Can AI Come Up With Original Ideas? Rational Animations Explains AI Brilliantly

This video by Rational Animations begins with Babbage's Analytical Engine, which may leave you wondering why. Well, he did design history’s first programmable computer and even though it was back in the Victorian era, a video about AI must start somewhere. Of course, as the video is called Can AI Come Up With Original Ideas? we know that more is to come – and it gets to Aletheia and Google’s AlphaEvolve in due course.

Babbage’s design was never built, so the steampunk era remains (more or less) a fantasy.  His ideas were expanded upon by Ada Lovelace, who took things to another level by wondering whether machines – computers – could come up with their own ideas. Now, Ada thought that they couldn’t (not Babbage’s at any rate).  After all, artificial intelligence lacks artifice, therefore intelligence (not to get too philosophical). Or does it?

Coming up to our own day and age, it is the lack of clarity around what counts as a new idea that complicates things.  As an English teacher, I will certainly go with the fact that each and every story ever told usually revolves around (at least) one of six basic plots So although something may seem fresh and original - Harry Potter, for example, thirty years ago - it often succeeds because it repackages something timeless for a new generation.

And so, it’s up to you to see what comes next by watching the wonderfully told video below – and I have to say the animations are just brilliant too.  Do our machines simply follow our instructions with a little randomness thrown in (aka genetic algorithms) or is there more at play here, such as neural networks? Who can say, but I certainly didn’t think I would be coming across stochastic parrots today – or grokking for that matter (sounds a bit Carry On, if you ask me). Watch the video and decide for yourself whether today's AI is doing anything genuinely original.  I watched it twice – and I will admit, I did enjoy it the first time, but the second time was to understand it. It doesn’t half pack a lot into 13 minutes.

Just before you watch the video, I asked Chat GPT what it thought of the video – in a nutshell.  It said: “Watching it is a bit like following Alice down the rabbit hole, except the White Rabbit is Charles Babbage and the Cheshire Cat is a stochastic parrot.”  Ah, the times in which we live.

Echo & the Bunnymen’s Brussels Is Haunted: A Beautiful, Melancholic Return to Form

I didn’t realise that Echo & the Bunnymen was still going as a band, but after hearing Brussels is Haunted, I am glad that it is.  I remember Ian McCulloch leaving the band in the late 1980s and then there was a resurrection in the late 1990s with Evergreen, but after that I lost track. They are now apparently a two-piece, with original members Will Sergeant on lead guitar and programming and Ian McCulloch on vocals, rhythm guitar and keyboards.  So, you can tell I’m not a diehard Bunnymen fan, but I think Brussels is Haunted is a great track. Plus there is a new album, Apples for Isaac coming out in September.

You can watch the video below, which is by Jef de Smet, and an intriguing, animated piece that matches the mood and the lyrics perfectly.  Even though I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a performance of the song as such, the video is a fantastic evocation of Brussels as a place of ghosts, memories and faded glamour - a city where history, art and personal stories seem to linger in every street and square. Like the song itself, it feels both nostalgic and slightly unreal, capturing that very Bunnymen combination of beauty, mystery and melancholy.  Plus, any song that namechecks Plastic and Bert Bertrand is going to get a listen or two from me…

Brussels Is Haunted feels like Echo & the Bunnymen turning Brussels into a dreamscape where personal memories collide with European history. The city is haunted not by ghosts alone, but by wars, art, romance and lost moments - from World War I, Waterloo and World War II to the imagined threat of World War III. In classic Bunnymen fashion, melancholy, myth and destiny blur together: Brussels is haunted because we are.

As a quick aside, while I wrote this, I put Ocean Rain on – because why not? I’ve already put a sell-by date on myself by saying I remember the original split and so a little wander down memory lane wasn’t going to do me any harm.  I think almost anyone of my generation will recognise the opening chords of Silver – the first track on the album and although I believe that most people will say The Killing Moon is the standout track on the album, for me it’s The Yo Yo Man.  It’s amazing to think how the Bunnymen pumped out four brilliant albums over the first five years of the 1980s (and that we took it for granted!).  I seem to remember McCulloch describing Ocean Rain as the greatest album ever made – and he wasn’t that far wrong, frankly.   Brussels Is Haunted is pretty good, too… and after decades of Bunnymen mythology, perhaps the only thing left is to mythologise the mythology itself.

