Old attractions, mirrors, and landlines (for real, this time)!

• Eddy Burback got rid of his phone for a month. (Strong language.) This isn't some clickbait challenge: this is a really well-told, carefully-considered video diary from someone who went all the way back to having a landline. And while I'm not going to be doing that any time soon, I did consider whether I might want to switch to a phone that does a lot less.
   
• Pete Rondeau restores vintage carnival rides, and he's off to see the Zipper, which fits on one truck and unpacks to become a startlingly-fast vertical spinning ride, like some sort of multi-axis ferris wheel. It was fascinating to see the process; I haven't had chance to check out the rest of Pete's channel, but there's likely more interesting videos there. (Thanks Trevor for sending this over!)
   
• Thanks to the several people who told me there's another new OK Go video! And after the digital-ness of the last one, it's back to the one-take physical props: robots and mirrors and kaleidoscopes. I wouldn't normally mention a second video from the same source so soon, but this time there's a proper behind-the-scenes documentary, twenty minutes with the cast and crew talking about the logistics, and an additional short video about robot control and safety. The song's pretty good too.
   

• Thanks to Hazel for sending over this A+ journal article: there's a pun in the full title and a surprising result. But in short: has tap-to-pay resulted in fewer people getting coins stuck in them? This feels like it belongs on the Ig Nobel prize shortlist.
   
• And a fascinating article in Nature: the shingles vaccine may reduce an older person's chances of dementia by 3.5 percentage points. What stood out to me here is the phrase "natural experiment": just by the luck of the draw, a perfect control and test group was created.
   
• Ghosts in the Kinect: "Microsoft’s motion-sensing camera lives on as a tool for paranormal investigations."

And finally, an ultra-high efficiency dishwasher. The quick unload feature "has a range of about eight metres on concrete floors".

All the best,

— Tom