Tiny boats! meteorites! and cats!

27th April 2026

Hello!

In this week's new Nebula video, we move on to simulation of a very different kind: I finally got to drive Yorkshire's tiny boats! Long-time Tech Dif viewers may have a vague idea of where this is.

And this week's video on YouTube is blurred and censored somewhat, and even with that, I think there's still a fair chance it'll get either demonetised or age-restricted by some automated system. So get it while you can, because: these mannequins can bleed.

And there are two new players in this week's Lateral! VT Physics and VeeVee join previous player Geoff Marshall face questions about various vowels, jostling jumps and medical minerals.

Thanks, as ever, to everyone who replied to last week's newsletter with the good stuff they've seen on YouTube, and around the wider internet! Here are this week's links:

A wonderful video from Out There Learning, about how a team in New Zealand went on a very successful hunt for a meteorite. I had no idea about the detection networks, planning analysis, or even that there were meteorite hunters! This is charming and interesting and worth your time. (Thanks Ross for the suggestion!)
Excessive Overkill makes a camera that freezes rotation. (Flashing images throughout.) I went into this video assuming I knew all the tricks: surely they're just matching the camera framerate to the rotation of the object? Well, yes, technically, but there's a very clever trick involved which means that the settings for most of the spectacular shots in here don't have to be dialled in by eye. (Thanks Anna for sending this over!)
Disney Animation, as part of a new release on Disney+, have re-animated three of the songs from their recent films in American Sign Language. That video is a compilation of all the publicity clips they've put out -- but The Daily Moth also has a really interesting interview with three of the key people behind it! (There's a transcript in the comments.)

And around the rest of the web, two games and one article:

Horse Magnifier is an endearingly silly game and I didn't expect to play it for nearly as long as I did.
On the other end of the silly-to-serious spectrum, Noun Sense is a daily puzzle about word association. What's the most common noun after the adjective? This repeatedly got an "oh, of course" from me when I saw the answers.
The Bodega Cats of New York. Not just a photo gallery; the text alongside is delightful.

And finally, on TikTok: a perfectly executed sight gag. (Better with sound; alternate link for desktop.)

All the best,

— Tom

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