Mount Nemrut – Home to Gods Beheaded

The Adiyaman Province of Turkey in the south east of the country is not wealthy – it is still classified as a developing rural region. Yet 25 miles from the small town of Kâhta the visitor discovers the remnants of once fabulous wealth.  High on the summit of Mount Nemrut is a huge but little visited necropolis, home to the beheaded gods of the past.

Image Credit Flickr User birasuegi

The Wee Tiny Gallery - London's Newest Art Hot-Spot for the Borrower Community

The Borrower community is agog with excitement. At last, they have The Wee Tiny Art Gallery on London’s Princelet Street, near Brick Lane: a space where people of their diminutive stature can admire fine art at reasonable prices. Who am I trying to kid? They’re going to borrow it, of course. Even so, it saves them from scaling enormous walls just to inspect a painting, and its contents are perfectly sized to fit into any cosy little niche at home. As you can imagine, queues are already forming.  Image Credit

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Flippancy aside, you would probably walk straight past it - zooming out shows you just how tiny it is. Created through a collaboration between McKay Lenker Bayer of the Tiny Art Show, illustrator Holly Welch, and small-spaces builder and artist John Connors, this miniature masterpiece is both a gallery and a work of art. Showcasing Holly Welch’s exquisitely detailed miniatures within a beautifully crafted structure, it is almost certainly the smallest art gallery in London and the UK - and quite possibly the smallest in the world.  We would ask a Borrower, but not one seems currently available for comment...

 The video below by Daft Monkey goes into more detail about the Wee Tiny Art Gallery. Press play and it will go straight to the part about The Wee Tiny Gallery (about the five minute mark, although the rest of the video is very interesting too!).

 

 If you would like to see how it was made, here is a short video by the artists.

  

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Bog: The Beautiful Irish Animated Short That Explores Grief and Memory

Bog is an enigmatic, beautifully made animated short, written and directed by Éabha Bortolozzo and Jack Kirwan. Our young protagonist, Oisin (pronounced  uh-SHEEN and meaning Little Deer) embarks on a poignant journey through the mysterious depths of the bog.  There, he uncovers the buried memories of his beloved father. Guided by the majestic spirit of the Great Irish Elk, he confronts his father's pain and suffering, gradually coming to understand the emotions that have shaped them both. As he descends ever deeper into the earth, Oisin also discovers a greater understanding of his own feelings and learns how to express them with honesty and clarity.

Among others, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor lends his voice to the film. One of Ireland's most acclaimed actors, he is best known for playing the unforgettable Nidge in Love/Hate, while international audiences will recognise him as Ebony Maw in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. His impressive screen career also includes Peaky Blinders, Dublin Murders and numerous acclaimed stage productions.

For me, the fact that the spirit animal spoke the Irish language, while Oisin spoke English (even though they understood each other fully) added an extra layer of melancholy to the story.  It may not have been deliberate, but it underlines the profound changes that Ireland has been through over the last few centuries – and represents something else that was taken away from the Irish people.  Watch Bog below.

Alan Turing: The Father of AI, the Enigma Codebreaker and the Turing Test

Can machines think?  Alan Turing may have shortened the war by cracking Enigma,  but it was answering this question  that may well have been his greatest achievement.  This great, highly informative video from History Extra shows how, as part of a group of mathematicians, Turing imagined machines that could think and solve problems independently of human intervention. This was, of course, more than seven decades ago…

After the war, Turing turned his attention to the possibility of machine intelligence. In 1950, he published his groundbreaking paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in which he introduced the Turing Test - also known as the "imitation game" - as a way of assessing whether a machine could demonstrate intelligent behaviour. The ideas he explored remain highly relevant in our age of generative AI.  I wonder what he would make of the collage of his life I just requested from an AI model (top)?

Turing’s death by suicide at the age of just 41 reflects the times in which he lived. He was unable to play the imitation game of pretending to the world to be heterosexual and so, despite the accolades for his war-work, he was pursued and prosecuted for being himself. This led to his death.  Later, of course, he would be celebrated as the father of modern computing – I just find it a desperate shame that he died thinking that his reputation was irrecoverably damaged. 

Watch the fascinating video about Turing’s life and achievements below.

The Strange Comfort of the “Retreat”: Why We Keep Leaving Home to Get Better

The Promise of Elsewhere

Nobody teaches us to say it, and yet everybody says it. I just need to get away for a while. We say it after bad years and bad news, after burnouts and break-ups, and sometimes after nothing we can name at all. The curious thing is not that we say it, but what the sentence assumes — that whatever is wrong with us is somehow anchored to where we are, and that a sufficient quantity of distance will loosen its grip.

