Tom Scott

Predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but I tried it: talking about phones, lifelogging, and social changes. And on top of that: what do I think’s coming in 2032? 2012 photo credits: Andy Davidson, IMG_1790, https://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_d/7906847522/ Andy Davidson, IMG_1791, https://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_d/7906848920/ both licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ The Brief History of the Dead

On the German coast of the Baltic Sea, there’s a tourist attraction that I think is very strange: the “Tauchgondel”, a room that sinks under the waves and lets you go diving… without getting wet. More about the Tauchgondel: https://www.tauchgondel.de/ Filmed safely: https://www.tomscott.com/safe/ Camera operator: Richard Bielau Production team: Klein Aber https://kleinaber.de/ Thanks to Letizia

Ipley Cross, in the middle of the New Forest, is one of the most dangerous road junctions in Britain. Why? • Thanks to Bez, whoever you are: their definitive article on this junction is here: https://singletrackworld.com/2018/01/collision-course-why-this-type-of-road-junction-will-keep-killing-cyclists/ Edited by Michelle Martin https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin Graphics by Mat Hill https://mat-hill.xyz ADDITIONAL SOURCES: https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/ipley-crossroads-campaign The UK government’s Traffic Signs Manual,

I tried to write a more honest VPN commercial. The sponsor wasn’t happy about it. • Get ██ days of ███ VPN free at ██████.com/honest The ASA ruling I referenced: https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/tefincom-sa-a19-547668.html I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as tomscottgo

Mannequins are generally bought, used once for a project, and then thrown away to landfill. Except here, at Mannakin in Lincolnshire. Thanks to Roz and the team at Mannakin: https://mannakin.com My first thought was “don’t those mannequins rot, just sitting out there in the weather?” And then I realised: no, not really, they’re fibreglass. That’s

Switzerland has a reputation for being… not paranoid, exactly, but certainly careful with their own safety. Zurich exemplifies this: not just with its fallout shelters, but with an entire backup water system. Just in case the world ends. SOURCE (in German): https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/dib/de/index/wasserversorgung/brunnen/Notwasserbrunnen.html I’m at http://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott and on

Explosions on film are made to look good: fireballs and flame. In reality, though, they’re a bit disappointing. Here’s how Hollywood does it. • Produced with an experienced, professional pyrotechnician. Do not attempt. Thanks to Steve from Live Action FX: http://liveactionfx.com/ Filmed safely: https://www.tomscott.com/safe/ Camera: Simon Temple http://templefreelance.co.uk Edited by Michelle Martin: https://twitter.com/mrsmmartin I’m at

Gibbs Farm, in New Zealand, is an enormous private sculpture collection. Its most famous piece is Horizons, by Neil Dawson – and it looks like a cartoon tissue somehow painted onto the landscape. To see it in person, though, will take a bit of effort. Gibbs Farm: http://www.gibbsfarm.org.nz/ I’m at http://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott

http://tomscott.com – http://twitter.com/tomscott – On a windy day in Gloucestershire, I find one of the few parts of the once top-secret GPSS aviation fuel pipeline (now called CLH-PS after privatisation) that pokes above ground, and explore the balance between secrecy and safety.

In Slough, outside the headquarters of Blackberry, I talk about an urban legend that’s almost true: the idea that calling 999, the British emergency number, could actually charge your phone battery. It’s not quite right, but it’s close. (It’s easy to make fun of Slough. There’s no second part to that, it’s just easy to

Go see William Osman’s video about building the car! – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZK_fnS62Lk and thanks to Michael Reeves for being a guinea pig: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtHaxi4GTYDpJgMSGy7AeSw/ We built a car that you drive with real-life video game lag, and used it for an ill-advised, mostly-unscientific experiment about motion sickness. In case it wasn’t obvious: we did this in a

Electrical Network Frequency analysis, ENF analysis, matches background hum against power grid logs. I talked to one of the researchers who works on it, and also set them a challenge. Thanks to @Answer in Progress, @Hannah Witton and @Steve Mould! I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as

Kerosene Creek is a natural hot spring near Rotorua, on the North Island of New Zealand. And there have been official warnings for years: don’t put your head under water. It turns out that “brain-eating amoebas”, naegleria fowleri, are a real, if rare, thing. Thank you to Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles! Here are some of

Near the town of Herning in Denmark sits Elia, a giant metal dome sculpture by Ingvar Cronhammar that occasionally spouts flame. I reckon it’s the world’s most frustrating piece of art, and here’s why. Elia’s site: http://elia.dk I’m at http://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott and on Snapchat and Instagram as tomscottgo

http://tomscott.com – @tomscott – There are lots of interesting features in other languages, some of which English would really benefit from having. I’m going to talk about four of them: time-independence, clusivity, absolute direction, and evidentiality. Also, I’ve learned from last week: no irritating piano music this time! UNESCO list of endangered languages: http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/

