ack so much to blog about, so little time. So I've kept on been wanting to blig, but just haven't gotten around to it, and then when I would I would try and do a whole retrospective thing, and it just wouldn't work, so I'm just going to try and blog again, like from now, and if I get motivation later, then I'll talk about what I've been doing and whatnot (hint:it was awesome)
anyway big excitement in the US political field, Paul Ryan, interesting pick, and makes me actually pretty optimistic for Obama's chance of winning, conventions are currently going on, but I'll talk more about them later, right now I'm going to talk about my one true love-TV
Very exciting season for TV, it spetember!!! which not only as a Fringe reference is awesome, but it is also the month where new TV returns! despite the fact that I have no idea where I'm going to find all this time, I am extremely excited, well as excited as I could possibly be, I'm not quite calling it extremly, but excited. Unfortunately a lot of the shows I'm really really excited for are midseason, which is unfortunate for a couple of reasons, firstly because midseason shows have a much harder time becoming hits, let alone getting renewed, and have much lower numbers, and secondly because I have to wait longer to get them.
I'm also very upset that this will be the final season for Fringe, but at the same time am excited for how they are going to wrap up the series, more on that later.
I was going to talk more specifically about shows in this post, but I'll think I'll just give a breif thing of what new shows I'm looking forward too
Elementary- saw the pilot and it was +good+ love love love both the sherlock movies and the bbc version, plus my general love for cop shows in general (disappointing number of new cop shows this year :( ) I think this looks like the best show of the fall crop-although I'm not uber pumped for it (yet), I'm thinking like I may watch the entire season
last resort- I saw the teasers and it looked lame, but people who actually saw the pilot said it was fantastic, and high concept, and good action, which are right down my street, so I'll definitly check out the first few episodes
the mob doctor-okay lame lame tittle, and I'm not usually into medical shows, but I'm intrugied by the mob bit, and it does look very dark and delicious, I'll think I'll check out the first 3-4 episdoes, and see how medical it is
While I'll watch the pilot of every single show, shows that I might add to 'the list' could be revolution (JJ abbrams, but I have reservations, although a lot of people are excited), 666 park avenue, has some promise, but could easily mess it up, and vegas- although period drama's can easily mess up, anyway will post more detailed thoughts later
Sunday, 2 September 2012
Sunday, 3 June 2012
The Golden Age of teleivision
Right so there ahas been quite a bit of talk as of late, about this being the 'golden age of television' which I have to say, is rather ridiclous. Firstly how can we say that now is the golden age, TV barely 60 years old, and colour TV 40, so all we are really saying that TV today is better than it was 40 years ago, and that isn't saying anything huge.
Firstly there is a heck of a lot more TV around today, than there was 40 years ago, in the US alone there are hundreds of channels, and probably about 100 new shows released each year. The television business is booming, with huge amounts of pilots being developed, so yes television is better, but that is partly a numbers game.
Secondly with the huge amount of TV out there, standards certainly have gotten better, just due to increased competition. People may tend to say that shows in the 70's and 80's, where a rating of 30 or 40 was common, were better, as clearly everyone was watching them, but firstly there was no cable, only 3 broadcast channels and thus no competition. Audiences have become more fickle, with so much content, so much internet, our attention span has gotten shorter, and we demand better, if not, there's plenty else to entertain us. So television is getting better, but that doesn't nessiraly mean that we are in a golden age of TV.
One argument people make is that some channels such as HBO and showtime have a model that is designed around producing absolutely stunning content, with long production schedules, big budgets ect, but I mean this is again like a game of numbers, there are some absolutly crap shows out there, so saying that just because there is quality (that sounds demeaning, there are definitely some great shows out there), doesn't mean we're in the golden age of television.
Also another thing people look at is the dominacne, 98% of americans own a TV, almost all of them have more than one, and cable, and large percentages have more advanced cable. Theres also about 35-40% of americans watching TV each night. While these are all great figures, I don't think this really justifies being called the golden age of television, its more to do with the meadium.
So while I definitly think this is a great time to be making TV and there is definitely some great TV being made, because of this new level of competitiveness surrounding TV, that doesn't necessarily make it the 'golden age of TV' and really I think you can only assign that tittle retrospectively, so this is a good age of TV, maybe even great, but not golden.
Firstly there is a heck of a lot more TV around today, than there was 40 years ago, in the US alone there are hundreds of channels, and probably about 100 new shows released each year. The television business is booming, with huge amounts of pilots being developed, so yes television is better, but that is partly a numbers game.
Secondly with the huge amount of TV out there, standards certainly have gotten better, just due to increased competition. People may tend to say that shows in the 70's and 80's, where a rating of 30 or 40 was common, were better, as clearly everyone was watching them, but firstly there was no cable, only 3 broadcast channels and thus no competition. Audiences have become more fickle, with so much content, so much internet, our attention span has gotten shorter, and we demand better, if not, there's plenty else to entertain us. So television is getting better, but that doesn't nessiraly mean that we are in a golden age of TV.
