Calories! checkboxes! and a very British link.

2nd September 2024

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Hello! Here's the regular roundup of interesting things I've found on the internet this week:

First of all, in this week's Lateral, Jenny Draper, David Bennett and Annie Rauwerda face questions about pyromaniac phrases, eulogised elements and anonymous athletes.

And I've got a bit of behind-the-scenes news: I'm happy to report that the first two episodes of the new Technical Difficulties series have been edited! There's still a few steps to publication, like subtitling and thumbnails — and I like to have the whole series ready to go before actually launching it, so it won't be out for a short while yet. But I can give an exclusive sneak-peek for newsletter readers: episode one includes the phrase "wedge a bike up 'em". Place your bets now on which of the four of us said that.

What good stuff have I found on YouTube this week?

I've linked to Howtown's excellent explainer videos before (their most recent one is how they actually calculate the calories), and they're really good: but I did not expect them to make a 60-second song about map projections.
A live stream from a watering hole in the Namibian desert.
India Rose Crawford makes delicately knitted scenes with puppetry, miniatures and careful camerawork.

Now, for the "rest of the web" section of the newsletter, I normally don't link to stuff that seems to have been everywhere, on the assumption that most of my readers will have already seen those links. But the first two this week are just so good that I have to include them, no matter what. So, on the off chance you haven't already seen these:

While demolishing false columns in a London art gallery, contractors found a sarcastic letter from 1990 hidden in the construction that said, in short, "I told you so".
The secret inside one million checkboxes (strong language) is a great story that feels like the web used to be: a tale of making web toys and how they get used and abused. There's also an unexpected reference to Jet Lag: The Game (who are back with a new season!)
And then, an article that I think far fewer people have seen: a brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks.

And to end this week's newsletter, the most British "and finally" link I've had in a while: Dream Themes play Grandstand.

All the best,

— Tom

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