Codes and Circuits

Footage from How a Data Center Actually Works

Every machine has a part that decides.

Documentary films that take apart the machines you already live with: the camera on the pole, the drone over the yard, the data centre down the road, the AI on your phone.

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A data centre is a machine built to solve two problems its computers create.

They can never stop.

Every watt turns into heat.

5 million gallons a day.

Whose water is it?

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The processor, from How a Data Center Actually Works

One letter wrong. Guns drawn.

A camera on a pole read a licence plate as APX 55Y. The plate said APX 55X. The camera got five characters out of six right. Here is the camera, taken apart.

The plate reader on its pole, from the film

The real unit, from the film of 4 October 2026. Parts from a 2022 teardown by privacy researcher Mike Katz-Lacabe. Read count: Flock Safety, February 2026.

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The Flock Falcon plate reader taken apart: solar panel, top shell, five-megapixel camera with a 16 mm lens, infrared lights, cellular modem, lithium battery, bottom shell.Solar panelCharges the battery. No mains power.Top shellThe grey box, about lunchbox size.CameraFive megapixels, 16 mm lens, infrared filter.Infrared lightsLight the plate at night.Cellular modemSends the answer, not the video.Lithium batteryKeeps it reading through the night.Bottom shellClamped to the pole in an afternoon.
Parts from a 2022 teardown by privacy researcher Mike Katz-Lacabe.

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