It is a very old assumption indeed. For as long as human beings have been getting themselves into trouble, they have been packing their bags and going somewhere else to get better. The question worth asking is why we remain so certain that it works. Image Credit Wikimedia

The Ancient Roots of Retreat

The retreat, it turns out, is one of humanity’s most persistent inventions. The ancient Greeks travelled considerable distances to sleep in temples dedicated to Asclepius, the god of healing, in the hope that a cure would arrive in a dream — an early example, perhaps, of the restorative mini-break. The early Christian hermits went further still, walking into the Egyptian desert to be spectacularly alone with their thoughts. Medieval pilgrims wore out their shoes on the road to healing shrines, and monasteries perched themselves on mountains and remote islands with what can only be described as deliberate inconvenience.

It would be easy to mistake all this for escape, but that rather misses the point. The hermit was not running away from the world so much as constructing a silence in which he could hear himself think. To retreat, in the original sense, was not to flee. It was to create enough distance from one’s ordinary life that one might return to it as somebody slightly different.

Tollund Man: The 2,400-Year-Old Bog Body That Still Fascinates the World

I have always been a little uneasy about human bodies in museums, regardless of their age. It isn’t a disquiet based on religion, but around the issue of permission.  I’m opting for cremation when my last page turns, and that will avoid me becoming the Tollund Man of the year 4000 no matter what the cause of my demise (hopefully). I wouldn’t want people gawping at my human remains – although I can think of any number of people who would probably relish the thought of people looking at them thousands of years in the future. Not my kind of immortality, I’m afraid!  We will obviously never know what Tollund Man or Grauballe Man, two of Denmark's most famous 'bog bodies,' preserved for over 2,000 years in peat bogs might  think of the ultimate fate of their bodies.  It’s unlikely that they would even understand the concept of a museum, let alone their place in it.  And besides, besides, besides…

On to the video. Ole Nielsen of the Silkeborg Museum walks us through the discovery of Tollund Man, whose case was as cold as can be (even though his death was not natural), but whose face is the best-preserved from pre-history that we have and who gives us many clues about what life was like in the way back when.  The team at the museum also use cutting-edge technology to see more of Tollund Man’s physiology – and the results are remarkable.  What I always find even more fascinating, though, are the reconstructions of ancient faces - and there is one at the museum which shows us what Tollund Man would have looked like just before he died.  I used that to ask AI to visualise him in his native habitat - that's the image you see at the top of this post.

As I said, I do have some reservations around bodies being exhibited in museums, but was a little comforted (if that is quite the right word) by one of the comments on the video by @LPdedicated.  It goes: “I worked at Silkeborg Museum and every morning when I opened the exhibition, I would just sit in the room with the Tollund man in silence for a few minutes before I went to my office… Fun fact: every year at the start of November his birthday is celebrated at campus".  So, although he could never envision what would happen to him after his death let alone give permission, at least Tollund Man had some at least one thoughtful companion in the museum.  I am sure the commenter is not the only one to have spent time reflecting in this manner – and there aren’t many people who have been dead 2,400 years whose birthdays are still celebrated. So perhaps TM wouldn't be too unhappy about it, after all.

I digress.  Watch the fascinating video about the Danish bog bodies below.

Fire: An Atmospheric Animated Short Capturing the Horror of Wildfire

As you (may) know, at Kuriositas we like to showcase some of the best student-created animated shorts.  Many, if not most of them, tell stories that are action-heavy, which helps show off the technical prowess of the students.  Fire is something quite difference.  While it certainly covers the elements that the students must show in order to complete their degree, this tells and altogether different story.  As such it is refreshing to see a group of collaborators take such a distinct and different pathway to the norm.  What we get initially is a beautifully rendered series of images of a languid summer’s afternoon, almost as if time has stood still.  It's a perfect summer's day. A cat is our protagonist (if it can be called that) as he meanders around the yard and inside the house. Yet even as he does so, there is a steadily increasing sense of unease that something isn’t quite right.

Of course, the house has been abandoned due to an encroaching fire.  It’s a prescient piece of filmmaking in that respect, as so much of Europe has been impacted by successive heatwaves over the last few months.  As the fire encroaches, its impact is felt. This is an impressive piece of animation, one that had me transfixed from start to finish.  Congratulations to the directors, Baptiste Fraboul, Esther Lamassoure, Julie Le Forban, Valentin Serre, Léna Gittler, and Florent Sabuco of École des Nouvelles Images for producing something so special. Fire was produced by Julien Deparis, and sound design was by Pierre-François.  I would also like to specially mention the soundtrack by Mathis Coopman which superbly catches the atmosphere of the disaster in a very Pink Floydy kinda way, combining with the animation to create something truly cinematic.  No wonder this animated short has won awards!

