A tiny hovercraft, the history of pie throwing, and more bird news.
10th April 2023
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Hello!
It's the last video from Japan this week! Join me as I track down the tiny hovercraft that went viral, meet the inventor, and have a go at flying it myself.
And over on Lateral, Xyla Foxlin, Jordan Harrod and Becky Stern face questions about cheapo chicken, problematic passwords and bountiful bananas. This episode was a joy to film, and hopefully that comes across in the finished show!
It's the last video from Japan this week! Join me as I track down the tiny hovercraft that went viral, meet the inventor, and have a go at flying it myself.
And over on Lateral, Xyla Foxlin, Jordan Harrod and Becky Stern face questions about cheapo chicken, problematic passwords and bountiful bananas. This episode was a joy to film, and hopefully that comes across in the finished show!
What else have I found on YouTube this week?
- I never
made it to film SOFIA, NASA's flying observatory, before it retired. But Active Galactic, who made a guest video for my channel a few years back, have made a better video than I ever could about SOFIA: talking about its achievements, and whether "observatory on board a 747" was actually a good idea.
- I've discovered "Like A Version", Australian radio station Triple J's series of covers. Teenage Dads' faithful cover of the Video Killed The Radio Star; Sofi Tukker's beautiful duet of Chasing Cars, adding synth melodies to produce what almost feels like a whole new song; Tove Lo's emotional, acoustic piano cover of Dancing On My Own. There's a long, long history of
covers here, and there's a lot worth listening to.
- Joel Creates makes a Nerf dart that fires itself, which is exactly the right kind of ridiculous to just stay on the "monetised" side of YouTube.
Other interesting links I've found this week:
- Remember the ridiculous 200-foot "railway" that existed purely to exploit a legal loophole? Well, alas, the story is over: it's been dismantled, although the operator did manage to avoid $350 million in fines.
- I'm sharing this next one with the caveat that this is a pre-print paper, and so you should treat it with the skepticism of
"random blog post with good references" rather than an actual scientific paper: but it turns out a common factor of many people who live to an extremely long age is "being born in a place with poor records management", or "being born on the first of the month". Or in other words: sometimes, it might be pension fraud.
- I've been enjoying Doug Mack's Snack Stack, a blog about the history of snack foods around the world: maybe start with pizza rolls and the meaning of midcentury food, or this wonderfully-researched piece on the history of pie throwing.
- How tiny, cheap smart speakers unlocked the rise of digital payments in India: a clever bit of technology for a use-case that I'd never considered.
And finally: you know how there are those web sites that track live lightning strikes around the world? Well, to continue this newsletter's theme of occasional BIRD NEWS: live photos of birds landing on bird feeders, from across America.
Next week: something not from Japan.
All the best,
— Tom
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