Blog post for a commment that wouldn't load on Reddit, about history and creative options (in London)

I tried to reply with a comment on a Reddit post (r/London) but couldn't because the post was removed (not London-y enough). I then found the author had added their post to a different forum and pasted my comment there but Reddit refused it (possibly doesn't like stuff being pasted in). Zero plans to retype it so I have added it as a blog post here, on my blog :)

Query was from someone wanting suggestions about transferring from a history course at LSE to a more overtly creative one.

I'm at the science end of things myself, so forgive wild speculation in an area that isn't really mine :) Also you've not said if your creative interest is in music, painting, writing, photography, film, general digital stuff or A.N. Other... so this may be a bit off-piste.

Can you add something creative as a hobby? Projects might include art or photography classes (London is packed to the rafters with evening courses and adult education goings on, including courses at British Museum or just turn-up-and-paint at National Gallery (or portrait gallery)), or Royal Academy (see below). Or maybe take photographs of interesting historical things and add them to Wikimedia Commons.

If you have an iPad there's a bit of software called https://poly.cam/ (I think it's about £90 but a free test version is available) which lets you play around with photogrammetry and things like that. This is also something that is used in archival settings to photograph delicate (and fading) artefacts so that they can be viewed digitally and analysed. This project is employing a variety of 3D techniques to study fragile embroideries from the Stuart period of history https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX006522%2F1

There's a whole world linking the history of art to medicine (e.g. spotting ailments in the life models in old art, or inferring them in the painter from clues in the art), and using art observation to train medical students in observing patients and picking up clues from life. I wrote about that here https://brodiesnotes.blogspot.com/2020/01/things-faithfully-though-unwittingly.html

Or how about creativity in sounds? Museums and historical immersive displays often add a soundscape to bring things to life... Maybe LSE library has a copy of Sonic Pasts Acoustical Heritage and Historical Soundscapes by Mariana J López.

Some London events that vaguely link history with creativity

Royal Academy (RA) https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions-and-events?page=1
5 September 2025, 6-8pm - Drop in and draw FREE
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/drop-in-and-draw-20250905 - "Pick up a pencil and get creative at this free drawing evening, inspired by the Kiefer / Van Gogh exhibition. This workshop has been designed for members of our 25 & Under scheme."

Morley College (classes at Tate Britain)
Short course: Art History: Insights at Tate Britain
18 September 2025 - 2 October 2025 (6 hours, 3 weeks)
https://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/courses/course/art-history-insights-at-tate-britain/ - "This Course offers a dynamic introduction to the National Collection of British art since 1500 and also modern and contemporary art through direct engagement with one of the world’s leading galleries. You are invited to join us to explore key works from Tate Britain’s collection, examining their historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts." £75

Linnean Society
14 October 2025, 11.00am - Into The Light | Cyanotype Workshop from the Linnean Collections https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/into-the-light-cyanotype-workshop-from-the-linnean-collections-tickets-1492292650489 (these crop up again every so often) "You'll learn about the history of the cyanotype process and its connection to early botany. You will also discover the history of nature printing and how it has been used to document plant specimens." from £35

London Month of the Dead, Guy's Hospital Chapel
1 November 2025, 1.30 - 3.30pm, https://londonmonthofthedead.com/spellssaintssummoning.html
Spells, Saints and Summonings - Magic in Medieval Manuscripts - £12.50
"Drawing upon the manuscripts of the British Library, Rory MacLellan will guide you through spells to treat snakebite, to make bread dance, and even to summon demons that will help you find buried treasure. He will talk about protective charms for childbirth, curses to guard books from theft, spells to prank your neighbours, and the surprising Christian elements and priestly practitioners of medieval magic"

Morley College
Short course: Art History: The Relationship Between Art and Ideas
6 November 2025 - 11 December 2025 (15 hours, 6 weeks)
https://www.morleycollege.ac.uk/courses/course/the-relationship-between-art-and-ideas/
"This course comprises 6 Sessions: 1. Art of the Sublime – we will examine how notions of the sublime have been reflected in art made from the 19thc through to contemporary art. 2. Art of the Uncanny and Abject – we will see how these key psychological ideas are reflected in wide range of art works. ..." £180 / £135

Requires a digital camera (not just a phone)

Westland Place Studios
Saturday 20th September 2025, 1pm - History of London Photography Tour (London), £52
https://www.westlandplacestudios.com/course/history-of-london-photography-tour
"Combine your passion for exploring historic London with learning about the techniques of architectural photography on this tutored tour around the city. London is a city steeped in history, sometimes obvious, sometimes overlooked but often hidden. With 2,000 years of rebuilding and renewal it's a place constantly in flux. The ever changing streets: the layering of history, the remnants of its past, have inspired photographic documentation since the invention of photography in the late nineteenth century."

