You need to stop talking about yourself

I always feel like most Muse reviews don't credit the fact that considering that they're only three people, they make a huge amount of noise. I mean really, they manage to build quite an atmospheric, melodramatic, over-the-top spectacle vibe that bands with more members only ever dream of achieving. It was the same thing with Wolfmother before Andrew kicked the other two out. Even live. Brand New get a pretty intense vibe happening live, but they bring on like three extra drummers, and Green Day have an extensive touring party. So yeah, I think their number alone makes them impressive.

Uni news - my academic transcripts are ready to be picked up, so I should be able to have all my applications sorted by Tuesday. Oddly enough, I received an invitation to join an Honours society the other day and on perusal of their site, I've discovered one has to maintain a GPA of 3.7 or higher in order to warrant an invitation. Now my arguably useless skills of deduction are suggesting that I must be maintaining said average which blows me away. I just can't believe it. I had no idea I could possibly be doing anywhere near that well. Huh.

Meanwhile, there are some bizarre philosophical debates out there. For example, the unexpected hanging paradox:

A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following week but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day. Having reflected on his sentence, the prisoner draws the conclusion that he will escape from the hanging. His reasoning is in several parts. He begins by concluding that the "surprise hanging" can't be on a Friday, as if he hasn't been hanged by Thursday, there is only one day left - and so it won't be a surprise if he's hanged on a Friday. Since the judge's sentence stipulated that the hanging would be a surprise to him, he concludes it cannot occur on Friday. He then reasons that the surprise hanging cannot be on Thursday either, because Friday has already been eliminated and if he hasn't been hanged by Wednesday night, the hanging must occur on Thursday, making a Thursday hanging not a surprise either. By similar reasoning he concludes that the hanging can also not occur on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday. Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all. The next week, the executioner knocks on the prisoner's door at noon on Wednesday — which, despite all the above, will still be an utter surprise to him. Everything the judge said has come true. [here]

I'm currently reading essays as part of research for my exegesis, one happened to be on time [Time machine: On machines for measuring time and machines for travelling in time.] It probably isn't very relevant to my thesis other than setting up the importance of the role of time in human existence, but it was quite informative. Call me naive, but I really never even considered what impact the invention of the mechanical clock had on civilization. I was also surprised to discover it first appeared in the 13th Century, I clearly don't give humanity much credit. The thing that gets me most about this essay is the implication of the invention of synchronised activities and the subsequent value placed on it. Clocks originated in the monasteries, where they already had fairly regimented activities and merely wanted to mark it better. It then spread across cities during the 14th century. By the 15th, society placed greater emphasis on a co-ordination of activities and as a result mass production. Now the author notes that "this development shifted attention in the exchange of labour for goods or currency for finished product, to the distribution of a working day and the time invested in the manufacture of a given commodity." So are we then meant to assume this shift would never have occurred without the mechanical clock? Maybe I've just always been a bit obtuse in this respect, but I never thought the clock was an important invention. I just found it quite interesting.

The following struck a bit of a chord with me, for purely fangirling purposes of course -"the mechanical clock was a symbol of eternity, for the timeless order behind the temporary appearance of things." It made me feel quite content in the warm fuzzy way, making the connection.

Anyway, I was actually discussing the whole clock development thing with one of the IT guys who is a veritable font of eclectic knowledge (which for the record I think is absolutely fabulous), and he told told me about the Antikythera mechanism, essentially the first "computer" if you will. Invented by the Greeks around 87BC, it tracks astronomical positions, and though I may sound absolutely geeky admitting this, it has to be one of the most amazing things I've heard about lately. They've recently reconstructed it and Paul showed me a video of the working model, it's just astounding that they managed to create this complex, accurate machine so very long ago. Clearly this thing was way ahead of its time, no record of an object of equal technological complexity exists for anything until about a thousand years later. It brings up something that's always baffled me, what happens to civilizations that they seem light years ahead of everyone else and then suddenly just stop? Why does that happen? If they could develop things like this so many centuries ago, shouldn't we theoretically have progressed a lot faster than we have? Instead we have the rise and fall of cultures, accomplishing marvelous feats of design and engineering, and then seemingly letting it go so another one can start from scratch and reach the top. Repeatedly. What's up with that? Paul mentioned something about how the Mayans believed the world regenerated (Time Lord Science) and so exists in a cyclical pattern. My first thought was that plagues, famines and such wipe out all the "inventors" in a culture, so giving another one a shot at taking over. Civilization just seem to stop-start a lot, I don't get it.

Theoretical pondering aside, I was browsing random Flickr streams today and came across this photo:

You can try to tell me that isn't a giant UFO parked in Roald Dahl Plass, but I'll probably just ignore you. As my mum would say, Torchwood's never around when you need them.

Mum and I actually watched the first episode of NCIS:LA today and I just have to note that the team is extremely slow on the uptake. Really guys, we saw that plot twist coming a thousand miles off and were impatiently waiting for you to catch up. I hope it improves because I know it seems like an unlikely choice, but NCIS is cool, alright? LA have so much ground to cover if they even want to come near the level of awesome that is the Gibbs/Tony/Ziva/McGee/Abby/Ducky team. Oh, so much ground. And no, the youngest, newest team member who apparently knows everything and was messing with a coffee machine in his first minute of screen-time, is not enough to endear you to me. Don't make me go there, everyone is sick to death of me going there.

I managed to get my hands on the new season of Merlin. Glee! That show is so adorkable. Adorkable I tells you! I swear that word was invented specifically for it (seeing as it is a wholly fictional word, I'm sure its origin lies in some or other fandom.) I just wish I didn't have to wait for more. The internet has spoiled me with instantaneity. Mind you, the second episode just made me want to watch A Knight's Tale, one of those films I love a disproportionate amount. Alan Tudyk before he was Wash (It's called a lance, hello!), Paul Bettany as Chaucer (God I'm good!), Heath Ledger. It gets a bad rap (or bum rap if you want to be pedantic) but I adore it to death. Much the same way I quite like Center Stage, another film in the same arena of scorn.

Back to the topic of shows that are cool, what happened to Numb3rs? Every time I think Channel 10 can't piss me off any more, they somehow manage. Stop shuffling shows around without any warning before unceremoniously taking them off air! You've killed One Tree Hill, Torchwood, and Veronica Mars with this stupidity. I demand the return of the Eppes brothers, and the my almost-fandom, right now. No pancakes for you.

I made some great pancakes today, if I do say so myself. It's the only thing this weather is good for.

Music: Audience and Audio - Twin Atlantic
Mood: Pensive