The incredible treadmill crane, and reinventing the wheel.
26th September 2022
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Hello!
It's been a long and exhausting week: five straight days of filming, in order to get four videos ready. The buffer of already-uploaded videos that I have actually reached zero — but I'm happy to report that thanks to the hard work of camera operators, producers and editors, there's still a video this Monday. It was filmed just a few days ago: I thought the treadmill crane was fictional!
It's been a long and exhausting week: five straight days of filming, in order to get four videos ready. The buffer of already-uploaded videos that I have actually reached zero — but I'm happy to report that thanks to the hard work of camera operators, producers and editors, there's still a video this Monday. It was filmed just a few days ago: I thought the treadmill crane was fictional!
I haven't had much time for YouTube or research this week (again, five straight days of filming), but I've still found some interesting videos:
- From Adam Savage's Tested: a visit to Skywalker Sound, and an in-depth breakdown of the sound design of Thor: Love and Thunder. Even as a non-Marvel fan, I found this fascinating.
- Answer in Progress asks why it took 200,000 years to invent the wheel. Which includes two people literally trying to reinvent the wheel, which it turns out is harder (and funnier) than you might think.
- In 1938, weird atmospheric conditions meant the BBC could just, sort-of be received in New York. The story attached to this video is worth a read.
- The explainer graphics on Jared Owen's channel are incredible. This dive into how a bowling pinsetter machine works is fascinating, and feels like a really natural fit for YouTube. I don't think there's any other medium, past or present, which would be a natural match for something like this.
And from the rest of the internet this week, some interesting articles:
- An interview with someone who runs an empire of Twitter gimmick accounts, including one called 'shirts that go hard' that's basically a merch shop. This seems like a castle built on sand — or, rather, a castle built on an algorithmic glitch that's being corrected. But
the bit that the article misses is that there's a second level of Weird Internet Business on top of it: if you click "show more replies" on a 'shirts that go hard' Twitter post, you'll find a rabbit-hole of bots and hacked accounts that immediately rip off the shirts features, and further
bots/hacked accounts that try to algorithmically boost them. It feels almost dizzying. (Note: the accounts mentioned are generally not suitable for children.)
- A long-distance runner has broken the 24-hour record: 198.6 miles (319.6km) in one day. In an interview, he said "200 miles is not a limit". Humans continue to push the boundaries of what we thought possible.
And finally, no-one's making floppy disks any more. But there's one store that still sells them, and the interview with its owner is worth reading.
Right. This week's thankfully a bit calmer — by luck, I've finished the rush of filming just as Europe's weather takes a turn for the worse. Time to work on editing, researching, and planning what's next.
All the best,
— Tom
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