infrastructure

A John Oliver Last Week Tonight segment on America's crumbling infrastructure and why maintenance is neglected and underfunded. It mixes comedy with real examples such as aging bridges and dams.

Not Just Bikes looks at the cancelled plan to spend over $200 million widening Wonderland Road, a stroad in his hometown of London, Ontario. He asks whether the cancellation marks a turning point away from car-dependent development.

Tom Scott writes a more honest VPN ad, with the sponsor's name redacted, and explains why the typical claims in VPN advertising are misleading. He notes the sponsor was not happy about it.

John Oliver's 13-minute Last Week Tonight segment explains the 2014 net neutrality fight over cable companies creating unequal internet speeds. It uses comedy to make a dull regulatory topic engaging and tells viewers how to comment to the FCC.

A 43-minute skeptical critique arguing that Starlink fails to live up to its promises, covering satellite lifespan, costs, bandwidth and viability. The creator later added an update about FCC grant requirements.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on net neutrality, explaining the stakes of the FCC's push to roll back the rules and urging viewers to file comments. It is a comedic but substantive explainer.

Rick Falkvinge responds to viewer feedback on his earlier Lightning Network video and raises a flaw he says was not previously discussed. The main thread is the network's unsolved routing problem.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on the state of the US power grid, why it needs fixing, and the risks of aging infrastructure.

Not Just Bikes argues that self-driving cars will worsen sprawl and car dependence and harm cities. The video compares car-centered and people-centered urban design and weighs what cities should do instead.

Not Just Bikes explains why the channel exists, through the creator's walk in suburban Houston. It shows how car-dependent design makes cities hostile to pedestrians.

Thunderf00t, a physicist, critically assesses the Hyperloop concept, covering the vacuum, pressure, safety, and cost problems of high-speed tube travel. He argues the media accepted the claims uncritically.

FortNine argues that e-bikes have injury rates and speeds closer to motorcycles than to pedal bikes. It argues riders should treat them with similar safety gear and caution.

Patrick Boyle's deadpan account of Saudi Arabia's Neom and The Line megaproject, a planned 170 km linear city that has been scaled back to a fraction of its size. He covers the feasibility problems and the financing.

Oh The Urbanity! questions the framing that urban planning reforms like bike lanes and traffic calming wage war on suburbanites. It argues that suburban and urban residents alike want less traffic on their own streets.

CityNerd lays out a data-driven method for deciding where high-speed rail should be built in North America and identifies 56 city pairs that justify it, based on population and distance.

A fasterthanlime video essay arguing that GitHub Actions is a poorly designed system, with a history of personal computing and CI, and a look at how it works behind the scenes. It is sponsored by Brilliant.

CityNerd critiques the Las Vegas Loop, the Boring Company's tunnel transit system, arguing its design and operation are poor. The video covers how the system actually runs.

Not Just Bikes argues that North American transit struggles to attract riders because of the land use around it, not the transit itself. It uses examples such as a London, Ontario line with unreachable stations.

Jacob Geller's video essay on empty cities and what they say about our relationship to places, using games, literature and aerial imagery. It touches on works such as Invisible Cities.

An expat YouTuber in China shows how dockless bike-sharing, once loved, has been flooded by competing companies. Bikes pile up, get abandoned in odd places and are vandalised, with footage from around the city.

A short clip of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, speaking to financial analysts in September 2008, questioning what cloud computing even means. He calls it a fashion-driven buzzword.

Adam Something gives a short, tongue-in-cheek defense of Soviet-era prefab apartment blocks. He argues they offer efficient, dense housing with schools and services built nearby.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on freight trains and railroads, covering how profit-driven practices undermine safety. It touches on longer trains and shrinking crews.

Linus Tech Tips documents a major RAID failure on its Whonnock server and the attempt to recover the lost data with a data recovery firm.

NYT Opinion video essay arguing that Democrat-controlled states like California, New York and Illinois often fall short of their egalitarian values. It focuses on housing costs, homelessness, regressive taxes and school segregation as drivers of inequality.

A long, sarcastic critique of Elon Musk's Loop tunnel transit idea and related Boring Company and Hyperloop claims. It leans on transit-planning arguments about capacity and throughput.

Adam Something argues that the Hyperloop is impractical, covering the costs and engineering problems of running trains in a near vacuum compared with conventional rail and metros. The description admits some wrong numbers in the original cut.

Adam Something argues in four minutes that gravity batteries like Energy Vault, which lift concrete blocks with cranes, are a poor energy storage idea. He draws on a longer Thunderf00t debunk.