Tom Hannen
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tomhannen.ft.com
Tom Hannen
@tomhannen.ft.com
5.8K followers 560 following 580 posts
Video @ FT, before that BBC
Mastodon @[email protected]
Can’t DM here. Use Signal: tomhannen
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tomhannen.ft.com
BBC you’re encoding your dashes all wrong, and you’re optimistic if you think I’m going to watch all 33 years of that, it was bad enough the first time round… Also, it wasn’t me watching it was my son and god knows why he’s watching Colin Baker episodes instead of the Dalek eps I suggested #kids
A BBC email reminding me to finish watching “Doctor Who 1963-1996”, but they’ve encoded the dash wrong so it looks like a question mark
November 26, 2025 at 8:47 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
It looks great, but I only see a single piece of glass/plastic logo in the making-of video, so it must have been digitally composited to some extent, mustn't it? @tvaziri.com 9to5mac.com/2025/11/06/a...
Many might assume the visual effects were made digitally, but in fact, it was all done practically using glass and captured in-camera.
November 6, 2025 at 5:00 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
November 6, 2025 at 10:27 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Some days you’re the pumpkin, others you’re the satsuma
A carved pumpkin eating a satsuma
November 1, 2025 at 7:27 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Thermal cat printer is the new samizdat
A thermal ink printer shaped like a cute cat that operates on Bluetooth. Extremely hackable and about £20 on Amazon
November 1, 2025 at 6:46 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Have you fiddled your expenses receipts using ChatGPT?

Short video made for @financialtimes.com with Cristina Criddle
October 27, 2025 at 4:37 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
If you want to build your own #Noperthedron pencil holder, I made a very basic #Blender project here based on @fractalkitty.com's idea:
github.com/tomhannen/No...
Noperthedron pencil case holder based on @fractalkitty.com's idea
October 25, 2025 at 9:06 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
This is great. Vertical video and the Stanley cup:

mid-theory.com/2025/01/22/s...
In its mirroring of the video frame, the Stanley became an ideal subject for the age of vertical video, not that we call it that anymore. During the first few years of the smartphone camera's ascendance, we maintained something of a belief that we were all still shooting video in the traditional sense. You'd hear people yell at their friends to "film horizontally!!!", as though their footage of a kids' birthday party or nice sunset might end up on the big screen, or at least might be viewed by someone else holding their phone horizontally. But the feeling that iPhone video was cinema quickly wore off. The up-down orientation won out, aided and abetted by the arrival of front-facing cameras that made our faces into another perfectly-fitting subject to capture with our phone-doll-mirror-camera-screen. Portrait mode. Perversely, the true killer of montage may not be the widest-of vide frames but the narrowest of narrow. Today's predominant videospace is the phone screen, which, as we know, shrunk the broad cinematic rectangle to the size of a hand and flipped it vertically. This is no room for a landscape, no room for a grand narrative to parade from left to right across a room-sized image. At this size and aspect ratio, there is barely room for continuity editing. An eyeline match or an establishing shot make little visual sense when shrunk to the size of a pack of cards, and an over-the-shoulder shot leaves no room for anything in the background. Vertical video's constrained frame has impacted our understanding of remaining wider-screen spaces as
October 17, 2025 at 4:55 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Lockdown purchase. Still going strong (though not quite as old as the oscilloscope next to him)
The One True Printer next to a 1970s/1980s? Philips oscilloscope
October 14, 2025 at 5:19 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
Present Tom has been redeemed by past tom
October 11, 2025 at 3:27 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
Ikea hack. Not proud #kallax
October 11, 2025 at 3:05 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
Yes it’s wonky, but I will never lose an umbrella again.

(Repel Windproof umbrella + AXFEE waterproof AirTag sticky holder)
Umbrella handle with sticky AirTag holder before it has been stuck on Umbrella with wonky AirTag holder Another photo showing just how wonky the AirTag holder is stuck to the umbrella handle
October 8, 2025 at 6:02 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Science fiction often requires just one small change to the universe
An image of an old red UK phone box which has been rebranded ‘defibrillator’
October 5, 2025 at 4:27 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
Sep 1995. Wrong font

archive.org/details/pc_a...
October 5, 2025 at 8:26 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
It looks more like Amiga Format before issue 51 when the font changes
Letters page from Amiga Format Issue 47 Letters page from Amiga Format issue 59
October 4, 2025 at 9:15 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
Ha! Thinking that might have to wait a few years (great film though)
Common sense media short review of the movie ‘Sin City’: “18+ Extremely violent movie with tons of sex, disturbing scenes.”
October 4, 2025 at 8:10 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
One more episode with my favourite eyeball, then it’s time to switch back to Netflix for a bit

www.theverge.com/news/783489/...
The eyeball alien from ‘Alien Earth’ with the unsuspecting sheep
September 23, 2025 at 8:16 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
Also I can confirm that AI video generation is very much not at the 'just type it in and get what you want' stage. Getting this sort of thing back was the norm, not the exception #recallmemaybe
September 18, 2025 at 10:28 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
This is the trailer for our FT film that the guy in 'The Critic' was talking about: 'Recall Me Maybe' - a film about AI and dementia, written by David Baddiel and starring Stephen Fry & Gemma Whelan. Directed by @julietriddell.bsky.social and David Baddiel
September 12, 2025 at 12:54 PM
tomhannen.ft.com
My Dad visited Lisbon in October 2017 and took these photos of the funicular railway tracks because they looked worn
A photo of worn tram lines on the Lisbon funicular railway in October 2017 A photo of worn tram lines on the Lisbon funicular railway in October 2017
September 4, 2025 at 11:07 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
I wonder when Sunak first uttered “stop the boats” on television. Today I saw two ≈20 yr olds driving this tractor in Earlswood Surrey. A heck of a long way from any boats.
Two young men presumably driving their Dad’s tractor, with a sign saying “Stop the boats” on the front. A phrase popularised by Britain’s first non-white Prime Minister. One of the young men staring at me as they drove past.
August 27, 2025 at 7:59 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Forcing Spotify to remove the use of the volume buttons from their iOS app was the most churlish thing. Annoys users every day.
The shitty on-screen volume controls that Apple forced Spotify to implement
August 25, 2025 at 6:05 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
So many Soviet ZX Spectrum clones. (None with quite the eerie quality of Buran sitting rotting in a warehouse in Kazakhstan though) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Photo of “Byte”, a ZX spectrum clone manufactured in the Former Soviet Union Photo of the original ZX Spectrum 48K
August 24, 2025 at 5:27 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Look it’s pretty niche but it’s in my head so now you can have it too. #MakotoShinkai #yoğurt
A picture of the annoying cat from the anime feature film “Suzume”. He yells “Suzume!” a lot. Featuring a pot of strained Turkish yoghurt “Süzme yoğurt”
August 19, 2025 at 6:37 AM
tomhannen.ft.com
Kids metal detecting on the beach. Extremely excited that they’ve found something old…. From 1664…
Bottle cap of Kronenburg, with 1664 inscribed on top
August 15, 2025 at 4:02 PM