Five Seconds of Flower: Why CC0 Footage Matters

This short clip of a flower opening has been dedicated to the public domain, which is why it shows up in documentation all over the web.

The arcade restorers work in a warehouse lit by the glow of attract screens. Each cabinet arrives with a history: water damage from a flooded basement, cigarette burns from a bar that closed in the nineties, a monitor that crackles when it warms up. The restorers replace capacitors, redraw faded side art by hand and trade circuit boards across three continents. They could run the same games on a laptop, of course, but that misses the point. The weight of the joystick, the hum of the tube and the queue of people waiting their turn are part of the software.

Numbers That Matter

Neon is having a strange revival. The real thing, glass tubes bent over a ribbon burner and filled with noble gas, had nearly disappeared as cheaper light strips took over. Now a new generation of apprentices is seeking out the few remaining masters, drawn by the warmth of the light and the craft of the work. Each sign is made by hand, one bend at a time, and no two are exactly alike. The glow is softer than the plastic alternatives and more forgiving on a rainy night, which may explain why bars and noodle shops keep asking for it.