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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