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I should not have liked the world’s first smart home.

Tom Scott | May 19, 2026



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Written and presented by
Tom Scott

Producers
for Penny4 https://penny4.co.uk/
Cambria Bailey-Jones
Guy Larsen

Studio Associate Producer
Heloise Lowenthal

Studio Director of Photography
Jamie MacLeod

Studio Gaffer
Frank Hammond

Head of Post
for Breadbox Studios https://www.breadboxstudios.co.uk/
Mandy Celine

Associate Post Producer
Isla McTear

Senior Editor
Jamie MacLeod

Assistant Editor
Alex “J’Rassic” Bate

Sound Supervisor
Dan Pugsley

Sound Assistant
Maggy Apodaca

Subtitles by So Speedy https://www.sospeedy.co.uk/

With thanks to the Historic County Borders Project https://www.county-borders.co.uk/

Executive Producer
Tom Scott

© Pad 26 Limited MMXXVI

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Written by Tom Scott

Comments

This post currently has 44 comments.

  6. @cr-yi7ep

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    Aw c'mon, in Armstrong's day arms manufacturing was a perfectly legit and respectable profession. We should stop applying current morals to people of two centuries ago.
    Didn't Tom Scott know that many large guns bore the label "W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co." For example on North Head in Auckland there is an 8" Armstrong 'disappearing gun', mounted in a circular concrete pit, with a steel cover, once loaded it was raised on hydraulically powered swinging arms to fire then the recoil lowered it out of sight.

  7. @monkeycage2961

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    i went to cragside a few years back and it was great, didn't get to see much of the grounds in the video but they are incredible and i would highly recommend setting some time to walk them if you ever go

  10. @jamesrichardson476

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    I've been to Cragside – I think it's the most fascinating NT property I've ever been to and I heartily recommend anybody who is in that part of the world to visit it. There's also a carriage drive of about 6 (?) miles going round the estate which you can do in a car if you don't fancy the walk.

    Amazing place.

  13. @Simon-ts9fu

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    23:56 Not selling to both sides would mean he is taking a political stance, independent of and possibly in opposition to Britain. In other words, that would make him a terrorist. So, selling to every reasonable side is actually the best option. Also, I would assume the sale of his guns was subject to British supervision, so he was hardly a mafia style gunrunner.

  20. @Thinker2-truth

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    If oil is not a fossil fuel (it's not, do your research), what makes you think Coal is a fossil fuel?
    The Rockefellers deceived the world into believing oil was finite, Supply and Demand makes the price go up.
    Rockfeller is the definition of GREED!

  23. @mistakay9019

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    Ah Cragside is great, anyone who has the chance should at least go once. I have been many times – that fireplace and the logistics of getting it there are baffling!!

  24. @si2foo

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    You say times and standards change. he made a gun and sold it. there are many companies that still do that to this day. Gun's don't kill people. stupid people kill people.

  26. @tessiepinkman

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    I can't even begin to describe the happiness I feel over the fact that you are posting videos again! This was so interesting! I'll be down a rabbit hole on that guy and his amazing home for a while, it's exactly my kind of 'weird' 🙂

  29. @dermaniac5205

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    13:52 Now I get that "light switches" weren't a thing yet, but I am a little surprised they hadn't thought of a simple socket design before coming up with the liquid mercury idea. Obviously there must have been some technical problem there that I don't see, but it seems more intuitive to me.

  31. @fraac

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    Saying you shouldn't have liked it due to anachronistic morality feels like an overcorrection towards the Lindsay Ellises of the world

  34. @ElizabethJones-pv3sj

    May 19, 2026 at 10:11 am

    Arms dealer was not what I was expecting from that lead up. Like quite a lot of others I initially thought slavery but it's too late for that in Britain so I assumed something to do with Britain as a colonial power, exploiting brown people for money.

Comments are closed.

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