A Random Thought
If a picture is worth 1000 words then how many words is the average film equivalent to? Well, the average film would have, I assume, a frame rate of 24 frames per second (ie. 24 pictures per second), and the average length of a film is around 84 minutes. Hence the average film would be worth 24x60x84x1000 = 120960000 words.

So there we have it. If a picture is worth 1000 words, then the average film is worth 120960000 words. Now, say the average novel is 500 pages long and assume that there are around 300 words per page, then the average novel contains around 150000 words, which means that the average film provides the same information as 806.4 novels, and all in the space of 84 minutes.

Hence films are an incredibly effective way of conveying information. Conclusion: watch more films.

Of course you may argue that this finding is invalid since each frame shown in a film is not independent from the last. But the saying doesn’t mention independence at all, so this isn’t a valid ground for argument.

Well that’s all from me.

Please don’t say I’m an idiot if you decide to comment…

Winter Reading: Book Reviews

I thought I’d get around to reviewing some of the books I read over the winter holidays. There are few activities that are more relaxing than reading by an open fire on a comfy sofa whilst sipping various blends of tea, with milk and no sugar…

The rating system is as follows:
α α α α α = Life Changing
α α α α = Classic
α α α = Good
α α = Average
α = Was thrown on the fire (or it will be)


Brave New World: Aldous Huxely
My rating: α α α α

Quite simply this book is a masterpiece. I think it should certainly be added to the list of books one must read in their lifetime.

The book uses the powerful device of a rather strange futuristic utopian world as a medium to comment not only on capitalism but on societies and their aims as a whole. The novel is set in the year ‘693 After Ford (Henry Ford that is)’, where babies are produced through a process in factories, any mention of parents or mothers is blasphemy, recreational sex and drugs are strongly encouraged, members are conditioned in their sleep by a form of hypnosis, a strong hierarchical society exists and everyone is happy all the time.

In the early stages, the reader can’t help but think the book is simply going to be a stinging criticism of Capitalism, and this impression is reinforced by the names of the main characters: Bernard Marx and Lenina. Reading on though, you realise it achieves so much more than that. Not only does the writer use this medium of a futuristic utopia (arguably), but also halfway through the novel he introduces a character that is taken from the ‘savage reservations’ and brought back to live in one of the civilised cities. This character’s loss of innocence and struggle to comprehend and integrate with society is equally as powerful. Many issues are examined through these devices such as: religion, capitalism, happiness Vs knowledge, not to mention many aspects of all societies such as: class division, equity and stability.

One striking part of the novel for me, was when the savage, who has gained a different kind of conditioning in the form of reading ‘The complete works of William Shakespeare’ religiously, falls in love with Lenina, who has been conditioned by society.

The book is always pleasurable to read, although can be quite depressing at times, especially the ending. It is never dry and is reasonably simple. In summary, there is no reason why you shouldn’t read this book right now.

Kafka on the Shore: Haruki Murakami
My rating: α 1/2
I picked this book up, because it was written by the author of ‘Norwegian Wood’, which I enjoyed immensely. What a mistake it was though. I haven’t read a book this bad for quite some time. I was amazed that the same mind that brought ‘Norwegian Wood’ to life could create something so awful. I kept wading through the pages trying to find a spark that made the book worthwhile, but I never found it. At times I got the feeling that the author was just writing for the sake of writing, just spewing out page after page of irrelevant dribble trying to see how many pages he could write.

Murakami goes overboard with imagery and philosophy, which doesn’t fit at all with the age of the main character, 15. Characters introduced include ‘Johnnie Walker’, ‘Colonel Sanders’ and a man who can talk to cats and make fish fall from the sky. The author throws caution into the wind and tackles supernatural ideas such as parallel worlds, UFO’s and destinies. This comes off rather badly in my opinion. Also, social taboos are touched on as if they were no problem at all and there seems to be no reason for bringing them up.

Perhaps I would have thrown the book on the fire if I hadn’t been in Canberra when I finished it and hence fireless.

Avoid this one at all costs.


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime: Mark Haddon
My Rating: α α α 1/2

This book is simply superb. It is a daring and unique concept, but it is pulled off extremely well. The novel is written as though it were the effort of a 15 year old autistic boy, Christopher, to write a book. The language, style, pictures and maths allow the reader to easily believe that this book is authentic; that they are actually reading this boy’s story. Some readers may be put off by the simple language and abundance of pictures, but this is unmerited, as the story and the concept are exquisite. Sure, the book doesn’t spew out images relentlessly like the Murakami book I reviewed above, but I can live without “… waves crashing in and out again and again” being mentioned on almost every page. Quite simply, it seems that the author doesn’t try too hard and yet the depth he achieves is commendable.

