciation: Spanish is spoken in a large part of the world, but spoken somewhat differently in different countries. Latin American Spanish is different from what is spoken in Spain, and different countries in Latin America may speak slightly differently. I am mostly looking to learn Spanish as it is spoken in Mexico. This is just something you need to be aware of when studying, since some learning tools may use the Spanish of Spain, and others the Spanish of Latin America.

Smartphone apps

I have an Android phone so these are apps from the Android App store, but I would be very surprised if at least most of them are not also on the iPhone app store.

Babbel

Web site: https://www.babbel.com/

Reviews

Babbel is a program I paid for, and they offer subscriptions from monthly up to annual, with annual being the most affordable at $83.40, though you can get discounts if you look around for places where they advertise. I actually paid 22.15 for a 6 month subscription using a link from SciShow, where Babbel advertises. I plan to renew for a full year in January since I like what I am getting.

To see what you get included, go to https://support.babbel.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037580132 for a breakdown.

Now to my personal take: For me Babbel works well. I get nagged every day, which you might not like, but for me it gets me on to the next lesson very regularly. Each lesson does not take all that long, but it combines vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling, and sentences. For the spelling part, they have a keyboard that you can hold down letters to get special characters like the tilde-n (enya) and the accents in vowels. This is usually the first thing I do in my hour of Spanish every day.

Duolingo

Web site: https://www.duolingo.com/

This app can be used for free if you receive ads, but in my case I used a free trial period for a few weeks, then signed up for one year to Duolingo Plus for 83.99. This was Apple’s 2013 App of the Year.

Reviews:

This as a very gamified app gives you a lot of cheer-leading encouragement. That may or may not be to your taste, but I don’t object to it. As with Babbel, I get daily nags that it is time for a lesson, and as with Babbel, I like that. As Woody Allen said, 90% of success is just showing up, and if I do that every day I will learn the language.

Memrise

Web site: https://www.memrise.com/apps/

This app uses the “Freemium” model just like Duolingo. There is good content for free, but you can get a premium subscription. Right now I am using the paid version, for which I got introductory offer of $44.99 for one year, with renewals at $89.99 per year, which I can cancel at any time.

Reviews

This is more of a flashcard app to help you memorize words and phrases. The interesting wrinkle here is that it is mostly crowd-sourced. This is the third of my daily apps, and like the others it gives me daily nags to take another lesson.

Spanishpod.101

This app is paired with a Web site, and I actually find the Web site more useful. Another Freemium model here, I did try the basic subscription (lowest paid level) at $72 for two years, which on an annual basis is less than the others.

Web site: https://www.spanishpod101.com/

Reviews

This app focuses on the spoken language, and while it has some uses, as I said I tend to use the Web site more. The main downside is that they relentlessly try to upsell you. Right now I am more inclined to not renew in two years, but maybe I’ll change my mind. Having an app on my phone means I can get in a quick lesson anywhere at any time.

Spanish Words Learn Español

This is a free app on Google Play, which focuses on audio flashcards. There aren’t the bells and whistles of Babbel or Duolingo, but then you don’t have to pay for it, and that counts for something. It first shows you a list of words, then drills you to see if you remember what you learned, sometimes by spelling out the Spanish equivalent to an English word, or by selecting the English equivalent from a group of 4 when given the Spanish word.

SpeakTribe Spanish

Web site: https://www.speaktribe.com/

This is another free app I downloaded from Google Play Store, and it is one of the ones I tend to check out every day.

Reviews

This is another gamified system where you accumulate points needed to move to the next level. There are 5 levels, and each one has lessons that combine written and spoken Spanish

Learn Spanish Offline

This is an ad-supported app, so expect a pre-roll ad every time you open it. It is, however, free, so that’s the trade-off here.

Reviews

You get lists of words, phrases, and sentences in various categories (e.g. Greetings, General Conversation, Numbers, Time and Date). On each list just click on a word or phrase in English, and hear the translated Spanish equivalent. Useful as a supplement to other tools, but not sufficient by itself since it won’t cover any of the grammar, for instance.

Web Sites

Right now there are two Web sites I tend to check in to every day.

Spanishpod101

Web site: https://www.spanishpod101.com/

Reviews

See above for reviews

As I mentioned above, I also have the Android app, but I prefer what I find on the Web site. It is well designed, with short lessons that start by giving you some vocabulary which you can click on to hear in Spanish, then there is a downloadable “Lesson Notes” that that discuss some aspects of grammar and some cultural insights. Then there is dialogue which you can download in MP3 format and a downloadable transcript. I tend to download both and play the dialogue while reading along with the transcript. You can also sign up to get a daily e-mail for the Word of the Day, which will take you to a page where you can hear the word spoken both by itself and as part of a few sentences. The main downside is what I mentioned before, the relentless upsell you get. I receive an e-mail at least every other day urging me to upgrade my subscription. Right now I am inclined to not renew when my subscription runs out, but I have 2 years to think about it.

Spanish Obsessed

Web site: https://spanishobsessed.com

This is also a great podcast, but a number of these tools cross over different media.

Reviews

So you could just download the MP3 files and listen to them on your MP3 player like any other podcast, and in fact I do that as well. But the reason I like to go to the Web site is that I can read along with them as the audio plays. Like many other learning Spanish podcasts, this combines a native English speaker with a native Spanish speaker. You can also download both the MP3 file and the transcript from the Web site.

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YouTube Video Subscriptions

I recently had a conversation with Ken Fallon of Hacker Public Radio that resulted in me offering to discuss my YouTube video subscriptions. And since that is a good topic for Palain.com, I thought I would start here.

