Sunday 24 October 2010

Witches and Wizards and Magical Beasts

A Very Potter Musical, where have you been my whole life?

Parody musicals are one thing. Highly-polished parody musicals with original music performed by actors who can actually sing? They're another thing. Which you should be watching.

AVPM is a musical based on the Harry Potter series. It's not based on any particular book, but rather takes elements from various books and ties them together with original touches and comedic elements, into a colourful, entertaining story with memorable characters - and memorable villains.

And the music. Did I mention the music?

Watch it. It's the missing piece in your life.

(There's also a sequel, which you should also watch. After finishing the first one. Lucius Malfoy is amazing. And Draco Malfoy. And Dolores Umbridge. And - just watch it.)

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Wednesday 13 October 2010

Update XXVII: For Science

So. We haven't spoken in a while.

I've finally experienced a researcher's worst nightmare - finding out that someone else is doing the same thing you're doing, only better. Also, they are based in Hawaii. Hawaii.

It's not too bad. Science is ultimately an altruistic pastime, and if you go into it hoping for fame and wealth you are going to be severely disappointed. Your contribution as an individual means nothing compared to the contribution to the overall picture - and it doesn't particularly matter who makes that contribution.

It is a noble, harsh thing, to be a scientist.

But Hawaii, goshdarnit.

The "Dance Your PhD" competition has recently come to my attention. It has to be the single most bizarre method to be recognised by the Science magazine. (For those who have not been exposed to the cut-throat world of publications, getting published in Nature or Science is akin to an article about you being printed on the front page of your national newspaper, complete with full-colour photographs.) It probably would be quite challanging to express a PhD topic by dance.

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I want to do it.

What does everyone think of Google Instant? While potentially annoying to slower typists looking up obscure topics, I can see how it would be intuitive to the impatient among us. I actually didn't notice anything different for the first thirty minutes or so, until - "Hey, why is the page loading before I can hit the Enter key?"

I like how they put up an actual graph to prove that Google Instant is faster. A graph with no axes.

Look! Jurassic Park the Musical!

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