The second in Tim Hunkin’s eight-episode series for makers, The Secret Life of Components, is up. This episode focuses on LEDs. A subject I finally know a tiny bit about because some mechanical keyboards can use them, but there is a lot more to learn from Hunkin about LEDs and he goes through a short bit of history through all the options out there to brighten up your projects that he uses in his arcade machines.
One of the things I like about Tim Hunkin’s new demonstrations is that there is no artifice. This is just him in his workshop and he is playing with some components and is happy to share that joy for exploring with others. While it would be funny for a moment if this turned into your typical polished YouTube video and Hunkin was shouting out his highest tier patreon subscribers and saying “…if you liked this video, make sure to give it a like and RIIING THAT BELLL!” he isn’t catering to YouTube that way today and that is a nice change of pace. There’s nothing wrong with the people who do those things, it is the way to succeed on video at the moment and people listen to these calls to action, the systems are at fault for not allowing us to do the things that make us happy like making videos without worrying about the dollars coming in when we live in a time of utter surplus that is dominated by a very few billionaires.
With this new video I’ve also noticed two great updates to The Secret Life of Components web page, the first is a schedule for the upcoming videos, the second update is that Hunkin is going to re-release the original Secret Life of Machines with some kind of AI up-scaling via tapes made from the original film recordings.
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