One argument people make is that some channels such as HBO and showtime have a model that is designed around producing absolutely stunning content, with long production schedules, big budgets ect, but I mean this is again like a game of numbers, there are some absolutly crap shows out there, so saying that just because there is quality (that sounds demeaning, there are definitely some great shows out there), doesn't mean we're in the golden age of television.
Also another thing people look at is the dominacne, 98% of americans own a TV, almost all of them have more than one, and cable, and large percentages have more advanced cable. Theres also about 35-40% of americans watching TV each night. While these are all great figures, I don't think this really justifies being called the golden age of television, its more to do with the meadium.
So while I definitly think this is a great time to be making TV and there is definitely some great TV being made, because of this new level of competitiveness surrounding TV, that doesn't necessarily make it the 'golden age of TV' and really I think you can only assign that tittle retrospectively, so this is a good age of TV, maybe even great, but not golden.
The importance of TV
I was talking yesterday about the important of TV, and why I think we do watch TV, and so I decided why not continue on my blogging binge, and write more about TV
I think another huge part of why we watch TV is the aspect of community asciated with it. Ever since TV was first invented, it was always a family thing, it was an hour or whatever a week were the whole family would gather together to watch TV. Of course there has been some subjestion that watching TV as a family is actually not good, because it connects you to the TV, and not to each other, to which I reply, that is misusing the purpose of TV.
As I was talking yesterday we watch TV to get that burst of emotion, that lets them know they are human, and can feel and experience emotion. And so when we get this emotion, which is such a rare thing in our lives, we want it to last, and the best way we know how to do that is to share it. To talk about it with our friends.
Before the internet these friends would live close to you, and you would probably see them the next day at school/work or whatever, in which you could talk to them, but today, the world is so connected, we have friends from all around the world. We don't have to wait till the next day to talk to people, we can log onto a chat room and talk about the show right then and there, we can capitalise on our feelings, and explore them, while they are still fresh, and that is why we pirate, because we want to be caught up in the show to experience the emotions fresh, to fully explore and revile in them.
I streamed last nights episode of Fringe and was completely blown away by the ending, that I just had to talk about. Fringe does what I was saying, it manipulates my emotions so much, that by the end I was just bursting with emotion, and I was completely sucked in, and felt so many different things it was amazing. For at least another hour after the episode, I couldn't talk coherently about it, because I still had all that emotion inside of me, and for another 6 hours, I could still feel that emotion, that excitement, that heartbreak. Because I talked about it on the internet I explored it, and I explored it with people who same way as I did, they experienced the same emotions, understood what I was feeling, I understood what I was feeling, if only for an hour, and to be understood that way is a very rare thing.
So while yes, these emotions are false, and maybe we should spend more time seeking out physical communication instead, TV is certainly is not some form of flitting unreal communication, the best of it at least, really is art, and incredibly impressive art as well, given the limitations placed on TV (really it one of the far more limiting art forms, tight budgets, set time limits and a very small amount of time to create such things-what other medium has that many requirements) so I really believe that TV can and is, important, and definitely not to be disregarded.
So while yes, these emotions are false, and maybe we should spend more time seeking out physical communication instead, TV is certainly is not some form of flitting unreal communication, the best of it at least, really is art, and incredibly impressive art as well, given the limitations placed on TV (really it one of the far more limiting art forms, tight budgets, set time limits and a very small amount of time to create such things-what other medium has that many requirements) so I really believe that TV can and is, important, and definitely not to be disregarded.