Although my wife and I have a Cable TV subscription, I have maintained I could give it up easily because so much of what I am interested in is online anyway. For many people that might mean Netflix or Hulu, but for me it means YouTube. This is the golden age of narrow-casting, as opposed to broadcasting, because YouTube gives so many creators the opportunity to find their own audience for things that don’t appeal to the masses. A television show needs to reach millions of people to be economically viable to advertisers who pay all of the production costs, but with the rise of services like Patreon a video series can be viable with just a few thousand viewers as long as they are willing to pay a small amount (often as little as $1 per month or per video) to support the creators. For less money than the salary of one Hollywood star, you can have an entire ecosystem of interesting videos. The ones I like might not appeal to you, of course, but that is the point. A thousand flowers can bloom in this environment.

Patreon

Patreon ( https://www.patreon.com/ ) is a subscription site that lets you pledge to support creators of content. You give them a credit card they can charge, and then make your pledges. You can pledge in a variety of ways, but for these videos I typically pledge either per month or per video. At the end of the month my credit card is charged, and Patreon sends me an itemized statement of what I have paid for. Now, none of these is behind a pay wall, so you could free ride, but I’m sure no one I know would do that. If I subscribe to a series I am willing to pay for it if they ask (some of them are advertising supported).

YouTube Subscriptions

When a video series is on YouTube you will see a button under the video that says “Subscribe”. Right now that does not do a whole lot other than build the stats for the creator, but for advertising-supported series that is a good thing. But one thing it does let you do is sign up to get an e-mail when a new episode is released. To activate this feature, log in to YouTube with your Google account, and on the left side go all the way down to the bottom and you will see a button to Manage Subscriptions. Click on that, and you will see that you can put a check-mark to get e-mail updates for any subscription. I like to do that, and put the e-mails in a folder in my Gmail. I can then delete the e-mail when I have watched the video.

Vlog Brothers

The brothers Hank and John Green have created a pretty good collection of videos. They started, as far as I can tell, by sending videos back and forth to each other (Vlog Brothers), and that continues. But then they got serious and created a convention called Vidcon (http://vidcon.com/) that showcases many of the video series creators and their work. YouTube then got the idea to promote an expansion of videos and provided money to support new work from folks like them. This lead to a group of videos under the heading Crash Course (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Course_%28YouTube%29), which is not one series but a collection of them. The first ones were World History and Biology, and then they added American history, Literature, Ecology, Chemistry, Psychology, and so on. They also have a series of science-related videos under the general heading of SciShow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciShow). When the YouTube seed money ended, they switched to a crowd-funding model, and are currently on Patreon. They also partner with PBS Online for some of their series.

My favorite show from this group is Healthcare Triage. A doctor gives straight analysis based on actual studies, and explains which studies are more reliable and why. I guess I am a bit of a data geek, but that appeals to me. Plus, I have worked for a few hospitals in my career, and previously taught a little about healthcare economics.

Brady Haran

Brady Haran is a video producer originally from Australia who went to the UK, worked for the BBC for a period, and then decided to become independent. He has a fascinating group of video series that a lot of geeks would like:

Computerphile – about the history and underlying technology of computers. If you ever wanted to know about flip-flops, nand gates, and Acorn computers, this show has covered all of them.
Deep Sky Videos – All about astronomy, including a detailed look at the telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Paranal, Chile.
Numberphile – All about mathematics, and the unusual numbers that pop up. What is the largest number described? They covered it.
Objectivity – A look at objects from the history of science, and in particular the collection of the Royal Society in England.
Periodic Videos – An award-winning series on Chemistry, demonstrating some fun experiments. Sir Martyn Poliakoff is the host.
Sixty Symbols – The world of advanced physics, this covers everything from Quantum Mechanics to Relativity to String Theory

Miscellaneous

In addition to the two big producers I looked at above, there are a lot of YouTube series that I love from the smaller producers. Here are some of them:

Alton Brown – First made famous as host and creator of Good Eats on the Food Network, Alton is known for scientific approach to cooking and food.
BBC Earth Unplugged – Science videos from the BBC
BrainCraft – The science of the brain, produced by PBS Digital
BrainStuff – How Stuff Works – How Stuff Works is another place that produces a number of video series, this one is science-related.
Candyrat Records – This label specializes in guitar music, and a number of my favorite people record for them. They very sensibly publish videos on YouTube to promote their artists, and I have purchased a number of CDs as a result.
Dan Carlin – Host of Hardcore History and Common Sense, two of the audio podcasts I subscribe to. On this channel is the occasional video.
FW Thinking – Mostly about the future and how it will be different.
How Stuff Works – More of a general knowledge show.
It’s OK To Be Smart – Another science show from PBS Digital.
Kurz Gezagt – One video a month on a science-related topic.
Mental Floss – Trivia!
Minute Earth and Minute Physics – Short science videos.
NASAeClips – Videos from NASA.
nature video – Science videos from nature magazine.
Physics Girl – Exploring physics with interesting experiments.
Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD Comics) – Science videos.
Science News – Science videos from Science News magazine
SpaceFrontierOrg – Occasional videos on space-related topics.
Takei’s Take – Yes, George Takei has a video channel. What’s not to love?
TheFrugalComputerGuy – How-to videos that are very good.
Veritasium – Another science-related series.
Vsauce – A quirky look at a number of odd topics. Hard to describe really.
Welcome to Night Vale – A video channel to go along with the audio podcast that everyone in the world should be listening to.

So it is obvious that I subscribe to a lot of science-related channels, but that is what I enjoy. With all of my subscriptions, I probably average 6-7 new videos per day that show up in my mailbox. But with so much content now available on YouTube the chances are that you will find lots of things you like, so give it a try.

Listen to the audio version of this post on Hacker Public Radio!

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