Watch Fire below.

Do graphics still play a major part in gaming?

Graphics used to be the headline act. For years, gaming’s biggest selling point was simple. How real can we make this look? 

Each new console generation arrived with a quiet sense of anticipation, bringing sharper textures, richer lighting, and more detailed worlds to explore. You could feel the progress, even in small moments. 

The release of the PlayStation 3 almost 20 years ago, that transition from the 480i standard definition era to 720p/1080p HD, was one of the most notable improvements to happen in one big jump.

The way light hit a surface, the way a character moved, the way a landscape stretched out in the distance.

Trailers leaned into that sense of discovery. They lingered on environments, on faces, on tiny details that showed how far things had come. There was a kind of fascination in seeing familiar ideas rendered with just a little more clarity, a little more depth.

Playing a new game felt like stepping into something that had been carefully built to be seen as much as experienced. There was time to take it in, but now expectations have shifted with the rise of esports. 

Competitive players see graphics differently. A dropped frame can cost a match. Visual clarity is information, not feeling. Graphics create fairness, not atmosphere. A new generation of players will sit in front of Twitch streams and be able to watch, interact, and even use top US online casinos to bet on live video games. 

The Curious History of Bingo: From Italian Lottery to Global Phenomenon

Image by DesignUni on Magnific 

Few games have travelled as far, or changed as many times, as bingo. It has been a Renaissance-era state lottery, a French parlour game for the aristocracy, a German teaching tool for schoolchildren, and a beloved fixture of seaside halls and community centres. Today it lives happily on screens around the world. The story of how a simple game of matching numbers spread across five centuries and several continents is one of the more delightful curiosities in the history of play.

It Began in Renaissance Italy

The earliest ancestor of bingo can be traced to Italy in the 1530s, shortly after the unification of the country's various states. A national lottery called Il Gioco del Lotto d'Italia was established, and remarkably, a version of it still runs in Italy to this day. Players chose numbers in the hope of matching those drawn, and the game became a reliable source of revenue for the state. This early lottery contained the essential seed of bingo: numbers, chance, and the communal thrill of the draw. As the reference work Encyclopaedia Britannica notes, the game has carried many names and forms across the centuries, but that core lottery mechanic has stayed remarkably constant.

Svolværgeita: Jumping the Goat's Horns

If the first words that just came in to your head were never in a million years, then you are probably in good company.  The Svolværgeita mountain in Norway was first climbed just a little over a century ago in 1910.  Yet since then a tradition has emerged among the mountaineering fraternity: those who reach the goat’s horns jump them. Because they can.

Image Credit Flickr User Sonia Marotti

The town of Svolvær in Norland County nestles below the mountain. It is situated in Lofoten (which we have visited before on Kuriositas) on the south coast of Austvågøy, and faces open sea to the south with the mountain directly to the north.   It is easy to see where the goats horns got their name. There are two spiky rocks which only the most experienced rock climbers can (safely) reach.

What NOT to Do If You Crash Land on an Alien Planet – A Brilliant Animated Short by ESMA Students

Lurks should be a training video for the Intergalactic Federation of Planets called “What NOT to do if you crash land on a mysterious alien planet” because the protagonist does so many things wrong.  You would think that she has never watched a horror film before – and this trope-laden animated short by ESMA graduation students deliverers them one after another (after another).  Now, reading back, that doesn’t look like much of a plug for this, but I found it immensely entertaining (although I desperately wanted some sort of final twist in the tale, right at the end, which did not appear but which could have raised the bar here, in terms of structure and storytelling). 

The planet, spacecraft and character animation (especially the monsters) are extremely well realised, especially considering this is a student film.  There are any number of technically very difficult sequences in this short, and hats off to the team for delivering them with great aplomb.  Altogether, a chilling cautionary tale of how to survive an alien environment – or not.  The students who created this are Kelssy Abdou , Ikram Benmaza, Mélodie Carn, Amanda Cere, Adrien Chaumier, Maëlle Couzinier, Maëline Dalous, Victor Del Campo and Aglaée Pons. Music was by Valentin Guay with sound created by Tristan Le Bozec, Guilhem Favard and Jose Vicente.  Well done to everyone involved in the project.

