Everything around you has a crazy backstory.

Movie-style stories behind the inventions and customs you use every day, told by Baba, an electrical engineer and grandfather who still can't believe how we got here.

Why is your phone here because a college kid picked philosophy?
Why was Christmas once illegal in America?
Why did a horse help invent the telephone?

▶ Watch on YouTube

Free printable

The Relay Race: 190 years of AI on two pages

Every moment from Episode 1, from 1830s human "computers" to the machine you talk to today. Great for the fridge, the classroom or quizzing the grandkids.

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AI timeline, 2 pagesPlus one short email each Sunday when a new story drops.

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Season 1, every Sunday

Watch in order: each story ends by setting up the next one.

Nov 15
1. The Relay Race
How a pile of accidents built AI
Nov 15
2. The Engine
Why is it still measured in horses?
Nov 15
3. Television
The boy who was never on TV
Nov 22
4. Human Flight
Drawn 104 years before it flew
Nov 29
5. The Jet Engine
A £5 patent fee
Dec 6
6. Christmas
When it was illegal in America
Dec 13
7. Electricity
The thing in your wall
Dec 20
8. The Telephone
It started with a horse
Dec 27
9. The Calendar
Five days that never happened
Jan 3
10. The Toilet
Invented 430 years ago for a queen
Jan 10
11. The Electric Car
The hundred-year detour
Jan 17
12. Money
A fortune on the sea floor
Jan 24
13. The Chip
Two trillion dollars per phone
Jan 31
14. Central Heating
Jefferson's ink froze indoors
Feb 7
15. The Hot Shower
It has a prison in its family tree

Who's Baba?

I'm Afshin. My grandkids call me Baba. As a boy I secretly opened my father's calculator to see how it worked, and I never stopped asking that question. I became an electrical engineer, spent my career building software, and later worked as an AI researcher.

This channel is the stories I wish someone had told me: not dates and dull history, but the accidents, rivalries and lucky breaks behind the things we never think about.

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