Everything the anchors say on this tape, story by story.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Breaking: a garden has been planted inside a PDF, and every page gets its own.
GRANT BRICKMAN: We interrupt the evening with breaking news, just landed: somebody has grown a garden inside a document. Kai is live. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: It's a GitHub project called Florilegium. Delft-blue flowers for page margins in LuaLaTeX, all drawn in Lua. ▶
KAI: Huge, Greta. No images, no imported paths, no external assets. Every petal, leaf and stem is a curve computed while the page is being written. ▶
KAI: Here is the footage: mottled washes with white streaks lifted out, lobed leaves with white veins, forget-me-not clusters, a pale ghost flower behind the stems. ▶
KAI: Every page gets its own garden. Same code, different seed, and the flowers fill whatever space the text leaves free. ▶
KAI: The layout borrows a 1998 idea from the ornament literature. And the body text of each PDF is the write-up of how its own margin is drawn. Huge. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: So do we water the PDF? Our 1987 weather map had a flower on it once, and nobody ever asked it to bloom. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: No watering, Grant. The author says it's one possible way to get the look, not a copy of the Reddit original, and they don't know how that was made. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: A garden with no soil and no weeds. I call that a first for the lawn-free generation. Back to you, Greta. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Fraunhofer wants the magnet inside the sensor chip, with far less rare earth material.
GRANT BRICKMAN: The Big Picture. Fraunhofer has put magnets on a chip. Greta, so the chip sticks to the fridge? ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: No, Grant. Many magnetic sensors need a magnet next to them to create a bias field. Normally that magnet is a separate part. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Then I'll leave it to Vera. Vera, how did we get here? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Elektronik Praxis reports on Microbias. The technology behind it, PowderMEMS, first caught their attention in 2022, back then for energy harvesting. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: And what do the researchers promise, Vera? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Up to 99 percent less rare earth material, and up to a hundredth of the combined volume of sensor and magnet, without hurting measurement performance. Their words. ▶
ADA: Giddy, Greta. Normally you mount a tiny magnet next to the sensor and hope the tolerances behave. Here the magnet is made on the wafer. Clever. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Vera, can I buy one by Monday? ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: The article doesn't say. The report gives no price or launch date. What is still open is how the claims hold up outside Fraunhofer's own figures. ▶
DR. VERA VECTOR: Note the wording: up to 99 percent, up to a hundredth. Those are ceilings the researchers state, not guarantees. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: So the magnet moves in with the sensor. A very sensible roommate arrangement. Thank you, Vera. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Magnets on the wafer, rare earths down on paper. Next story. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Tonight's sci-fi, fantasy and animation: two shows, one very confident anchor.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Now tonight's sci-fi, fantasy and animation. Roxy is in the cinema lobby. First: The Patrick Star Show, on Nickelodeon, 23:00 Berlin time. A season premiere. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: So that is the one about an astronomer called Patrick who counts a single star per episode. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: It is not that. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Mystery Science Theater 3000, on RiffTrax, 01:00 Berlin time. A new episode. A theater where scientists solve a mystery in front of a crowd. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Also not that. ▶
ROXY: Darlings, the 23:00 premiere on Nickelodeon is four reels out of five for nerve alone. And RiffTrax at 01:00 is when theaters get strange. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Thank you, Roxy. Two shows, one star, one theater. I'll be watching both, and probably asleep for the second. ▶
PXL Corrects the Record (PXL)
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Greta corrects the record, and Grant respectfully declines.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Time for PXL Corrects the Record, a segment I have always supported and never needed. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: Voyager 1 went quiet. Grant asked if it was the cloud. The Register reports thrusters appear to have gone offline and backups were switched on. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: The cloud is a loose term, Greta. Thrusters, backups, clouds of a kind. Out there, everything is a cloud. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: You called the Arm story a tree-and-anatomy story. It is about chips. Sophie Wilson designed the first Arm processor's instruction set. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: An instruction set is a kind of anatomy, and Arm sounded like a limb. I stand by the tree. ▶
GRETA FOOTNOTE: I'll note both for the record. Of course I will. ▶
GRANT BRICKMAN: Corrections received, reviewed and respectfully set aside. Back to the news. ▶
[AD · fictional product] Trowelby
KAI: Trowelby, Trowelby, a seed's best friend!
KAI: Plant it, pat it, watch it grow, no end!
KAI: Soil in your boots and sun on your hat,
KAI: Trowelby, Trowelby, grow like that!
Weather
STORMY BYTES: Good evening from the Hype Forecast. A warm front of flowers is moving in from the LaTeX coast, with bloom likely on every page.
STORMY BYTES: Over the sensor valley, a small magnetic system is settling inside the chip. Hype pressure is steady, rare earths are thinning.
STORMY BYTES: Tonight's outlook: clear skies for animation, light fog over the 01:00 theater slot.
Real or PXL?
GRANT BRICKMAN: Correct! You spotted the real one. Ninety books in November. I read all of them, in the lobby, yesterday.
GRANT BRICKMAN: A fine guess, but PXL made that one up. Our writers have a gift for the believable and the unread.
GRANT BRICKMAN: Time's up! The real headline is about ninety books in November. Our time ran out, the books did not.