The Thames Barrier is a wonder of engineering. If it fails, then London floods. Here’s how the engineers there make sure it doesn’t fail. More about the Thames Barrier: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-thames-barrier Producer/Director: Cambria Bailey-Jones Editor: Michelle Martin Camera Operator: Jamie MacLeod Drone Director: Alex Glynn Drone Team: Ian Hunter, Tim Hubbard Runner: Rebecca Johnson Colourist: Jamie

Shakespeare sounds a certain way. Why? And why could it only work in English? • Written with Gretchen McCulloch of Lingthusiasm! Her podcast has an episode about how translators approach texts: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/632086691477323776/lingthusiasm-episode-49-how-translators-approach Gretchen’s book BECAUSE INTERNET, all about the evolution of internet language, is available: 🇺🇸 US: https://amzn.to/30tLpjT 🇨🇦 CA: https://amzn.to/2JsTYWH 🇬🇧 UK: https://amzn.to/31K8eRD (Those

This is a collaboration with the Royal Institution! Go check out their video here: https://youtu.be/sScrtGdKmho — Perpetual motion machines are badly named. And impossible. But that hasn’t stopped a lot of people trying to build them. Sure, you could try and argue physics: but there’s a more common-sense reason why free energy’s not coming any

At $8.3 million dollars for around 40 milligrams, the British Guiana 1c magenta is the world’s most expensive object by weight: it’s a postage stamp from 1856, the only one of its kind. More about the stamp and Stanley Gibbons: https://www.stanleygibbons.com/collecting-stamps/one-cent-magenta I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at https://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram

There’s a reason that a lot of planets in American science fiction look the same: they’re all filmed in the same places. But why those particular locations? It’s about money, about union rules, and about the thirty-mile zone — or as it’s otherwise known, the TMZ. Wikipedia on Vasquez Rocks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_productions_using_the_Vasquez_Rocks_as_a_filming_location Camera: Matt Gray http://www.mattg.co.uk/

In Gävle, Sweden, every year they build Gävlebocken, an enormous traditional Swedish Christmas straw goat. And every year, someone tries to burn it down. Here’s to holiday traditions. THANKS TO: Axel Wickman, @axelwickm on Twitter, for the post-burning photos of the goat from this morning! I’m at http://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at

Today’s guest video is from Grady at Practical Engineering! Go subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/gradyhillhouse The Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse was a disaster that changed engineering: it’s taught in colleges and universities as a way to make it clear: you check and double-check everything. Something that seems like a subtle change can cause a catastrophic failure if it’s

http://tomscott.com – @tomscott – Things that can hurt you just by looking at them are science fiction and fantasy, right? Well, not quite. Inside Walt Disney World, home of the most terrible earworm known to humanity, I talk about the McCollough Effect.

http://tomscott.com – Or: what you see when you die. If you liked this, you may also enjoy two novels that provided inspiration for it: Jim Munroe’s Everyone in Silico, where I first found the idea of a corporate-sponsored afterlife; and Rudy Rucker’s trippy Postsingular, which introduced me to the horrifying idea of consciousness slums.

Herman Sörgel wanted to create the largest civil engineering project the world has ever seen: a colossal dam across the Strait of Gibraltar, lowering the Mediterranean sea. There were, of course, a few problems with this. VFX by David ‘Hoolopee’ Post (http://youtube.com/hoolopee) Camera by Paul Curry (@cr3) I’m at http://tomscott.com on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott on

The Lorenbahn, the Lüttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor island railway, is famous for the tiny, private trains that take residents to and from the mainland. But that’s not why it was built: and it’s got a more useful purpose as well. Thanks to everyone from Landesbetrieb für Küstenschutz, Nationalpark und Meeresschutz Schleswig-Holstein, and to the islanders, for all your

http://tomscott.com – @tomscott – Why don’t we use mixer taps? I’ve talked about the British plug before, and how it’s a wonderful design: British plumbing, on the other hand, still leaves a lot to be desired.

In the 1830s, two French brothers, François and Joseph Blanc, pulled off the first telecoms scam in history. The optical telegraph, a line of semaphore towers stretching from hilltop to hilltop, was for government use only: but something as simple as the law wasn’t going to get in their way. Thanks to Victoria Harrison for

In the archives of Yale University, there’s a 367-year-old bond from the water authority of Lekdijk Bovendams, in the Netherlands. And it’s still paying interest. Thanks to: Prof. Geert Rouwenhorst for his time and explanation All the team at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Michelle Martin (@mrsmmartin) for editing the interview and Leendert

Your sports team wins. The confetti drops. And suddenly, the video quality falls apart. Why? Let’s talk about interframe compression, bitrate, and unnecessary green screen effects. I’m at https://tomscott.com on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomscott on Facebook at http://facebook.com/tomscott and on Instagram as @tomscottgo You might also like: How Green Screen Worked Before Computers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msPCQgRPPjI This uses