locks

Practical Engineering explains how canal locks work, including the water-saving basins of the new Panama Canal locks.

A short clip from an ACM and Computer History Museum interview in which Leslie Lamport discusses writing his paper on time, clocks and the ordering of events. He explains its link to special relativity.

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.

Stuff Made Here designs and builds an "unpickable" lock, then calls in a locksmith to see if it can be defeated. It covers the mechanical design effort and the attempt to pick it.

A short Vox video on Barcelona's superblocks, an urban design approach that closes interior streets to through traffic to return space to pedestrians.

Engineer Stuff Made Here builds two new supposedly unpickable locks with different designs and sends them to the Lock Picking Lawyer to see whether they can be defeated. The video covers the novel anti-picking mechanisms.

The first episode of Clickspring's series on reproducing the Antikythera Mechanism by hand, laying out the plan and the history. The series follows a machinist building the ancient Greek device with traditional tools and methods.

The Lock Picking Lawyer tests the supposedly unpickable lock designs built by the Stuff Made Here channel. He looks for bypasses and weaknesses in the novel anti-picking mechanisms.

A scene from The Big Short in which Jared Vennett pitches credit default swaps on mortgage bonds to a hedge fund team, using a Jenga tower to illustrate collateralized debt obligations.

A Technology Connections video essay on how analog and digital clocks shape different mental models of time, with the minute hand acting as a progress indicator.

Lock-picking YouTuber Bill Johnson (BosnianBill) explains how to choose a high-security lock and why, showing examples and comparing designs. It covers what makes some padlocks more pick-resistant than others.

Deviant Ollam's DEF CON 17 talk explains how legally checking a firearm in luggage can be the most secure way to fly with valuable tech. It covers firearm transport rules and luggage locks.

A 2017 video arguing that banks and Blockstream steered Bitcoin toward the Lightning Network. It is partisan commentary from the Bitcoin Cash side of the scaling dispute.

ITS Tactical demonstrates how a ballpoint pen can open a zippered suitcase without leaving a trace, bypassing its lock, and suggests countermeasures.

LockPickingLawyer cuts through a LiteLok flexible bike lock with cable cutters in about 16 seconds, one of several videos defeating the product.

Veritasium explains why the one-way speed of light has never been measured, only the round-trip speed, since measuring it requires synchronized clocks that assume the answer. It explores the implications for relativity.

Oh The Urbanity! argues that most city dwellers live in dense residential neighbourhoods outside downtown, which can be calm and peaceful. It draws on older, denser parts of Toronto and Montreal.

A short How to ADHD explainer, featuring Brendan Mahan, on why simple tasks can feel impossible for people with ADHD. It introduces the 'wall of awful', a pile of past failures, shame and anxiety that builds up in front of a task and blocks starting it.

A five-minute CGP Grey explainer arguing that a phone is effectively an extension of your mind, and that any backdoor or master key into encrypted devices will inevitably be abused or leaked. It frames the encryption debate as locks that are either unbreakable or absent.

Anders Brownworth gives a basic visual introduction to blockchain using an interactive web demo, covering SHA256 hashes, blocks, chains, distribution, tokens and coinbase transactions.

A Motherboard documentary episode from Nebraska about farmers and mechanics fighting manufacturers like John Deere over access to the diagnostic software needed to repair modern tractors. It shows how software locks have taken away farmers' traditional self-reliance.

An MTA video on communications-based train control, the system meant to replace the New York City subway's century-old signaling. It also shows the mechanical interlocks and signals in use today.

A woodworker shows how his table saw accident happened, why it happened and how to avoid a similar one. He describes severe hand lacerations from a blade contact.

The Geopolymer Institute presents Joseph Davidovits's theory that the Egyptian pyramids were built from cast artificial limestone, a geopolymer concrete, rather than carved blocks. It demonstrates how few people could make blocks.