A fast car! droids! and cereal!

23rd October 2023

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Hello!

This week, one of the most incredible things I've ever experienced: driving a car that can accelerate to 100km/h in under a second. Granted, I'm a little heavier than the usual driver, so I only managed 0-100 in 1.398 seconds, but that's still the strongest acceleration I've ever felt.

And over on Lateral, there's less adrenaline but many more questions, as Jacklyn Dallas ('Nothing But Tech'), Beryl Shereshewsky and Alec Watson ('Technology Connections') face questions about charity costs, goofy greetings and malleable metal.

I've found some other good stuff on YouTube this week, of course:

Xyla Foxlin puts a 12-foot skeleton on a giant rocket. It is, unsurprisingly, extremely unstable. Happy Hallowe'en.
Disney have designed adorable walking droids that adapt to terrain and obstacles, and they're already on tour in Disneyland.
Not an edited and polished YouTube piece, but an 18-minute screen recording that's worth browsing through: the new version of ChatGPT is excellent at GeoGuessr, at least when picking countries.
Reactions is the American Chemical Society's YouTube channel, provides really interesting videos about chemistry that are accessible for non-chemists: here's why you can't recycle your pants (until now).

And around the rest of the web:

Trust & Safety Tycoon is a brilliant online game. You're in charge of trust and safety at a Twitter-alike social network, and all you have to do is keep everyone happy. How hard can that be? Side note: I particularly appreciate that the introduction says that the game auto-saves and "takes about an hour to play". Set expectations early. It's a good way to spend an hour.
A comprehensive web site cataloguing the toys, offers and adverts found in British breakfast cereal. Everyone has their obsessions. (Thanks to Matt for sending this over!)

And finally: Honk. Mr Weebl's still got it.

Next week: actually, I'm not sure. Still working on that. The last few months of weekly videos have increasingly felt like trying to land a plane while it's disintegrating around me... but for now, at least, I've still got my hands on the controls. (To be clear, that's a metaphor. A clunky metaphor. All the planes I've worked with have been intact.)

All the best,

— Tom

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