The Frog that Turns Blue

The Moor Frog of Central Europe has a trick up its sleeve when it comes to getting a mate. The male turns blue for a week each year but it's perhaps not for the reason you think!  Pop over to the Ark in Space to discover the real reason (and it’s not to attract a mate!).

Image Credit Wikimedia

The Sky Blue Mushroom

It looks like it could be something offered to Alice just before she makes a journey in to Wonderland but this sky blue mushroom is not a product of the imagination of Lewis Caroll.  It can be found on both islands of New Zealand – and bizarrely enough in a few places in India.

Image Credit Flickr User Ewan-M

International Klein Blue: A Stunning Short Film About Yves Klein's Iconic Colour

 

There are very few artists whose names have become inseparable from a single colour. Mention blue, however, and many people will think immediately of Yves Klein, whose obsession with an intense ultramarine hue gave the world International Klein Blue (IKB).

This beautifully crafted live-action short is Jan Hellwich's thesis film at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Inspired by Klein's own diary entries and writings, it explores the artist's conviction that blue was far more than a colour: it was the embodiment of the infinite, found in the endless meeting of sea and sky.

The imagery is glorious. Manuel Villasante Ayuso, Voicu Dumitras and Finn Fluche are wonderfully cast, moving through sun-drenched landscapes where the dazzling blue sky becomes as important as the characters themselves. The cinematography perfectly complements Klein's poetic reflections, including his delightfully eccentric complaint that birds flying across the sky were making holes in his greatest work of art.

Part philosophy, part visual poem, this is an assured and atmospheric debut from Hellwich, and a fitting tribute to one of modern art's most distinctive figures.

Lapis Lazuli: How the World's Most Precious Blue Pigment Became Ultramarine

Lapis lazuli is the semi-precious stone from which the pigment ultramarine is made.  The relationship works like this – the mineral Lapis lazuli contains lazurite.  There is evidence that it was mined in the mountains of Afghanistan as long ago as the 7570 BC. For centuries, artists ground lapis lazuli into powder and then used an elaborate purification process to separate the blue lazurite from the other minerals. The resulting pigment - natural ultramarine was one of the most expensive pigments ever used and often cost more than gold, and appeared in many paintings of the renaissance, notably to form the gorgeous blue of the robes of the Virgin Mary.

This video explores the history, science and artistic importance of lapis lazuli, the rare blue stone used to create the pigment natural ultramarine. The presenter visits artist and historian David Margus, who demonstrates how the stone is transformed into pigment by crushing it into a fine powder. As the rock is broken apart, the sulphur within it becomes apparent, and we learn that its unusual chemistry is responsible for the brilliant blue colour.  I wanted a valuation of the great lump of Lapis lazuli featured in the video but, alas, that was not forthcoming.  Regardless, this is very interesting!

Farewell Bonnie Tyler: Remembering a Pop/Rock Legend and Her Greatest Hits

Goodbye Bonnie Tyler – and thank you for all your wonderful, gutsy over the top performances.  You will most certainly be missed – although we still have your music.  Without wanting to sound maudlin, when you reach a certain age and pop and rock icons shrug off their mortal coils, it does lead to a little reflection – and I have very fond memories of Bonnie Tyler.  Like a lot of people, I first came across her music with Lost in France – while not her first single, it did see her first entry into the UK charts. Sliding gracefully into the Top 10, it was a breezy country-pop delight, with the video particularly popular – she was just lost in France, in love.

The next Tyler song I remember is It’s a Heartache, a great number with the first real vinyl appearance of her raspy vocals.  As the press soon told the country, this was the result of the removal of nodules from her vocal folds – and while perhaps an inadvertent side-effect of the operation, it gave Tyler her trademark voice for which she will always be remembered.

Although Tyler continued to record and release, she fell of my radar until 1981’s Total Eclipse of the Heart which was really very difficult to miss.  With a quite startling video (very bug budget for the time, too) and our first glimpse of rock opera Bonnie (as I have just christened that particular incarnation of hers), it was a global hit and remains close to the hear of millions of people.  In fact, in the homage from the British channel ITV, an interview is played from when she sang the song at the moment of a total solar eclipse. 

Nos da, Bonnie. Cysga'n dda.

...And while we'er at it, why not listen to Total Eclipse again? As much as Bonnie Tyler never got sick of singing it, this is a song that so many of us return to time and time again just for the sake of listening to it one more time...

