Ferrets! a telescope! and Tech Dif returns!
15th June 2026
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Hello!
There's a lot to show this week, so I'll get right into it! First of all, on Nebula: we can't invent a robot better than these ferrets. It's the first time in a long while that I've worked with animals, and the video's a delight.
Now, over on
YouTube, it's time to visit Jodrell Bank, and I cannot believe they let me push a particular button. But my question is: can a 70-year-old telescope still be useful?
And big news:
there's a new Technical Difficulties season! Chris, Gary, Matt and I are back with a new twist on an old format: watch out, because there's tales of Pontefract and polytechnics, and One Of These People Is Lying.
Finally, of course, there's this week's Lateral: Michelle Wong, Bill Sunderland and Dani Siller face questions about stamp selections, diplomatic diagrams and worrisome wordings.
...that's a lot now I put it all in one list.
So! What other good stuff has there been around YouTube this week? Well, I've got some recommendations, but as ever, if you see something that'd fit in
either newsletter section, do hit reply and tell me about it!
- tomosteen's small granola bars factory is a delightful piece of stop motion that stars half a skeleton. The effort is clear here, of
course, but I also appreciated the comic timing: pausing just long enough to let a joke land before moving on.
- I've linked to Gabe, from the excellent channel What On Earth Is This, a couple of times in the past: but I should thank reader Gareth for pointing me to his recent video on the village in the path of a giant landslide. I visited that village, several years ago, to talk about their rockfall detection system! Gabe's video covers a related but very different story: it turns out there have been a lot of updates since I was there. Also, he almost pulls
off a cartwheel, which is more than I ever could.
- Jelle Dittmarr puts a double bass string in a drainage pipe and routes it through a guitar amplifier. (Thanks Brian for the suggestion!)
What about articles, and other things away from the world of video?
- The absurdly optimised pancake will give you the scientifically best pancake recipe based on your preferences, and which foods you have available. And then, below the recipe calculator that you can play with, there are ten thousand words with eighty citations showing how they
figured it all out.
- Illustrator David Mattingly writes a brief article about how he made the covers for the Animorphs books. (Thanks Ava for sending this over!)
- The Grate Cheese Robbery: "how organised crime fell in love with cheese".
And finally, on TikTok: an impeccably performed musical joke. (Alternate link for desktop.)
All the
best,
— Tom
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