explainer · HACKER NEWS RECOMMENDATION
How a transistor works
Ben Eater · 4 HN recommenders · 4 recommendation months
Recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 4 months (2020–2023).
SignalTube analysis
Among 28 other explainer videos tagged Electronics & circuit design, the mean is 2.6 distinct HN recommenders. This video has 4 distinct HN recommenders, about 1.5× that mean. Recommendations span 4 distinct months; the peer average is 2.4 months. This is a data-derived comparison, not a human review or quality rating.
100% of its 4 labeled comments are marked as recommendations or strong recommendations. HN mention years are 2020–2023; those years describe discussion history, not upload date. Its verified runtime is 11 minutes 23 seconds. YouTube lists its publication date as 2015-03-20.
- Channel / speaker
- Ben Eater
- Verified runtime
- 11m 23s
- YouTube upload date
- 2015-03-20
- Hacker News mention years
- 2020–2023
SAME TOPIC AND FORMAT
Compare with related videos
The comparison cohort uses other explainer videos in Electronics & circuit design. “Shared recommenders” counts HN users who recommended both videos in the source graph.
| Video | HN recommenders | Recommendation months | Positive label share | Shared recommenders | Runtime | Upload date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How a transistor worksCurrent video | 4 | 4 | 100% | — | 11m 23s | 2015-03-20 |
| Old pinball machines are amazingly complexexplainer · Technology Connections | 6 | 6 | 55% | No recorded overlap | 50m 9s | 2023-10-14 |
| A Look Inside Apple's $130 USB-C Cableexplainer · Adam Savage’s Tested | 6 | 5 | 75% | No recorded overlap | 21m 52s | 2023-10-25 |
| Watch electricity hit a fork in the road at half a billion frames per secondexplainer · AlphaPhoenix | 5 | 5 | 67% | No recorded overlap | 26m 29s | 2023-12-06 |
THREE SOURCE-BASED CONTEXT POINTS
Why Hacker News recommends it
Each note combines the dataset’s stance label and short rationale; comment bodies are not reproduced. Open the HN source for the original discussion.
The archive classifies this as a recommendation in “From Nand to Tetris (2017)”. Its short rationale: Starting point for building up from transistors to gates and CPU.
The archive classifies this as a recommendation in “How do transistors work, anyway?”. Its short rationale: Interesting, enlightening transistor explanation for non-engineers.
The archive classifies this as a recommendation in “How Transistors Work [video]”. Its short rationale: Preferred explanation of how transistors work.