Odd vehicles! a genius invention! and ska!
30th October 2023
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Hello!
This week's video features vehicles that are a lot more slow and sedate than last week... but they're also much bigger. Boarding planes could have been very different.
This week's video features vehicles that are a lot more slow and sedate than last week... but they're also much bigger. Boarding planes could have been very different.
And over on Lateral, it's time for
octopodes in trees! Rowan Ellis, Katie Steckles and Bill Sunderland ('Escape This Podcast') face questions about periodic poles, silly signs and iconic icons.
Some other really good stuff that I've
found on YouTube this week:
- Miles in Transit takes the city bus that crosses an international border, from Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan. In Europe, this would be perfectly normal; in
North America, it's unique.
- The Hydraulic Press channel crushes lithium batteries with explosive results. It's even a public service announcement, technically.
- There are a lot of music tutorials on YouTube, but I've never seen one edited as well as this: Chris the Scientist makes '90s jungle, in a video that's styled after Windows 95. This really held my attention, despite my lack of musical knowledge.
And around the rest of the web:
- If you hate QR code menus in restaurants, don't worry: "A LA QRTE" has you covered. It's a portable
combination scanner-printer that reads the QR code, feeds the resulting menu to ChatGPT, and prints out a summarised menu. Absolute genius work.
- Back before the US had one central bank, lots of different banks issued money: which meant there was a "bank note reporter", a regular publication not just about fake currency, but about redemption rates based on location. The further you were away from the issuing bank, the less your bills were worth.
- A page from an old UK shopping catalogue, showing some of the cheap cash-in board games available for Christmas 1989. It was bleak before Catan and its ilk came along. I don't think all of these are even mentioned in BoardGameGeek: some just sank with no trace.
- An interesting generative AI tool: make your street look like it's got proper Dutch cycling infrastructure.
And finally: I know that ska covers were played out after Me First and the Gimme Gimmes' second album, but I still think Skatune Network's cover of Olivia Rodrigo's bad idea, right? (strong language) is joyful.
All the best,
— Tom
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