Christopher is an autistic child (well it never says this, but that’s what I assumed), who lives with his father in Swindon, England. He attends a ‘Special Needs’ school, since his social skills are almost non-existent and he has severe behavioural problems. He is however rather good at maths and is the first student in his school to take the A-levels for maths. As the story progresses you gain an insight into his mind and learn to appreciate abilities that to us that seem natural, such as: blocking out irrelevant information and understanding facial expressions. Christopher begins his story as a murder mystery to see who murdered the neighbour’s dog, Wellington, but by carrying out this investigation the reader and to some extent Christopher, discovers far more than expected.

This book has a remarkable insight into the effect of domestic disturbances on children and of the enormous strain of raising a special needs child, not to mention actually living with a condition such as autism. Again, it is a rather depressing novel and makes you feel utterly hopeless by the end.

The book though did mention maths quite frequently and included an appendix with a delightful little mathematical proof, which I liked. And yes, I checked, the proof is mathematically acceptable.

This is unlike any other book you are likely to read and is not exactly conventional, but you should definitely give it a try.

Ski Trip
The holidays are now over as though they never even existed and I am in Canberra once more. I arrived yesterday and I’m not sure why, but Canberra felt more like home than it ever has before. I wasn’t altogether annoyed or angry to be back as is sometimes the case, and yet at the same time it was the least motivated and happy I’ve been to leave Melbourne. I guess I’m kind of getting used to and enjoying living my life in two worlds. One world I am organised, disciplined, study and work hard, look after myself and the other world I can catch up with all my old friends, enjoy Melbourne’s culture, relax and laze about. I guess I’m growing attached to that physical distinction and separation between my two lifestyles.

Actually it was the first long drive I’ve done recently by myself for a while, so I was back to speeding and singing Aladdin again, “Oh Prince Ali glorious he Ali Ababwa… Stong as 10 regular men definitely”, ok I’ll stop now. I’d been doing far too much driving really and this time more than any other, it was really quite tiring and straining, even with all the singing. But I made it in one piece thankfully and I’m back in Canberra, back for another semester.

Everyone looks happy and refreshed and even the life form that was growing at the bottom of my sink has been removed by some sink fairies that must have come into my room in the holidays. I love the start of semester; everyone is so care free and happy.

The last few days of my holidays I embarked on a trip to Falls Creek with Sherly, Chris and Winnie. I’d organised everything right down to the 2:30 am wake up time, which I really hated myself for. I doubt I would have got more than a few hours sleep that night, which is something I really didn’t want to do given the long drive. Still though, I stopped at Winnie’s place in Glen Waverley first at around 3:15am then picked up the others a bit later and headed to the mountain.

Although I didn’t really get lost, I sort of took a wrong turn, which meant a long drive on a deserted road through thick fog, which wasn’t exactly the most fun, but still we arrived at the ski hire place at around 7:30am and were decked out with our ski gear. It took a while really, and a family dressed in matching fluorescent ski suits (overalls almost) seemed rather annoyed at us, but it wasn’t our fault really, it just takes a long while to fit ski gear. Besides you can’t feel sympathy for a family in a matching fluoro ensemble. Well I can’t.

Chains in the boot at the ready, I started the steep winding drive up the mountain. I have a personal loathing of holding people up or inconveniencing people, so I was keeping up the pace set by the Audi V6 in front, throwing my little four cylinder car around the corners to make up for the lower power. The g-forces evidently got to my passengers, as I saw a pale faced Sherly clutch her mouth and stomach and request rather urgently that I pull over. Fortunately there was a little pull in on the left side so I swerved off the road and came to an abrupt halt. Sherly jumped out immediately and doubled over…

I decided to take it a bit slower when we set off again, but to no avail, as not long after I had to make another urgent stop. The winding roads were getting worse and the pull in spots were becoming scarce. My eyes apart from evaluating the corners, were scanning the side of the road for places I could stop in case of an emergency.

Soon the call came when there was no conceivably safe way of stopping, “Err… Trav pull over,” Sherly squeaked. I floored the car, crossed my fingers and swung across the other side of the road into a snow bound pull in area in front of a blind corner. Phew, scarey. The car skidded and whirred as we took off again. There was no more excitement on the trip up and soon we had arrived at Falls Creek. I had a little run in with a parking attendant who called me ‘Sharp as a bowling ball’. I don’t know why, but I really feel insecure when people call me thick, it is silly but I almost felt compelled to take out my degrees and show him my marks. So pathetic…

We strapped on our bulky snow boots, slipped on our gloves and put on our goggles and walked to the ticket office. Unfortunately there had been a blackout on the mountain, so the queue took rather a long time and my plans to make the 10 o’clock lesson went out the window. Eventually though we were on the ‘Falls Express’ chairlift on our way to the main ski starting point.

