Because I'll never miss an opportunity to promote this... Tim Hunkin has an arcade in London called Novelty Automation which is legit one of the most under-rated things to do in the entire city:
It's tucked away down some side streets five minutes walk from Holborn tube station. It's best described as a collection of satirical arcade games, almost all of which were made by Tim.
There's a small hadron collider, and a money laundering crane game, an Amazon Warehouse job simulator and so much more.
It is utterly delightful. Everyone I have sent there has loved it. If you haven't experienced it yet you should fix that!
There's an interesting note on his site [0] about how he had to demonetize all his YouTube videos because of the music, and how the original band are not getting anything from it either. So the only people making money from his work are the record company.
that's what copyright is for, and what it's always been for: government-granted monopolies for publishers. the statute of anne was enacted thanks to lobbying from the worshipful company of stationers, not from authors
Tim Hunkin is such a treasure. He has so much interesting and educational content available for free. Even modern stuff on his YT channel. It's all really excellent.
Lived in London in the early 90s and loved the concept and presentation of the TV program, a wonderful blend of inquiry, creativity, and eccentricity.
I haven't seen an episode in decades but I still remember the one where they made magnetic recording tape and another scene where they tested the hypothesis (or Murphy's Law) about a piece of toast always landing on the buttered side. It was basically a bunch of people sitting at picnic tables flipping toast onto the grass and recording the outcome.
I remember thinking: something like this could never fly in the U.S. The suits would shoot it down before it saw the light of day. But I was proven wrong a little over 10 years later when MythBusters launched.
The videotape scene is here[0], but the buttered toast scene must be from a different show. I re-watched recently and they don't that demonstration in TSLoM.
I loved these when I was a kid, and I’ve watched few since they’ve been on YouTube. They are beautifully clear and understandable explanations of everyday machines.
We went to the science museum in London recently with our youngish children. It has some very fancy galleries, with swish modern graphics.
But the bit that really caught their attention was the secret life of the home[1] gallery in the basement - which I believe was done with Tim Hunkin. It had some great interactive mockups of how various things in the home work, and really got the ideas across.
Sometimes my 1 year old is fussy and doesn't want to take his naps. Putting these on, or a Japanese how its made, or similar, has worked wonders. He'll sit down to watch and fall asleep in 10 minutes on average.
https://www.novelty-automation.com/
It's tucked away down some side streets five minutes walk from Holborn tube station. It's best described as a collection of satirical arcade games, almost all of which were made by Tim.
There's a small hadron collider, and a money laundering crane game, an Amazon Warehouse job simulator and so much more.
It is utterly delightful. Everyone I have sent there has loved it. If you haven't experienced it yet you should fix that!