Four whole new things! And also a dangerous kayak.

12th December 2022

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Hello!

There are four things from me in this week's newsletter and I am definitely doing too much but here we go:

This week's main video has the best title I've done in a long time: the US government is giving out free wasps!
On plus: Who's faster driving around London: a taxi driver or me taking directions from my phone?
Over on the Technical Difficulties, I take a walk up a hill. (It's a really angry hill.)
And there's a new episode of Lateral on all podcast players, as Corry Will, Luke Cutforth and Jade Tan-Holmes face questions about mysterious medicines, calamitous currency and dodgy dealings.

Blimey, that's a lot. So what else is going on in the world of video?

Someone has finally made a definitive video on power grid black starts! And of course, it's Grady at Practical Engineering. Who else?
The Tim Traveller continues his great series taking people along to lesser-known sights in Europe: this time, it's the world's greatest filing cabinet.
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board makes in-depth CG reconstructions of major incidents: their latest one, "Ignored Warnings", is a good example of how to do professional outreach about complicated subjects. Many of their videos are worth watching.
On the German show "Wetten, dass..?" (which was known in the UK as "You Bet!", a man bets that he can identify any "Spiel des Jahres"-winning board game by the sound of the pieces being poured out. The games are chosen by British pop star Robbie Williams, who looks awkwardly out-of-place throughout.
Off the back of last week's terrifying waterslide, here's one that's just bizarre: a wind-powered waterslide!
A great callout video about Oru Kayak's irresponsible advertising: something that's obvious in hindsight but which I'd never thought about before.

And what else have I found while researching? Well:

A French man has won the right not to be 'fun' at work. This is one of those stories that was covered only in trivial detail by a lot of sources: the devil's in the details.
The BBC tech team write about their work with low-latency streaming.
AT&T has secret facilities simply referred to as "Project Offices". They're probably nuclear bunkers? I've no idea how I've never heard about this before.

And finally, Hans-Henrik Suersaq invents a Greenlandic tongue-twister.

That's it! That's the first of two four-project weeks done. I'm continuing to be on the road, but next week, I've got a correction to make...

All the best,

— Tom

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