The Surprising Global Rise of LoL Betting and Competitive Gaming Culture

League of Legends (LoL) is an iconic video game that has become part of modern esports culture. Developed by Riot Games, League of Legends has become one of the world's most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games. Many people enjoy the game from the comfort of their home. Professional players compete in esports tournaments to showcase their skills and achievements. They use more than 100 characters to compete against each other online.

The esports sector places more emphasis on critical thinking abilities than traditional sports, which mostly rely on physical power. Additionally, League of Legends is a cooperative video game that requires players to cooperate in order to defeat the opposition. The most devoted fans support their favourite teams through LoL betting at GGBet, which comes with reasonable odds and transparent payouts.  Image Credit Unsplash

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: The Extraordinary Life and Art of a Post-Impressionist Master

Although he died at just 36, Toulouse Lautrec was able to both live a remarkable life and produce art that will persevere through the ages.  Yet, astonishingly, during his lifetime he was little-known as an artist outside of Paris.  Although he did enjoy much more success at the time than his contemporary and good friend Vincent Van Gogh, it is perhaps something of a shame that he was never to know how well-loved his works would be on a global scale.

Pete Beard, whose YouTube channel focuses on illustrators of the past, here examines the life and works of Toulouse Lautrec. It really is as much as you will ever need to know about the man if you have, say, just a passing interest in his work.  Throughout the video, we get to see probably close to a hundred of his posters, illustrations and paintings – and who would have thought that a Debussy soundtrack would go so well with them?  I will now let Mr Beard tell you the story.

The Bird of Paradise Without Wings

This particular bird has no wings and will never fly. However, people around the world will stop and gawk at its flightless beauty. Take a look at the bird of paradise without wings.

Image Credit Flickr User Bill Gracey

Bye Bye Bunny

There is so much happening in Bye Bye Bunny, a degree project animated short by Rubika students, that it could easily be extended into a full-length feature.  Having said that, it would probably give the world’s children nightmares as although the colour palettes are what you might expect from an animated escapade, it has moments which can only be described as incredibly dark.  As such it’s my kind of animation!

It tells the story of a magician and his friend, assistant and, well, prop, a rabbit.  Their joint career is going swimmingly until the day that all the rabbits on the planet disappear. Unfortunately, this world event happens in the middle of the magician’s performance, and he is howled off stage.  However, that isn’t the end of  that – watch the animation below to see what happens next!

Bye-Bye Bunny was directed by Julia Bueno, Cheng Li, Catherine Lepicard, Inès Pagniez, Julien Roguet and Paul Torris. It features music by Kenny Wood and Florian Calmer, with sound mixing by Kamal Ouazène, bringing together a small but carefully crafted team behind its production.

The Bayeux Tapestry Explained: The British Museum's Brilliant Animated Guide to 1066

William the Conqueror, 1066 – played on the Saxons cruel tricks. I don’t know if you are old enough to remember the first lines of a poem I was forced to learn at school which detailed several important historical dates, beginning with the Norman invasion of England, but this video will help explain the cruel tricks.  I for one truly wish this has been around in my childhood! The British Museum (aided and abetted by Hocus Pocus Studio) have created this fantastic, animated explanation of the Bayeux Tapestry, telling the story from the beginning to (for the Saxons at least) its bitter end.   It really brings the tapestry to life and the narration by Claudia Winkelman (an English broadcaster and writer immensely famous in the UK zips through the history with ease (and the occasional knowing wink to the audience).

The video is designed for anyone 11 and over who is interested in finding out the story of the Bayeux Tapestry as well as some of the facts and figures associated with it.  It doesn’t patronise, but it explains what the tapestry is and why it is such an extraordinary testament to William the Conqueror.  As a big kid in adult disguise, I found this immensely entertaining.  

The video was created to accompany the British Museum’s hosting of the Bayeux Tapestry.  This will end on 11 July so get your skates on if you still want to see the real thing before it returns home to France. In the meantime, watch the video below.

How Do Astronauts Breathe on the International Space Station? The Clever Way the ISS Makes Oxygen

It’s one of those questions I have never considered asking, but now I come to think of it, I really want an answer! How is it that astronauts don’t run out of air on the International Space Station?  In the early days of spaceflight, oxygen was stored in tanks, but the flights were short(ish) and so enough could be carried along with the craft to ensure the astronauts didn’t suffocate on their way there and back..  Yet if you are on the ISS, there is a limit to the amount of oxygen tanks you can bring along with you.  The Apollo 11 Mission, which took three astronauts to the moon, and took seven days, had 50kg of oxygen (which was plenty).  However, six to eight months in space with seven crewmates – that would be way too costly.