TV in repeats
Well I was going to do a whole bunch of different intualetual posts on the quadruple bond, and the Republican politics, but then I realsied that what I really wanted to do was talk about fringe and other TV I watched, and damnit this is my blog so I can talk about what I feel like, and often I feel like talking about TV. I've also unfortunatly as its non-ratings in the US and Aus TV just sucks, it was more of a catch up week for me, so here are some of the shows I'm currently catching up on
right well many of my US shows were in repeats which was highly annoying, so I started watching revenge, and I actually can't believe I liked it. I've been hearing about it all season, how its soapy goodness guilty pleasere, and usally I hate those shows, but I actually really liked revenge for some reason, and it got nominated for a golden globe, so its totally not all that bad right? It's a very interesting type of show, and a lot more episodic than one would expect, where as opposed to the case of the week type show, it has a revenge take down mission of the week, which I actually kinda liked, I also liked just how deranged and heartless Emily is, not to mention the seeming number of gun-wielding psycopaths that reisde in the Hamptons, speaking of, where exactly are the Hamptons? like I know its were really rich new york people go over the summer, but is it actually in new york? because its all beachy, and new york has sucky weather, anywho, suprisingly good show, that I think i'll be checking out for a while, esepcially if we go into repeats again
I've also been watching more of the X-files, and again trying to plow my way through SVU. I really like SVU, though sometimes its just too much. Ie SVU is about as episodic as it comes, I don't think they've ever done a 'previously on' or carried storylines across episodes, as opposed to most of the other very stand alone shows out there, that usally have a few moments in every episode that builds throgout the season to the finale, the finale in SVU is just a more dramatic episode, which is kinda good, because you know exactly what your up for, character driven drama, a case of the week, and some very good acting and filmaking, which is why this is the only offshot of the Law and Order Franchise that is still standing, but it does lack the OMG I have to come back next time factor, I mean you come back because its a great show, but it will always be a great show, there isn't a burning desire to find out what happens next, so I find that I watch SVU off an on when I'm in the mood, because 13 seasons, it seems like such a daunting task
I've also continued watching the X-files. Now I'm going to be frank, the only reason I'm watching this is Fringe, but it is actually very enjoyable. I'm only up to the first season, so at the moment its very episodic, very much like first season fringe, actually really like -1 season fringe, if you back tracked the tragjecotry of epsidodic to mythalone, but still very enjoyable, I'm going to post more on this later, but its actually very refreshing to watch a series in which everything is not ok, unlike most TV on the air today, where the good guys always catch the bad guys, and the end scene is usally a celbration that the world is a slightly better place, the end scene of the X-files is usally whatever got 'solved' unsolving itself, showing that there efforts were in vain, and really creepying you out a bit. I've heard that it gets more seralised and less predictable a bit later on, which I look forward to, but for now, although it hasnt hit the Must.Consume. Level yet, I'm really enjoying the X-files
I've been watching a bunch of other stuff which I'll no doubt talk about later, but for now, thats all I'm catching up on.
right well many of my US shows were in repeats which was highly annoying, so I started watching revenge, and I actually can't believe I liked it. I've been hearing about it all season, how its soapy goodness guilty pleasere, and usally I hate those shows, but I actually really liked revenge for some reason, and it got nominated for a golden globe, so its totally not all that bad right? It's a very interesting type of show, and a lot more episodic than one would expect, where as opposed to the case of the week type show, it has a revenge take down mission of the week, which I actually kinda liked, I also liked just how deranged and heartless Emily is, not to mention the seeming number of gun-wielding psycopaths that reisde in the Hamptons, speaking of, where exactly are the Hamptons? like I know its were really rich new york people go over the summer, but is it actually in new york? because its all beachy, and new york has sucky weather, anywho, suprisingly good show, that I think i'll be checking out for a while, esepcially if we go into repeats again
I've also been watching more of the X-files, and again trying to plow my way through SVU. I really like SVU, though sometimes its just too much. Ie SVU is about as episodic as it comes, I don't think they've ever done a 'previously on' or carried storylines across episodes, as opposed to most of the other very stand alone shows out there, that usally have a few moments in every episode that builds throgout the season to the finale, the finale in SVU is just a more dramatic episode, which is kinda good, because you know exactly what your up for, character driven drama, a case of the week, and some very good acting and filmaking, which is why this is the only offshot of the Law and Order Franchise that is still standing, but it does lack the OMG I have to come back next time factor, I mean you come back because its a great show, but it will always be a great show, there isn't a burning desire to find out what happens next, so I find that I watch SVU off an on when I'm in the mood, because 13 seasons, it seems like such a daunting task
I've also continued watching the X-files. Now I'm going to be frank, the only reason I'm watching this is Fringe, but it is actually very enjoyable. I'm only up to the first season, so at the moment its very episodic, very much like first season fringe, actually really like -1 season fringe, if you back tracked the tragjecotry of epsidodic to mythalone, but still very enjoyable, I'm going to post more on this later, but its actually very refreshing to watch a series in which everything is not ok, unlike most TV on the air today, where the good guys always catch the bad guys, and the end scene is usally a celbration that the world is a slightly better place, the end scene of the X-files is usally whatever got 'solved' unsolving itself, showing that there efforts were in vain, and really creepying you out a bit. I've heard that it gets more seralised and less predictable a bit later on, which I look forward to, but for now, although it hasnt hit the Must.Consume. Level yet, I'm really enjoying the X-files
I've been watching a bunch of other stuff which I'll no doubt talk about later, but for now, thats all I'm catching up on.
Comedy's may not be the devils advocate after all (working through mini crisis with TV)
I remember the very first post I made of this blog talking about all the different things I might blog about, yet I seriously don't know why I bothered doing that because all I ever want to talk about is TV. Its not that all I talk about in real life is TV, but maybe because I don't talk about this in real life, I need to get it out of my system so I do so on this blog, but whatever the reason, I'm going to be talking about two very sore topics-TV and my so dubbed quarter life crisis.
Anyway because of this so dubbed quarter life crisis my TV habits have changed slightly, I mean I still watch my usual insane amount of it, but I have added 2 new shows to my repotriave that are right out my usual ball park, that right I Emily have started watching a Comedy.
