A house in chainmail, and flying a plane while blindfolded.

7th February 2022

Heads up! This newsletter is more than two years old. Links may be out of date or lead to unexpected places, or the context may have changed. Please handle with care.

Hello!

In this week's video, I head inside the giant chainmail box that stops a house dissolving. And over on Tom Scott plus, the best video title I've had in a long while: she's blind. I'm blindfolded. We're going to fly a plane.

I also had a lot of fun on an escape room podcast this week! David Bodycombe and I appeared on Escape This Podcast, where we tried to solve a mystery on a farm. This was an absolute joy to record, and the final product is worth a listen.

Elsewhere in the world of video this week:

Why are TV cameras still huge and expensive? is a wonderfully-produced video that thoroughly and entertainingly answers its question.
Rohin Francis, who's made a couple of appearances on Plus lately, gets to scan his own heart in zero gravity.
Jay Foreman's Unfinished London is back! I'm sure most folks reading this have already seen What happened to Old London Bridge? but if not: you absolutely should.
Canon in D, but with a key change. Short, brilliant.
I haven't seen proper, filmed-at-60fps movie footage before, and this clip from Gemini Man shows how strange high frame rate footage can look. To me, it feels like I'm watching a TV manufacturer's demo tape in a shop, and it confirms that when I switched back to regular frame rates for my video last year, it was absolutely the right call.

And away from video:

Lots of people have told the story of the ill-fated American Airlines "unlimited lifetime first class travel pass": it's been well-covered over the years. (Here's a primer, just in case.) But until this week, I'd never read this first-person account from the daughter of someone who had one of those magic tickets. I can see people having a lot of different reactions to this: anywhere from sympathy, to envy, even to disgust.
The surreal Metro of Charleroi is a deep-dive into a 1970s metro system that its town probably didn't need, along with photos of incredible Brutalist stations.
A wonderful survey of Italian food crimes, and how other nations are just fine with things like ketchup on pasta. Scroll down for a brilliant chart.
And finally, I could just link you to the video, but honestly, the story of the New Zealand parrot who stole a GoPro and flew away with it is worth reading.

Wow, that feels like a lot of links this week. Hopefully this is still useful and entertaining for folks reading it: I'm still enjoying writing it!

All the best,

— Tom

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