Big rocks! car shuttle trains! and a good bird.

• Daniel from Ashville Aggregates tracks the journey of a rock from a quarry to a construction site. Which doesn't sound like much from the title, but it includes explosions, giant conveyor belts with 3D animated graphics to show them off, and filming in the normally closed-off Glensanda Superquarry. Having industry connections helps get permission to do stuff like that, and I had no idea that Construction YouTube was a genre! Now, this won't be to everyone's taste: the music's a bit overdramatic, and I do feel like some of the most interesting parts of the Glensanda superquarry were skipped over. (It's only accessible by boat! there's enough rock for a century of mining!) But if you want to see a good story about Big Equipment, filmed well, this is for you.
   
• If you'd prefer a less flashy but far more technical deep-dive, then kalsan15 (previously: ropeway deep-dive, steamship deep-dive) has a fascinating look at Swiss car shuttle trains. This includes in-depth interviews with a dispatcher, a driver, an operations manager, and a maintenance engineer, in such detail that it includes the start-up procedure for the train. This is a brilliant example of what YouTube as a medium can make possible: this would never fly on television, but tens of thousands of people are still watching it happily, myself included.
   
• And yes: thank you to the twelve people who pointed me to adumb's graph of Wikipedia. I suspect everyone reading the newsletter has already seen it, but if not, there is some interesting data analysis here!
   

• Same Energy Snap, a game from Monkeon. Twelve seemingly unconnected, often bizarre images: can you find the six pairs that Twitter users described as having the "same energy"? Each round will likely take a few seconds' thought, but it's a really fun few seconds as your brain tries to make the connections! (Watch out for a surprisingly loud noise when you win.)
   
• Cow magnets. Strong magnets for cows to eat, so any stray metal amongst the grass they eat doesn't tear up their insides. One of those things that makes sense when you think about it, but also seems very, very weird.
   
• San Francisco trains still rely on 5¼″ floppy disks, and will until 2030. (Fun fact: that inch symbol is a double prime, not apostrophes or quote marks!)
   

That's it for this week's newsletter, which honestly feels more like a high-speed link-dump. But don't worry: next week there'll be entirely too many words about a Japanese TV show.

And finally: police are confused by a bird that imitates a police car's siren. Yes, there's video and audio. (Thanks to Michelle for sending this over.)

All the best,

— Tom