Creative... but not so much of the history

Lifefabs (biofabrication maker space) https://lifefabs.bio/#what's-on
1 September 2025, 6.30pm - Knitting with Nature: Bio-Yarn Workshop
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/knitting-with-nature-bio-yarn-workshop-tickets-1559825844089 "Join us for a hands-on deep dive into the world of biofabricated textiles. In this immersive workshop, you’ll explore the potential of bacterial cellulose and marine biopolymers as sustainable fibers for future fashion and design. Participants will learn how to grow, extrude, weave and dye their own bio-based yarns using techniques adapted specifically for biodesigners." ~£11

Internet whimsy: I'm looking for more examples of quirky web and computing stuff, here's what I have so far

Part of my day job involves writing about computer science (in its widest sense) for the Computer Science For Fun (CS4FN) blog and print magazine(s). We write about computer science research, history of the topic, themed stuff, how to do something or other - all sorts. 

I'm also a big fan of the Really? No, Really? podcast in which the hosts (Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden) have a guest on each week to talk about something that's amazed, amused or baffled them and sometimes all three. 

There are lots of stories in the world of computing that do the same and I thought I'd write about some of them, but while I know lots (below) I'm sure there are others I've not heard of yet. 

What am I missing in the list below of quirky computer science type things? 

• Lava lamps and security - Cloudflare trains a camera on a wall of lava lamps and converts the images (incredibly random!) into a string of numbers to help with encryption.
  
  
• "Open Office can't print on Tuesdays" - a glitch which meant that if the word Tue appeared at a particular point in a line of metadata then the file was miscategorised and treated as a non-printing file. The fix was to replace all instances of 'Tue' with 'tue'.
  
  
• "Can't send email further than 500 miles" - a university stats team in North Carolina found that they could only email within a 500 mile radius. The culprit was the length of time allowed for a ping message and its response. It didn't time out when emails were sent 'locally' but the message took too long once the distance was over 500 miles so the emails failed.
  
  
• The UK Government website for Bank Holidays displays bunting if you visit it on the day of a Bank Holiday (on Christmas Day it displays tinsel).
  
  
• IP over avian carriers - an April Fool's joke written as a serious document discussing the transfer speed of data sent by pigeon. The real-world equivalent is river rafting tourism which used carrier pigeon to return camera rolls to the head office which could then be processed for guests to collect once the trip ended.
  
  
• Google's Pigeon Rank - another April Fool's joke with Google explaining that pigeons were used to pick websites to display when a user searched for information. The real-world equivalent is the discovery that pigeons are pretty good at discriminating photographs of healthy tissue samples from diseased ones.
  
  
• Broadband over wet string - this one is peak internet whimsy ;) Engineers had a go at getting a signal to transmit over wet string and managed to get an impressive 3.5 Mbps. Althugh wet string is conductive apparently it's more about the medium acting as a wave guide for the high frequency signal.
  
  
• I need to dig out the nice story on Twitter of someone's mum being paid to try and test software to destruction - she first used social engineering to get into the room and the program by carrying an awkward amount of papers and struggling through a door then simply asking people "what's today's password".
  
  
• Optical mice don't always work in bright sunshine.
  
  
• The first webcam was pointed at a coffee machine so that people could check whether there was coffee left.
  
  
• The Utah teapot as the first item rendered digitally in 3D.
  
  
• Ada Lovelace and the first dry run table.
  
  
• HTTP status codes - many fairly dull, one or two demonstrate a bit of whimsy.
  
  
• List of animals awarded human credentials (formerly 'list of cats with fraudulent diplomas') - edging out of remit but computational in the sense of logic - testing the weak points of a system where people can get PhDs without doing the work, as demonstrated by people getting qualifications for their cats and dogs. To make it a bit more computing-relevant I might add something in to this post about web certificates and keychains etc.
  
  
• "What kind of medicine does Dracula take? Con medicine" - this baffling cracker joke can be explained by jokes written in fonts with a ligature then printed on devices with fonts that don't have it, meaning that the word 'coffin' loses the ffi as ligature fonts treat that as a single glyph. Bonus material: non-English orthography and how many foreign names and addresses used to get mangled when people entered them into the old CS4FN mailing list database.
  
  
• Les Horribles Cernettes - first picture on Tim Berners-Lee's interwebs. See also Annie Rauwerda / Depth of Wikipedia's TikTok about them.
  
  
• Mark Rober's dartsboard that uses Arduinos, computer vision / motion capture, sensors and rapid trajectory calculations to ensure the dart always lands you an excellent score.
  
  
• Please add your example of computerish internet whimsy to this form :-)