Electrified water, and a painful experience with hot sauce.
22nd August 2022
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Hello!
In this week's video, perhaps the best "question you didn't know you wanted answered" title I've had in a while: why the US Army electrifies this water. And over on Plus, Gav from the Slow Mo Guys and I try all the Hot Ones sauces. I'm sorry, Gav.
In this week's video, perhaps the best "question you didn't know you wanted answered" title I've had in a while: why the US Army electrifies this water. And over on Plus, Gav from the Slow Mo Guys and I try all the Hot Ones sauces. I'm sorry, Gav.
Elsewhere on YouTube this week, I've found:
- Okay, asks Bernadette Banner, but how did the
Edwardians wash those dresses? (Incredible thumbnail game here, which won't show in this newsletter: her with a sheepish face; a large metal pot; and from an old book, the phrase "a half pint of gasoline".)
- I'd never heard of the
Great Daylight 1972 Fireball, one of the greatest Earth-grazing asteroids of modern times, caught on camera from multiple locations.
- RobWords re-ranks the military based on what the words actually mean. (Full disclosure: I
knew Rob back at university! But he has no idea I've even seen his channel, and I'm including it here because it's really good. He's nailed 'how to make language interesting'.)
- Evidence that "roller coaster nerd" is a subset of "transport nerd": a technical overview of someone's dream senior design project: a model roller coaster with the same control system that full-scale ones use.
- By now, I'm sure everyone will have seen CGP Grey's almost-fractal video on runway digits, but if you haven't: it's worth the time. This takes a single fact and then goes into so much depth that it almost hits the mantle.
And around the rest of the internet:
- Scandal in the world of vinyl records: turns out some "straight from analog tape" vinyl pressings had a digital step all along. (And, of course, none of the audiophiles who despise digital noticed.)
- The last phone boxes. Old payphones still exist in the UK, in some remote areas and train stations, and this is a great long-read about them.
- From 2003, an incredible cost-benefit analysis on requiring seat belts or special chairs for young children in planes, that shows just how counterintuitive (and how bleak) the calculus of safety regulation can be.
And finally, you know those systems that automatically stop shopping carts from leaving a parking lot? Well, at a wonderfully-named URL, now you can lock and unlock shopping carts too, using stray EMF from your phone's speaker. (Disclaimer: I haven't checked this works, and you probably shouldn't either.)
Next week: a video that left me, quite literally, shaken.
All the best,
— Tom
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