So, enter electrolysis and a system called MOGA (and that doesn’t stand for Make Oman Grest Again).   That’s about as much as I will see as this fantastic lesson by Ted-Ed covers the rest extremely well (I understood it, so that means it’s pretty accessible!).  Alvaro Romero-Calvo and Theo St Francis investigate – and do a great job.  However, I was particularly drawn to the animations (see what I did there?) and they are uncredited – as far as I can see – but thank you to them too!

Unexpected Item Review: Olivia Colman’s Talking Checkout Till Makes This Award-Winning Short a Delight

Olivis Coleman as a self-service checkout till that answers back? Yes, I’ll have some of that, thank you very much.  Of course, a till that answers back needs a customer to backchat, and that comes in the form  of hapless Henry (played by the quietly handsome Jamie Blackley) who has reached the ripe old age of 26 and is still required to prove his age when he buys alcohol.  However, that is the least of his worries.  Hapless Henry is also hankering for the human cashier (Isabella Laughland) but there is always a reason – or an excuse – for him to end up on the self-service side of the supermarket (and Coleman’s remark about the tissues he is buying will have you in gales).

Unexpected Item has quietly built an impressive festival record, collecting Best Film awards at the Anaheim International and Cambria Film Festivals, Best Comedy Short at both the Orinos Film Awards and Independent Short Awards, Best Short Film at the Vegas Movie Awards and Falcon International Film Festival, and Best Romantic Comedy at the Top Indie Film Awards. It has also been officially selected for festivals including Norwich, Carmarthen Bay, Queen Palm, Austin Comedy, and JellyFest. Directed by Stephen Gallacher and written by Chris Croucher, the short tells a warm, witty story about courage, human connection, and the small inner voice that sometimes gives us the push we need to reach out to one another.  It’s lovely.

Hillywood's Star Wars Parody Is Their Most Epic Production Yet

The Hillywood Show is never one to tighten its belt when it comes to budgets, and this parody of Star Wars looks like it was pretty expensive to make.  It’s huge fun, too.  Filmed using anamorphic lenses to capture the sweeping 2.39:1 cinematic aspect ratio of the original trilogy, this restoration delivers a spectacular UltraWide presentation in stunning 4K or 8K resolution.  All your favorites are here – Luke, Yoda, Han, Leia, Chewbacca – and what Star Wars parody would be complete without an appearance or two by Darth Vader!

The commenters of YouTube are ecstatic. Viewers are hailing the parody as Hillywood's most ambitious and polished production to date, marvelling at the painstaking recreation of the original trilogy's sets, costumes, lighting and cinematography. Fans singled out everything from the inspired casting - particularly Jim Beaver as Obi-Wan (although I was rather taken with Supernatural’s Matt Cohen as Han Solo) to the pitch-perfect vocal performances, while the now-iconic lightsaber guitars became an instant favourite. Long-time followers described the video as a triumphant return, with many sharing how Hillywood's parodies have brightened their lives for years. Just as enthusiastically, commenters applauded the prominent "No AI" message, celebrating the production as a showcase for the creativity, craftsmanship and passion of a talented cast and crew working entirely by hand.  Altogether, if you are a Star Wars fan, you will find much to enjoy in this parody – and even if you are just a toe-dipper into this particular universe, you will find something to smile about here!

Free Posters for GCSE English Literature AQA Power & Conflict Poetry Collection

If you need something to brighten up your classroom wall, then look no further.  I took a little while to create these posters – and trying to tame AI to produce something faithful to them was an uphill struggle.  

However, here are the finished items, which you can download free of charge here.  And yes, they do use AI but because that means that you and I do not have to worry about copyright issues. I see so many posters created by well-meaning teachers who have blithely used the work of others to illustrate the literature that they teach – I wanted to avoid that altogether and now technology has finally caught up with that desire!

I started with Ozymandias, which I have very fond memories of studying while I was at school. Its message is as powerful today as it was when Shelley wrote it, reminding us that even the mightiest rulers, empires and achievements are ultimately fleeting, while time and nature outlast them all.  

My teacher did some marvellous things with her voice when reading the poem out loud – and although in hindsight it may have been a little too bombastic (you should have seen her doing Charge of the Light Brigade), we enjoyed her theatricals.

