A microphone, a ropeway, and something very sour.
12th January 2026
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Heads up! This newsletter is more than three months old. Links may be out of date or lead to unexpected places, or the context may have changed. Please handle with care.
Hello!
Over the last few days, I filmed the studio sections for
the upcoming series, and -- while I don't want to tempt fate -- I think it all went well? The new project is steadily taking shape, with a lot of help from production and post-production teams.
But we're still a while away yet! So first, in this week's Lateral: Charlotte Yeung, Annie Rauwerda and new player Alexis Dahl face questions about medieval mercenaries, alarm apps and backpacking bandages.
Now, good
stuff from YouTube this week -- and, as ever, please do reply with your own suggestions for what might fit here!
- A beautiful, silent "making a thing" videos: Something Physical makes a ribbon
microphone. Featuring subtitles to explain what's happening, extremely good sound design, and a gently musical finale. (Thanks to Tom for the suggestion!)
- Engineering with Rosie talks about long-duration energy storage,
and it's a good and pragmatic summary of the current state of play. Back when I was making weekly videos, I got a lot of offers from the sort of places that Rosie dismisses (correctly, I think!) as "obviously flawed concepts": pilot projects that would lift concrete with cranes, and then using them in reverse as generators when power was needed. The more likely solution? More batteries.
- A very cinematic video about ropeway construction, from ropeway manufacturer Garaventa: it's in Swiss German, but full English subtitles are available. This is a PR piece, and like a lot of PR pieces, it manages to be a bit too in-depth and a bit too surface-level at the same time -- it assumes a lot of existing knowledge, because
it's designed for people in the industry. But the drone footage is beautiful, and even the brief insights into the scale of the challenge were interesting.
Away from the world of video, good stuff from around the rest of the web!
- The annual, unofficial "Worst in Show" awards from this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Turns out people don't really want to have a conversation with their coffee pot.
- If there were an Ig Nobel Prize for web pages -- things that "make you laugh, then make you think" -- then Postal Arbitrage would win one. Sending a letter in the US costs $0.78; this page lists all the items on Amazon Prime that are cheaper than that, including delivery with a gift note. Need to send a message to
someone? Why not save money by sending them, for example, a single lemon with a note attached?
- A map of all the labyrinths and mazes in Britain. A map of all the labyrinths and mazes in the world.
And finally, on TikTok: the most sour dish in the world. Wait for it. (Alternate link for desktop.)
All the best,
— Tom
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