To any sane person this wouldn't seam like such a big deal, but I never watch comedys, I mean if I'm eating dinner, and theres nothing else on I'll watch an episode or two of the big bang theory, and I'll laugh and enjoy watching it, but comedy's have never had that pull for me, like I'll never seek it out to watch it, and I'll never obsess over it like I do some shows, I'll almost definitely talk more about this same point later, but to cut to the chase I've started to watch, and really enjoy, 30 rock and girls.
Now in my defence, or how I sell it to myself, neither show is a haha comedy, 30 rock has won dozens of emmy's and girls is almost definitely garenteed to win some, they're more intellectual, and for 30 rock at least, the humour comes more from wit, than anything else, and there a lot of pop culture references that you really have to be on your toes to get, so I am still engaging with the TV and blah, but really I watch it because they are really enjoyable shows, and a hidden side effect that I have just discovered about comedy's is that the characters are so relatable.
The things with Drama's, especially network and really espeically CBS dramas, is that everyone on the show is so good, they all have this super-power which makes them like the best in the business, and because of that they can do these amazing things, so they're really fun to watch, but with comedy's the people are more normal, well usually at least, and instead of exploring how awesome they are, with the occasional flaw, comedy's explore their characters faults, usually just for laughs, and so while funny, they don't really have a compelling plot line to pull you back in.
But I've gone way off topic, what I am trying to say is that there is something just so refreshing about Liz lemon from 30 rock, and even though I am in very few ways like her, she's really one of the most relatable characters I've found on TV. I suppose its
The real thing 30 rock and girls have in common (and the reason I started watching girls in general) is that both shows are created, written, and sometimes directed by the leading lady. They're shows based loosely on their own lives, which in a way is good. Because you see these girls messing up their lives, making mistakes all over the place, but at the same time you realise in the back of your mind that this same person is now the showrunner of a very successful show, that they haven't screwed up their lives, they're actually fulfilling their dreams so to speak.
It's probably my current headspace about feeling so unsure of my future and my life that makes me like these shows, but its really actually refreshing to see such normal people, in like non-life or death high pressure situations, and I love high pressure situations, but, there is something oddly satisfying about watching people screw up, and not in a haha I'm so much better way, in an OMG I totally do that way. its like watching people without the TV magic wand, that makes everything happen because of a good story, and thats probably what I actually really like about them. That without a magic TV wand, while still screwing up absolutely everything, these people still went on to do the things they dreamed about, and so can I.
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Glee isn't all that gleeful
As you may have guessed by this blog a) I watch a heck of a lot of TV and b) I'm in the middle of a quarter life existential crisis, and am expressing my feelings through blogging about technically different issues, but really are all the same thing. Today's topic-the Glee Final. Yes I finally watched it, and I thought it was actually pretty good, I mean glee has definitely had some problems this season, mostly because it *cough* Ryan Murphy *cough* got to full of itself and thought it was such a great show and going to change the world, and usually I'm okay with that, but theses final episodes really depressed me.
In the heyday of Glee, by which I mean the first and some of the second season, it was great, it was funny ridiculous and had heart, but the thing that it did better than anything else was portray lost dreams. It did a beautiful job of painting a town were dreams just didn't come true, where adults lived their dull everyday reality, while the kids sung and dreamed of better. It was TV in one of its truest forms-escapist-allowing the audience to indulge in the kids dreams, it was a show about making you feel better (come on THE song for glee is don't stop believing, if that doesn't say its a show about dreaming I don't know what will) until they return to their more boring lives. Unfortunately there only so long you can do something like that, which glee soon discovered.Had this been airing on showtime or a non-USA cable network, the show would explore the kids not achieving their dreams, but that it was okay to do so, it would show the kids failing, but never stopping to believe. Unfortunately it's on fox, and while for the first season, thats kinda what it did do, you knew from the outset that the third season would be about the kids getting everything.
And boy did they, Winning nationals after a mere day rehearsing? check, large celebratory party where the kids are finally treated like heros? check. and the majority of the graduating class going on to a ridiculously wonderful post high school adventure? check. It the epitomy of getting your cake and eating it too. And this is where I had a problem. I mean I fully understand and get that a large part of this is because my mindset has changed so much, but just seeing these kids, who we were expected to believe were ordinary teens, become insanely insanely talented through just three seasons, and get absolutely everything they ever wanted. Ohh man, that practically sent me bawling. Its the whole american dream thing of anyone can do anything, anyone can achieve their dreams, but not everyone can achieve their dreams. The majority of people are just normal, aren't going to be stars, no matter how much you tell yourself in the bathroom mirror rachel berry, some people just have to live normal lives, and that's okay. Or that's what the show should be telling us.
