Please
hold
Making the most of a slightly miserable bit of downtime to write something here.
I sent off a graphic proposal for a video graphics project. I was really happy with the result, but the client feels it doesn’t quite match the treatment I sent at the start. Those replies are always a bit painful, especially when you felt you’d made something good.
I’m waiting for their call to understand where it went off course and how far I may have wandered from what we had in mind. Might as well do something with the waiting.
A few watercolours on ARTE
I animated a few sequences from Bartholdi’s sketches and watercolours for Pôle Nord Studio. Some of them made it into Liberté, la statue qui voulait changer le monde, a documentary currently available on ARTE.
It’s nice to see those images in the finished film. And my name in the credits, while we’re at it.
The images below are from the art direction I personally preferred, which is different from the one used in the finished documentary.
Models, dots and dollars
Meanwhile, OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Sol without much warning, at least from where I’m sitting. And there’s a new rung above my current subscription: a Pro plan at $500 a month.
For now, I’ll stay where I am and see whether I have enough credits to keep GPT at the centre of my process. I use these tools a lot, but that’s starting to look like a pretty serious monthly bill.
At DevDay 2026, OpenAI also introduced dots. The idea is a personal agent that keeps context, uses the tools you connect, and carries on working between conversations. It has its own computer in the cloud and comes back with results or decisions that need your input. The rollout is gradual. I’m curious to see how it works in practice.
Of course, xAI managed to grab a little attention for Grok: dot.com redirects to its chatbot’s download page. The internet thinks it was a prank prepared for OpenAI’s launch. The motive hasn’t been confirmed, but the timing is pretty funny.
A toothbrush that takes on water
Another bit of news nobody needs, but which made me laugh: you’ve probably seen Dyson’s toothbrush. Nearly $500 to brush your teeth. What a time to be alive.
To me, Dyson are the kings of expensive showmanship. Take an appliance that’s supposedly a bit better than the others and give it a price wildly out of proportion to the competition. Can we really call it innovation when you’re paying ten times as much to do roughly the same thing? If a car costs a hundred times more than another car, I’d at least expect it to fly.
What’s the promise here? See your gnashers in 4K and stream them on Twitch?
I was already questioning humanity’s future when this thing launched. But the follow-up is even better: some of the toothbrushes broke because of water seepage. Dyson says a manufacturing issue with one batch of jet tubes affected a small number of products.
A toothbrush that takes on water. At that price. :)))
Pixels and holidays
I also came across this PS5 jailbreak, presented as ridiculously simple, using a few moves around the interface. Keeping the link handy; compatibility depends on the firmware.
On the tools front, SENTINEL looks promising: a visual node environment built for agents to create and modify scenes in real time. Shaders, audio reactivity, tracking and image generation all in one place. But it needs Windows and an NVIDIA GPU. I’m on a Mac, so I’ll be watching from the sidelines for now.
For fans of pixels without antialiasing, though, Exodium is available on Mac. It’s a free, open-source launcher for the eXoDOS collections, replacing their LaunchBox frontend with a cross-platform app. Pick a game from the catalogue and download it on demand through the eXoDOS torrents, without grabbing the whole collection.
The catalogue is ridiculous. I’ve already made a first list of games I used to love: Alone in the Dark, Dune, Beneath a Steel Sky, Loom, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle… Roll on the holidays so I can finally get stuck into Shadow of the Comet.
Everything disappears. The shoe remains.
I love the approach in Everything Disappears, It Remains, the ASICS ad directed by Toxine. Inside a blue-screen studio, blue silhouettes get to work making a 3D commercial for a shoe.
A nicely absurd idea, with the whole business of making the image becoming the spectacle. Very much my kind of thing.
The site’s nearly done. Shall we break it?
Now that the site is almost finished, I obviously want to smash it up and start again. If you’d like to help, this way.
For your ears
Two new Jamie T tracks to finish: Tallahassee and 3310.
His 2009 album Kings & Queens is an absolute gem. If you don’t know it, go and give it a listen.
Right, see you!