It was quite a nice day and there was decent snow cover, although it was not the nice powdery stuff, it was the grisly icy man made variety, but not to worry. I’ve hardly been skiing enough times to have developed snow pretensions. The scene was fairly chaotic; people of all ages were whooshing past with a purpose and destination in mind, and I barely remembered how to put my skis on.

Chris and Sherly had their ‘total beginners’ lesson at 12, and Winnie and I had to wait until 1:30pm for our higher level lessons (well not much higher in my case). Once I saw them off I decided to explore some of the nearby gentle slopes, and sure enough the memory of how to ski (badly) came back to me. The lesson was quite interesting and useful and I learnt the valuable lesson that you’re not supposed to plummet at high speeds down steep slopes, you are supposed to turn to lower your speed. So I learnt a snow plough turn. The day was a little disappointing in the fact that I didn’t really get to spend time with the others, which didn’t make it as fun, but I still enjoyed myself.

Our communications were somewhat crippled by the uneasy usage of mobile phones, but somehow we all found each other and took the chairlift back down to the car park. I think I only had to pull over once on the way down. Eventually we checked into our apartment in Mt Beauty and it was most impressive. A two story modern design, with a kitchen stocked with every conceivable utensil, a fireplace, a large plasma TV with surround sound and separate bedrooms with comfy beds. It was luxurious to say the least.

The girls were a little tired and sick in Sherly’s case, so they sent us to get some groceries for dinner. Chris and I are used to ‘roughing it’ on our holidays. We once ate gluggy rice mixed with sweet chilli sauce for one dinner on a trip… I’ve never really been fond of sweet chilli sauce since. Given this trend and the fact that we thought we were all tired and couldn’t really be bothered cooking, we picked up frozen food and a few other items. You can never go wrong with frozen food, or at least we thought… When we arrived back, Sherly and Winnie looked mortified at what we had brought home for dinner and even more so when they were actually eating it. We all retired to bed rather early, given that we were all very tired. I don’t have to tell you I had a very pleasurable sleep that night.

The next morning I told Sherly to suck some ‘Barley Sugars’ as we were going up the mountain to help her with her motion sickness and it seemed to work, as we didn’t have to pull over once. I was feeling rather satisfied at the success of my home remedy, but this joy was short lived as Sherly got out as soon as we arrived and rushed off to the toilet.

Again we missed the 10 o’clock lesson, but this time we were able to ski together for a few hours which was nice. The last run we attempted before lunch was called ‘Wombat’s Ramble’ and is apparently the longest beginner run in Australia. I set off first and my yearning for speed sent me shooting down the mountain without any real effort to slow myself. I was cruising along and all was well and good until I saw the big patch of dirt that marked the end of the run. For some reason I thought I’d just ski onto the mud and pull up gracefully, but oh how wrong I was. The sudden difference in terrain pulled up my skis almost immediately, and by the laws of inertia, my body continued hurtling through the air and I smacked into the hard unforgiving mud, face first. My jacket and pants were covered in mud, my skis were scratched and I was cut and bruised through my pants and gloves. I think my puffy ‘man jacket’ absorbed most of the force of the fall though, so I am very glad I was wearing it.

After a moment lying in pain I dragged myself up and decided to stand a bit before the mud patch to warn the others. Winnie skied to a stop soon after and I realised she had also had an encounter with mud further up the slope. Ahh you’ve got to love Australian ski resorts.

We had lunch and took the chairlift back up for our lesson. The lesson wasn’t much use apart from the fact it was held on a slope I hadn’t got around to trying yet. I met up with the others after my lesson and it was time to leave.

This time, not surprisingly, Sherly and Winnie wanted to come with us to get dinner. Chris and I just watched as they loaded the basket with all sorts of non-frozen food. They prepared a lovely meal, better than the meals I would eat under normal circumstances, and we were all satisfied after finishing it. We stayed up a little later this time, but didn’t exactly party or anything, we just watch some TV and headed to bed.

After a long drive back, it came time to drop everyone off and I went back home to prepare for the trip to Canberra. I was so exhausted from all the driving and skiing and could have collapsed in a ball somewhere, but I dragged myself into my car again and went to visit a friend one last time before heading back. I didn’t care how tired I was, I wanted to see them one last time.

The next morning it was a frantic pack and then another long drive, this time to Canberra. The first 300 kilometres of the journey I had just driven in the opposite direction not even 24 hours ago. Sigh.

Still, now I’m back after enjoying a very relaxing and pleasurable holiday. I’ve got to get back into uni mode and start waking up early and studying again.

Until next time,

Take Care.