Instead its telling the typical fairy-tale message-you work hard, be good, and your wildest dreams come true, which is what really set me off, because I work hard, so so so hard, and yet none of my dreams come true, instead of getting wrapped up in the misique and magic of the show, I got bogged down by reality, and the contrast was startling. After watching the finale I wasn't filled with confidence that my dreams would come true, I practically cried because they aren't going to, because that's life, and as vocal adeline can no don't adhere too, dreams don't come true. Vocal adrenaline worked harder, longer, and were quiet frankly better, but because of TV magic, the new directions won, and that is why the glee finale was so not gleeful to me, because there is no TV magic to make my dreams come true.
In the heyday of Glee, by which I mean the first and some of the second season, it was great, it was funny ridiculous and had heart, but the thing that it did better than anything else was portray lost dreams. It did a beautiful job of painting a town were dreams just didn't come true, where adults lived their dull everyday reality, while the kids sung and dreamed of better. It was TV in one of its truest forms-escapist-allowing the audience to indulge in the kids dreams, it was a show about making you feel better (come on THE song for glee is don't stop believing, if that doesn't say its a show about dreaming I don't know what will) until they return to their more boring lives. Unfortunately there only so long you can do something like that, which glee soon discovered.Had this been airing on showtime or a non-USA cable network, the show would explore the kids not achieving their dreams, but that it was okay to do so, it would show the kids failing, but never stopping to believe. Unfortunately it's on fox, and while for the first season, thats kinda what it did do, you knew from the outset that the third season would be about the kids getting everything.
And boy did they, Winning nationals after a mere day rehearsing? check, large celebratory party where the kids are finally treated like heros? check. and the majority of the graduating class going on to a ridiculously wonderful post high school adventure? check. It the epitomy of getting your cake and eating it too. And this is where I had a problem. I mean I fully understand and get that a large part of this is because my mindset has changed so much, but just seeing these kids, who we were expected to believe were ordinary teens, become insanely insanely talented through just three seasons, and get absolutely everything they ever wanted. Ohh man, that practically sent me bawling. Its the whole american dream thing of anyone can do anything, anyone can achieve their dreams, but not everyone can achieve their dreams. The majority of people are just normal, aren't going to be stars, no matter how much you tell yourself in the bathroom mirror rachel berry, some people just have to live normal lives, and that's okay. Or that's what the show should be telling us.
Instead its telling the typical fairy-tale message-you work hard, be good, and your wildest dreams come true, which is what really set me off, because I work hard, so so so hard, and yet none of my dreams come true, instead of getting wrapped up in the misique and magic of the show, I got bogged down by reality, and the contrast was startling. After watching the finale I wasn't filled with confidence that my dreams would come true, I practically cried because they aren't going to, because that's life, and as vocal adeline can no don't adhere too, dreams don't come true. Vocal adrenaline worked harder, longer, and were quiet frankly better, but because of TV magic, the new directions won, and that is why the glee finale was so not gleeful to me, because there is no TV magic to make my dreams come true.
thought about other-emily
This is going to be a far more serious and personal blog post, infact I really considered not writting it, but I'm relying fairly heavily on the fact that absolutly no one is reading this blog, or at least people I know, and I kinda want to write and talk about it, and posting it is just a way of getting it out there, and out of my system, so here it goes.
I've been thinking a lot about my double.
Why? Well I very reccently applied to a very presitgous program, I spent time, effort, money and mental stress thinking and applying, and I got rejected. I kinda knew it was coming, it was a very prestigous program, but I just felt like I was such a perfect fit, that I should be going, but I just didn't get in. Someone, on a blog post about the program mentioned that there were a thousand different univerese created when the admit list went up, to accodoate all the possible future of people getting in, and not getting in, and the huge Fringe fan in me, got me thinking of other Emily, and how she would be like, and how her life would be different if she got in.
But quite frankly that sucked. Going back to Fringe, I know Walter and Elizabeth tried to find solace that there was a peter somewhere out there who survived, but all I could think about was how much better other Emily would have been, she'd be having fun, meeting amazing people, living in an amazing place, A place she's dreamed of living for years, she'd be feeling like she's doing something with her life, feeling like its worthwhile, and going on and getting a great job. Which in no way gives me solace, because I feel none of that.
I hate university, I mean I don't mean that I hate it, I just hate the concept. I feel like I'm wasting my life, wasting time, and I feel like I don't have time to waste, I'm lonely, I barely see my school frineds, and when I do, we nevee talk or catch-up, I don't feel as close to them, I feel like we're drifting appart, but I hae nothing to frift to, I know that I have to give it time, but I have really no friends in uni, there all just acquaitences, and evertime I think I'm getting close, I never am. It's my birthday soon, and I feel like I'm so ridiclously old, and I think of the kid who went to uni at 12, or all the people who go early, and wish so badly that I could have. I feel like I have to waster the next 7 or so years of my life, which I didn't mind so much in school, because its school, and everyone has to go to it, but now I feel so normal, so un-scpecial, so mundane, and I hate it, I'm so self-centred, but I just can't stnd doinf things at the same pace as other people, I just can't be in the same class.
