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Magic, puzzles & curiosities: videos Hacker News recommends
Curiosities: magic tricks, illusions, street performance, optical illusions, strange talents, Rube Goldberg machines, record attempts, oddities, mind-bending demos. Below: every video in this topic that at least three HN users linked with real commentary, in at least three different months (22 demos, 3 music videos, 3 comedy videos), best-scored first, with the comments on each video page.
- Stand-up & sketch comedy 244
- Satire & parody 362
- Music performance & songs 239
- Music theory, synthesis & production 103
- Film & TV clips 310
- Film analysis & criticism 39
- Documentaries & storytelling 202
- Literature & writing craft 43
- Visual arts, photography & architecture 42
- Sports & athletics 38
- Arts & entertainment (other) 75
- 8 HN recommenders 8 months 2015–2024HN commenters love Cliff Stoll's earnest, playful personality and point to this as a delightful look at his unusual warehouse.
- 5 HN recommenders 5 months 2023–2025D dani daortiz · demoHN commenters repeatedly call it among the best magic performances ever, valuing it as acting and craft that stays impressive even once you know the method.
- 5 HN recommenders 5 months 2010–2026HN points to it as an example of ambitious, practical-effects creativity in music videos, made without CGI.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2015–2022L larsandersen23 · demoRecommended as an entertaining example of rediscovered lost skills, though some commenters note it is contested.
- 5 HN recommenders 3 months 2021–2022HN points to it in lock-security threads as a good example of engineering meeting real-world exploitation, where flaws unrelated to the headline mechanism get found.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2013–2024L LovelyVirus · demoIt is the classic demo HN people point to for showing positional 3D audio working on ordinary headphones.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2013–2017S ScepticaTV · documentaryHN cites it as the classic demonstration of survivorship and confirmation bias in betting, trading and prediction claims.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2026N National Museum of Mathematics · lectureHN recommends it as an entertaining way to learn math through juggling.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2025K Kostya Kimlat · demoHN recommends it as a trick admired for both its method and its effect.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2011–2025D Daniel Simons · demoHN uses it constantly as the classic demonstration that attention is selective, in threads on driving, motorcycles, AI and perception.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2023T theeloved1 · demoHN people share it as a classic example of sleight-of-hand mastery whose ending is mind-blowing.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2010–2023T TheMcphearson · demoHN recommends it as the canonical talking-piano example, uncanny and impressive once you read the captions.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2022–2024Offered as a satisfying example of fighting back against scam call centers.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2025K kunc · commentaryHN commenters recommend it as one of the best short clips on YouTube for illustrating Balkan versus Central European identity.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2013–2021A AlgoRythmics · demoHN recommends it as a memorable and fun way to visualize how sorting algorithms work.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2025A Arthur Ganson · demoShared whenever gear reductions, exponential scaling or playful kinetic art come up.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2011–2020HN uses it as the standard demonstration that the brain reinterprets perception, in threads on speech, AI audio and illusions.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2018–2025W Wintergatan · music videoHN treats it as the canonical example of a Rube Goldberg style musical instrument and a work of love, and references it in threads on unconventional instruments and machines.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2013–2026Recommended as an example of inventive, physical-effects music video making, with the car as an instrument.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2016–2024Cited for its well-known attempt to convey the size of 52 factorial.
- 1 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2023T Toao.net · comedy videoHN mentions it as an example of Lenny, the telemarketer time-waster, and of how a canned script can fool callers for a long time.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2021–2025S sixesfullofnines · demoRecommended as a quick demo of vision overriding hearing, and cited as an example of perception producing confident wrong answers.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2018–2024M Mystery History · demoHN cites it as a hands-on demonstration that one person with simple tools can move huge stones, undercutting arguments that ancient construction needed lost technology.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2016–2022T theo jansen · demoHN links it in Strandbeest threads as a showcase of the eerily smooth, wind-driven walking creatures.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2011–2024W WebRidesTV · videoCited as an ad worth enjoying and as an example of practical effects so good they were mistaken for CGI.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2019–2022D Derren Brown · demoHN cites it as a neat, simple trick of relaying moves between opponents, often in discussions of chess, AI or ludic fallacies.
- cited 4× 0 months 2023–2025Used as an example of how easy homing and guidance have become, resembling precision-guided munitions.
- cited 3× 0 months 2020–2022J J_II · demoHN uses it as the reference example of the illusion and as a metaphor for endless escalation.
- cited 3× 0 months 2015–2022G Gary Connery · demoCited as an example of how padding can allow survival of very high-speed impacts.
- cited 3× 0 months 2016–2023G gravylookout · demoHN uses it as the go-to example of an astonishingly perfect hand-drawn circle.
- cited 3× 0 months 2017–2024C catvorg · comedy videoIt is passed around as a favorite bit of computing folklore, and resurfaces in threads about Penzias, Ritchie and Pike.
- cited 3× 0 months 2009–2014M Mike Helton · demoCited as a favorite flying oddity and as a joke about projects that get airborne through sheer thrust.
- cited 3× 0 months 2018–2023M Mike Boyd · demoUsed as a reference when discussing inverted-steering analogies and how hard it is to rewire a learned skill.
- cited 3× 0 months 2016–2021J jessieawebb · comedy videoShared as a darkly funny moment of televised schadenfreude in threads about early audio formats and cylinder archives.
Questions
What is the most recommended magic, puzzles & curiosities video on Hacker News?
The man with 1,000 Klein Bottles UNDER his house - Numberphile by Numberphile: HN commenters love Cliff Stoll's earnest, playful personality and point to this as a delightful look at his unusual warehouse.
How is this magic, puzzles & curiosities list ranked?
By HackerTube's score: the number of distinct months in which an HN comment recommended the video, plus half a point for every month with a strong recommendation. One viral thread counts less than steady recommendations over years.
Where do the videos come from?
From every Hacker News comment between 2007 and 2026 that linked a YouTube video, labeled by an AI model as a recommendation, a citation, a joke or a criticism. The list is published by HackerTube under ODC-By 1.0; this edition adds indexable pages and the comment context.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.