I'm terrified of rollercoasters, and I visit a pile of mining waste.

13th June 2022

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Hello!

This week's Plus video was a big one for me: I'm scared of rollercoasters. Can I get over that fear? And on the Go channel: it's a pile of mining waste. Want to go skiing on it?

I can't pretend that any of my video recommendations this week have been things I've been found while researching; they've been things I've found while slacking off!

Daniel Roy's 10 levels of cheating at poker is a staggering demonstration of skill. One continuous shot, requiring not just years of practice with dexterity, but also memory and camera presence. It's worth every minute.
Wendover Production's new channel Jet Lag: The Game starts with a well-edited three-part sorta-chase-game across America. I won't spoil it, but I will say that the cliffhanger at the end of episode 2 is a good moment, perfectly edited.
For some reason, I was reminded of 3OH3!'s 2010 summer-party song Double Vision this week: watching the video more than a decade later felt like opening a time capsule. In 2010, online viral video was mainstream, but smartphones weren't: this video could only have been made in the small window of time where that was true. (Adding women in unnecessarily-revealing clothes and blatant product placement into a music video, though, hasn't changed all that much.)
Populuxe on TikTok is an old-school manual signpainter and letterer who's skilled both with paint and editing. Start with this drum and work from there.

Other interesting links I've found this week:

Tech journalist Alex Hern: "they used my identity to flog a doomed cryptocurrency". The story, and the behaviour in it, just keeps getting more and more baffling as it goes on. (Some strong language.)
"Essentials of Linguistics" is a free, open-access, Creative Commons-licensed, introductory linguistics textbook that comes recommended by folks I know.
In the late 19th century, New Zealand placed castaway depots on uninhabited islands, to provide supplies for anyone who washed up there after a shipwreck.

And finally, the sort of thing that feels like it should only happen in fiction: an interview with an Australian who, confronted with an ATM glitch that gave him free money, decided that he'd do the irresponsible thing and spend $1.6 million of the bank's money on having a good time.

Reading that interview, I can't help but wonder if he actually did the right thing.

— Tom

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