Bot and Cat: An Emotional Animated Short Film That Will Melt Your Heart

A robot works deep underground for a civilisation long since disappeared (that would be us).  It is a lonely existence and when a cat strays from the surface and finds its way down to the bot’s subterranean lair, what’s a cat expected to do except steal the shiny, bouncy antenna thing from the bot’s head.  And so ensues a chase to the surface and the discovery of a new friendship for both bot and cat.  Sounds very simple?  Well, it is – but the secret of good story telling always lies in the way it is told.  Bot and Cat manages to be very, very straightforward yet deeply profound at the same time. It’s charming yet thoughtful simultaneously.

The commenters of YouTube love it. Many describe the seven-minute animation as an emotional masterpiece, praising its beautiful storytelling, evocative music, gorgeous backgrounds and polished animation. Viewers say they were left in tears by the robot's touching journey, with one remarking they'll "never get tired of 'robot goes against its programming to experience the beauty of nature' stories". Others were astonished by how few people had seen it, repeatedly calling it "underrated" and predicting the studio behind it is destined for future success. Several even suggested it outshines big-budget Hollywood productions, while hoping it goes on to win festival awards and reach the much wider audience they believe it deserves. Agreed!

Created by a group of students (collectively known as HermitCat Studios for their thesis project at Canada’s Sheridan College, this wonderful piece of work utilises the talents of Mo Hassan, Jenna Pomfret, Julia Lin, Nomy Fang, Rie Wong, Daniel Young, Travis Li, Yi-Ting Yuan, Kiwi Prommart, Charlotte Royal, Yoonji Nam and Heidi Pan. The original (and rather lovely) score is by Johnny Knittle.  Watch Bot and Cat below.

Confessions of a Dachshund: Otto's Hilarious Tale of Freedom and Frustration

It’s a dog’s life… I always thought that phrase was much too popular because most dogs live the life of Riley these days.  Likewise, “I’ve been working like a dog” has long since lost any impact it might once have had.   So, when Otto the Dachshund popped his weary little head and doleful eyes on my feed, I was a little wary about what he might have to say about the challenges his life presents…  and I was right.  Yet this pampered pooch learns a lesson or two in his confessions and he does it in such a droll manner that he won me over (almost) immediately. 

This highly amusing tale tells the story of how Otto has his day (like every dog should)  – and manages to escape the clutches of both his needy human and his canine companion Kasper, to finally taste a little freedom.  What he does with it is up to you to find out, but the build up to the climax is something of a shaggy dog story, despite Otto being short-haired and rather regal looking.  Regardless, I would recommend that you sit back and watch Confessions of a Dachshund, which was written, filmed, and edited by Sparky Jones.  A special shout out to Tony Ingram who voices Otto with the kind of middle-aged angst that makes this narrative completely and utterly believable. Ahem.

 

UBTech U1 Robot: Is This the Most Human-Like Humanoid Robot Yet?

Have a guess which of the two people above is a robot.  It’s probably not too difficult to work out which is which – but the UBTech Robotics model on the right is, I must admit, incredibly humanlike.  The company’s new life-sized companion robots were unveiled in late June 2026 and they all appear… young, beautiful and generally quite remarkable to look at.  The range is collectively called the U1 Robot – and for anyone who has ever seen a slice of science-fiction where a robot is placed within a human household (I don’t need to go into the consequences here!), it looks very much like we’re one step closer to that kind of scenario.

At any point in human history, however, we see how new inventions have been very quickly put to unanticipated uses by people.  Give them an alphabet and graffiti follows very quickly – you get where I am going here.  So, while the U1 robot is something of a technological marvel, I shudder to think about a few of the uses it might endure once it gets into some people’s living rooms to offer its emotional support.  I anticipate a robot revolution within a decade, frankly… Perhaps I shouldn’t worry – it is, after all, a lifeless chunk of technology, comprising silicon, 88 servo joints and the (locally stored to ensure privacy) artificial intelligence – and all the other bits and pieces that make it up.

Although the eyes move while conversations are happening between robot and human (and the head moves according to the human’s movement), the lips don’t – and perhaps that isn’t a bad thing. It’s a reminder, after all, that the U1 is a robot and not a person.  There does seem to be a lag in conversations, too – but as this is the first humanlike model the company has launched, we know that this will see improvements over the forthcoming years. After all, how fast did the first mass-produced cars travel?  There have already been over 13,000 orders (and the U1 is not desperately cheap) so this there is certainly a demand for this kind of emotional support.  Watch the video below (and read the comments if you want something a little less diplomatic than the words I have written!).