and I know its just my persecetive, but I just feel so normal, I'm going to some run-of the mill university, and going to get an average job at the end, but only after I endure god-knows how much mundane touture, of sitting bored in lecture theatres, and thats what really rubs me about alt-emily. She gets to use her potenital, to be in a reconsided and respected program, she gets to be special, when I am just normal, and I want so badly to be special. I have this complex where I strive, I need to feel speical, well everyone does, and its more a condition of generation Y's over coddeling, (more about this later, but after much thought of on the issue, I've come to the conclusion that telling absolutly everyone they're special, by handing out awards for everything, may not actually be the best thing) and god I hate this feeling, I hate normal, and its probably for because the first part of my life I felt special and if I could do everything (you're going to be reading a TON of blog posts on this issue, because its so much on my mind at the moment) but know I feel like nothing, like everything I've worked for isn't going to pay off, I feel like I'm working to avoid falling down into the absis, not rise above everyone else.
But Alt-Emily is rising, she's doing things, she's on her way, and I'm not, and that, for lack of a better word sucks.
I've been thinking a lot about my double.
Why? Well I very reccently applied to a very presitgous program, I spent time, effort, money and mental stress thinking and applying, and I got rejected. I kinda knew it was coming, it was a very prestigous program, but I just felt like I was such a perfect fit, that I should be going, but I just didn't get in. Someone, on a blog post about the program mentioned that there were a thousand different univerese created when the admit list went up, to accodoate all the possible future of people getting in, and not getting in, and the huge Fringe fan in me, got me thinking of other Emily, and how she would be like, and how her life would be different if she got in.
But quite frankly that sucked. Going back to Fringe, I know Walter and Elizabeth tried to find solace that there was a peter somewhere out there who survived, but all I could think about was how much better other Emily would have been, she'd be having fun, meeting amazing people, living in an amazing place, A place she's dreamed of living for years, she'd be feeling like she's doing something with her life, feeling like its worthwhile, and going on and getting a great job. Which in no way gives me solace, because I feel none of that.
I hate university, I mean I don't mean that I hate it, I just hate the concept. I feel like I'm wasting my life, wasting time, and I feel like I don't have time to waste, I'm lonely, I barely see my school frineds, and when I do, we nevee talk or catch-up, I don't feel as close to them, I feel like we're drifting appart, but I hae nothing to frift to, I know that I have to give it time, but I have really no friends in uni, there all just acquaitences, and evertime I think I'm getting close, I never am. It's my birthday soon, and I feel like I'm so ridiclously old, and I think of the kid who went to uni at 12, or all the people who go early, and wish so badly that I could have. I feel like I have to waster the next 7 or so years of my life, which I didn't mind so much in school, because its school, and everyone has to go to it, but now I feel so normal, so un-scpecial, so mundane, and I hate it, I'm so self-centred, but I just can't stnd doinf things at the same pace as other people, I just can't be in the same class.
and I know its just my persecetive, but I just feel so normal, I'm going to some run-of the mill university, and going to get an average job at the end, but only after I endure god-knows how much mundane touture, of sitting bored in lecture theatres, and thats what really rubs me about alt-emily. She gets to use her potenital, to be in a reconsided and respected program, she gets to be special, when I am just normal, and I want so badly to be special. I have this complex where I strive, I need to feel speical, well everyone does, and its more a condition of generation Y's over coddeling, (more about this later, but after much thought of on the issue, I've come to the conclusion that telling absolutly everyone they're special, by handing out awards for everything, may not actually be the best thing) and god I hate this feeling, I hate normal, and its probably for because the first part of my life I felt special and if I could do everything (you're going to be reading a TON of blog posts on this issue, because its so much on my mind at the moment) but know I feel like nothing, like everything I've worked for isn't going to pay off, I feel like I'm working to avoid falling down into the absis, not rise above everyone else.
But Alt-Emily is rising, she's doing things, she's on her way, and I'm not, and that, for lack of a better word sucks.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
sexism in engineering, is it still there, or trupmed up, and what do we do about it.
right well I've decided to once again turn my attention to a topic that I am hugly knowelable and authoritive on the matter, having had a collosal 2 weeks of experince of studying engineering in a co-ed enviroment. There is still a lot of discussion about the lack of girls in the physical sciences, and what can be done to help this. However there is a lot of black lash (from males) that girls simply just aren't good at math, and why should we be enoarging anyway, if they aren't interested, and the most important, are girls just over senstiive.
