Racks, sandwiches, and excellent buttons to push.

21st July 2025

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Hello!

A couple of announcements today: first, if all goes well, the first of four new Technical Difficulties Reverse Trivia episodes should go live on Thursday! And while I never want to tempt fate -- there are any number of things that could go wrong, and I don't want to hype it up too much -- I'm happy to say that the England series I'm working on is officially in pre-production. I may actually start filming things in a few weeks, although it'll be a long while before anything's ready for the world.

But on to the newsletter proper! First, in this week's Lateral: Ruth Amos, Evan Edinger and Abby Cox face questions about blue bags, terrible transport and lucky lockpickers.

And here's the good stuff I've found on YouTube this week:

I've no idea how I missed Henry Segerman until now. This is the antithesis of clickbait: a simple title, "expanding racks", hides a wealth of surprising visuals and explanations. There were multiple times, watching this video, where I said "oh!" out loud. Give it at least fifteen seconds. And full marks for including some project files in the description, too!
"Spring is here" on the tiny garden railway, as miniature trains putter around pleasingly while being supervised by entirely out-of-scale cats. (Thanks to Paul for sending this over!)
And how about Sandwiches of History trying the Cheepiknut Sandwich from 1936? This is a charming little channel that feels like Old YouTube: short videos, about one a day, straight to the point.

And away from the world of video:

"Frame of Preference" is a history of settings on the Mac. Which doesn't sound like much -- until you realise that the screenshots in the article aren't screenshots. They're fully-working Mac emulators, booting and fully usable in your browser. This requires a desktop or laptop and a decent internet connection, but: what an incredible demonstration of the possibilities of the web platform.
"I’ve discovered that, scandalously, there is nowhere on the Internet that collects every single rhyme Craig Charles signed off Robot Wars with on one page. Enjoy."
In 1973, GMC made a motorhome that pumped sewage through its exhaust on purpose.

And finally: the museum of pushing buttons.

All the best,

— Tom

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