Wifi wonders, a bad alphabet, and the deepest of clarinets.
24th February 2025
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Hello!
The starter of the newsletter this week, of course, this week's Lateral! Annie Rauwerda, Bernadette Banner and Matt Gray face questions about mineral mines, gainful gallows and helpless houses. This was a lovely trio to play the game with.
The starter of the newsletter this week, of course, this week's Lateral! Annie Rauwerda, Bernadette Banner and Matt Gray face questions about mineral mines, gainful gallows and helpless houses. This was a lovely trio to play the game with.
Now, onto the main course: what have I found on YouTube this week?
- This ESP32 antenna array can see wifi. Give this video at least twenty seconds to
get to the first demonstration, it's worth it. And you don't need to know what an ESP32 is to enjoy this! It's all explained, in a way that starts very simple and then gets into deep physics. I didn't think something like this was possible on a hobby budget, but here it is, with an interesting visualisation, and great explanations.
- What's the lowest possible clarinet note? Thanks to Fay for sending this over: there's no narration here, no story being told, it's just a great demonstration by someone who just did a thing for fun. To quote a comment: "It’s so weird when you can hear the boundary between tone and rhythm."
- Oh no! Mark has had a fall! (Strong language.) A new sketch from Australian comedy trio Aunty Donna, which is also a great intro to them and their style. It won't be for everyone, and it takes quite a dark turn, but if this is your sort of comedy, then there's a lot more where that came from. Also, full marks to the editor — judging by the outtakes at the end, this was shot as several takes of semi-improv, and making that both coherent and funny is a really difficult task.
And away from the world of video:
- An American story: "if you ever stacked cups in gym class, blame my dad".
- A terrible phonetic alphabet, for if you ever want to annoy someone on the phone. 'Yes, that's Tom: T for tsunami, O for ours, M for mnemonic.'
- You Must Sneak Human Remains Into Disney World is a small, one-shot, simple paper RPG (or, perhaps, more group-storytelling game). I reckon there's a lot of gaming groups out there that would have fun with this one.
And
finally, the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme, but the theme is coming from the Enterprise-D. Wait for it: because, yes, the joke is obvious half a light-year away, but it's perfectly executed. I can't believe that this hasn't been done before in the nearly-40 years since the show aired.
All the best,
— Tom
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