Firstly I can definitly attest to the fact that there are way more guys than girls, I'd say at least 80% in some of my math classes and physics, and while there is sexism, I'd definitly say that none of the guys, well the ones I've meet at least, and admittedly,the ones that go out of their way to talk to girls, are far less likely to be sexist, well in the idea that girls aren't good at sciences, definitly don't mean to be sexist. However there are quite commonly small little comments, ie commenting that there are more girls than he'd been expecting. These are small little comments, but they perk up on my radar. What actually triggered this article was the music backing of a video of "the boys are back in town"and I mean its fairly catchy music, so its reasonable enough for them to play it, but the whole notion of bys seriously erked me. But none of these things are actually sexist, they're all really perked up by my imagination right.
Well yes and no, while I'm sure that the person making the video didn't intend it to be sexist, and I definitely get announced myself when people try to make things so uberly politically correct, I can't really fault them for that, but what it did was propagate the general feeling that I and and many girls have, that, but they were just doing what they aways do, it feels like an old boys club. And because it feels like such an all boys club, and because there has been such media attention and such a focus on how boy-orientated engineering girls come in knowing that it is such an all boys club, so they come in with such thick armoer, that we do perk up about these things.
So does that mean that there really is no sexism, and it is just us girls, well yes and no and I think it is almost entirely due to the lack of girls in the sciences. Because there are such limited numbers of girls, us girls come in on the defensive, and the boys treat it like an all boys club, and some of them, well quite a lot of them, think that since there are so little girls in the sciences, that because they are jus bad at it.
So what we have here is really just a recurring circle that unfortunalty isn't going to go away or do anything until we actually physically get more girls in engineering. But how are we going to do that? Well the response everyone seems to be taking is huge attention and programs, mainly aimed at high school students, scholarships for girls, and media attention over these things. While I think these programs are great, I really actually think they are slightly mis-guided.
Firstly, many boys (although most won't say it to a face of a girl) do have this belief, that the girls are sub-standard to theme, because they got in because of special coaching, or programs, and just general resentment that girls get scholarships and guys don't, so in one way these programs are definitely not helping the intrinsic sexism, but the real way they are not helping, is that these programs start to late.
While High school girls, definitely should be encouraged to do the sciences, so should younger girls. In fact I'd argue that it is more important for younger girls, why,, because math and the sciences are cumulative. Aka if a girl misses out earlier in life, they are always going to be dragging behind, unless they make a real effort to catch back up, one area that is misunderstood can result in a shaky foundation leaving a disastrous ruin for the subject, and the girls confidence. Studies have shown that girls as young as 6 associate math as a boy thing,and with this crucial viewpoint, girls believe they are not good at math, when they dont understand something, instead of working through it, they give up, thinking they are just bad at it, and will never good at math. I can tell from my own experience of tutoring that many girls don't think that they are ever going to good at math, and just don't bother.
And all of these ideas culminate, it takes a lot more for a girl to do a math or science class, especially higher ones, especially if the class if full of boys, thus the only people who do these really really like science and math, which is great for them (and explains some of the initial greater variance of math abilities in girls), but the majority of people are not expextionally passionate about the sciences, or never have the chance to find out.
Thus while I love all the programs available, they are far to late, girls have missed out on the crucial early years of working hard or just taking those math and sciences classes, and thus they don't participate in these programs, because they have fallen further behind in the sciences, and thus because they've always been struggling, they don't realise if they actually enjoy it, thus these programs catch only a small net of girls, which is great, but misses out on the majority of girls.
Thus if we really want to address this sexism, we need o start early, its the culture of our society, beauty and the geek, with girls being stupid dumb blondes, not academic, and boys the smart ones, boys growing up play with lego's construction sets, while girls play with cooking sets and dolls. So really the only way to avoid this sexism, is to avoid the sexism of the entire society, which is unfortunalty not going to happen anytime soon, but is definitely something we can attempt to fix.
Firstly I can definitly attest to the fact that there are way more guys than girls, I'd say at least 80% in some of my math classes and physics, and while there is sexism, I'd definitly say that none of the guys, well the ones I've meet at least, and admittedly,the ones that go out of their way to talk to girls, are far less likely to be sexist, well in the idea that girls aren't good at sciences, definitly don't mean to be sexist. However there are quite commonly small little comments, ie commenting that there are more girls than he'd been expecting. These are small little comments, but they perk up on my radar. What actually triggered this article was the music backing of a video of "the boys are back in town"and I mean its fairly catchy music, so its reasonable enough for them to play it, but the whole notion of bys seriously erked me. But none of these things are actually sexist, they're all really perked up by my imagination right.
Well yes and no, while I'm sure that the person making the video didn't intend it to be sexist, and I definitely get announced myself when people try to make things so uberly politically correct, I can't really fault them for that, but what it did was propagate the general feeling that I and and many girls have, that, but they were just doing what they aways do, it feels like an old boys club. And because it feels like such an all boys club, and because there has been such media attention and such a focus on how boy-orientated engineering girls come in knowing that it is such an all boys club, so they come in with such thick armoer, that we do perk up about these things.
