useful links

YouTube Channels I like

I have a list of YouTube channels that I follow and watch regularly.

  1. Minute Earth

This is a YouTube channel made by some amazing people who explain some of the things that I find interesting, for example--Why do some waves get so big, or Why some animals eat their babies or the Battle of the Sexes. These short videos satisfy my curiosity.

  1. Practical Engineering

This channel explains concepts behind some of the everyday engineering structures we encounter. For example, you can watch this video to understand what led to the Obstruction of the Suez Canal in early 2021.

  1. kurzgesagt

This is my go-to channel for things that I wouldn't think of on my own, such as Optimistic Nihilism. My favourite is on black holes and how we could harvest incredible amounts of energy from the sun

  1. Foil, Arms and Hog

For when I want to laugh and be entertained. Foil, Arms and Hog post videos every Thursday.

I took this photo when I visited Robben Island in Cape Town, South Africa (2017).

Sites/tools I find useful for my work

  1. Draw.io

This is an online tool that I use for mind mapping or drawing graphics. It is very simple, can be run from your browser and lets you do much more with so little technical difficulties. I do most of my graphics here, and they are some of my best works.

  1. GDAM

I discovered this site when I was writing up my thesis. It has maps, at different levels (e.g. global, national, sub-national etc), which I use when writing up empirical work. You can extract a map with 'local boundaries' and use it somewhere else. It also lets you extract shape files. I haven't mastered the use of the shape files from here though.

  1. Endnote

I love endnote. For those who don't know, endnote is a reference manager. I first used it in my first year of my PhD (paid for it myself, cost me an arm and a leg) but have kept using it since. Luckily, Universities provide licences to their staff, so I haven't had to renew my licence over the past two years. I recommend anyone doing research to commit to a reference manager. It will save you lots of pains.