I found a noise that helps catch criminals, and ate some toast.

20th December 2021

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Hello!

This week, the hidden background noise that helps catch criminals. It was difficult to find visuals for this one, but drone shots always help!

While researching (and while slacking off) this week, I've also been watching:

Why New York's Billionaires Row is Half-Empty is a good half-hour piece by The B1M that also perfectly illustrates the concept of "right to reply", which a lot of YouTube creators likely don't know about. If you're going to make a video that's critical of a company, the right thing to do in most cases is reach out to their press department well before publishing. If you've made a mistake, you'll find out: great! But if you're in the right, you'll probably get to use a line saying they "did not reply to our requests", which can sound damning.
Dr. Nemo climbs inside a blue whale. A really interesting approach to science-communication here: a live-action piece-to-camera, on location, also interacting with animation. It's clever and must take ages to produce.
Putting a 1000N rocket motor under a Christmas tree and creating a "flight-proven Christmas tree" is just a joyful project. From either of two perspectives, from the folks who collaborated on it: Xyla Foxlin or BPS.space!
I had a cameo at Korean Englishman's street toast restaurant! Yep, I'm in this one, and as a bonus I now know what my name looks like in Hangul.

Other interesting links I've found this week:

Jon Worth finds the longest train journey in the world: because someone was wrong on the internet, and so he spent a long, long time correcting it. It's got a 20-point table of contents. Buckle up.
This is the first I've heard of the "TikTok couch guy", but his summary, "here's what it was like being investigated on the internet" is terrifying. And related: a teenager on TikTok disrupted thousands of scientific studies with a single video. When videos are intended for hundreds of people but reach millions, things get weird very quickly.
A story that I found fascinating because it's from a world close to mine, but so far away: the longest away trip. Don't worry that it's about soccer; it could be about fans of anything, and it's an interesting portrait.
And finally, I'd recommend reading the whole thread and the linked paper, but as a short summary: you can feel the results of this problem in your soul.

Have a lovely Christmas, everyone!

All the best,

— Tom

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