So does that mean that there really is no sexism, and it is just us girls, well yes and no and I think it is almost entirely due to the lack of girls in the sciences. Because there are such limited numbers of girls, us girls come in on the defensive, and the boys treat it like an all boys club, and some of them, well quite a lot of them, think that since there are so little girls in the sciences, that because they are jus bad at it.
So what we have here is really just a recurring circle that unfortunalty isn't going to go away or do anything until we actually physically get more girls in engineering. But how are we going to do that? Well the response everyone seems to be taking is huge attention and programs, mainly aimed at high school students, scholarships for girls, and media attention over these things. While I think these programs are great, I really actually think they are slightly mis-guided.
Firstly, many boys (although most won't say it to a face of a girl) do have this belief, that the girls are sub-standard to theme, because they got in because of special coaching, or programs, and just general resentment that girls get scholarships and guys don't, so in one way these programs are definitely not helping the intrinsic sexism, but the real way they are not helping, is that these programs start to late.
While High school girls, definitely should be encouraged to do the sciences, so should younger girls. In fact I'd argue that it is more important for younger girls, why,, because math and the sciences are cumulative. Aka if a girl misses out earlier in life, they are always going to be dragging behind, unless they make a real effort to catch back up, one area that is misunderstood can result in a shaky foundation leaving a disastrous ruin for the subject, and the girls confidence. Studies have shown that girls as young as 6 associate math as a boy thing,and with this crucial viewpoint, girls believe they are not good at math, when they dont understand something, instead of working through it, they give up, thinking they are just bad at it, and will never good at math. I can tell from my own experience of tutoring that many girls don't think that they are ever going to good at math, and just don't bother.
And all of these ideas culminate, it takes a lot more for a girl to do a math or science class, especially higher ones, especially if the class if full of boys, thus the only people who do these really really like science and math, which is great for them (and explains some of the initial greater variance of math abilities in girls), but the majority of people are not expextionally passionate about the sciences, or never have the chance to find out.
Thus while I love all the programs available, they are far to late, girls have missed out on the crucial early years of working hard or just taking those math and sciences classes, and thus they don't participate in these programs, because they have fallen further behind in the sciences, and thus because they've always been struggling, they don't realise if they actually enjoy it, thus these programs catch only a small net of girls, which is great, but misses out on the majority of girls.
Thus if we really want to address this sexism, we need o start early, its the culture of our society, beauty and the geek, with girls being stupid dumb blondes, not academic, and boys the smart ones, boys growing up play with lego's construction sets, while girls play with cooking sets and dolls. So really the only way to avoid this sexism, is to avoid the sexism of the entire society, which is unfortunalty not going to happen anytime soon, but is definitely something we can attempt to fix.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Right so on the last episode of Fringe it was revealed that the observers were scientist from a distant future, which really makes some interesting points about scientists. Firstly part of science is supposed to be impartial, you are not supposed to let your own senses or feelings influence the results, thus the observers are fairly impartial, they don't have human emotions (well there not supposed to, look how that ended up for August) they have a greatly diminished sense of taste, they all look the same, giving the impression that they are all the same people, and thus have no personalities, they speak in monotones, and very slowly. Yet this in an example of how science has been breached, scientist really should have very acute senses to make accurate observations.
This is just an example of the extreme hubris that the observers seem to have regarding sceine, and really what they the show says about al sciencetists. The beleive that they are just pure observers, imparitial, perfect scientists. Thus I beleive that the real fatal flaw, the real act of hubris that started the whole Fringe situation, was really Spetember's hubris, in thinking that he was just an obsever, and not actually invovling himself in the science. Yet it was his being seen, which prompted Walternate to miss the cure, and thus Walter to cross over. It's interesting to note that the observer's flaw was based on scientific motives, while Walters was based on emotions.
So Fringe is effectively saying that science shouldn't be based be purely scientific, impirical, becuase that leads to hubris, which is definitly a fair enough point, and a very interesting, but really crucial point to note about science, science is based in logic, yet it has such a human impact.
But back on Fringe, why then does September go to such lengths to correct his mistake. Well partly it has to do something about my personal theory if the observers. I believe that, in the fringeverse at least, all times, all timelines, everything exists at the same time, similar to the situation in the subtle knife, where the dude due can cut wholes between universe, and just step through them into different worlds. The observers have the ability to see and cross through all of these universes and times. and I similar to a lot of other peoples thoerys I beleive the obsevers are quite possibly descendants of peter and oliva, but get their powers due to Henry being a child of 2 universes, however that still doesn't explain how Peter and Olivia would have orgianlly meet, being from 2 different universes. I also don't think the September would go to all this trouble just to make sure he exists.
It is however possible that he woulddo all of this to prevent a possible future, which in some ways involves john mosely, the capsule is definitly coming back, (I so called this!) however its purpose is yet unkown, although we do know that the observers can't touch it, and don't want anyone else to have it, so maybe peter is using it to get back home, as I don't know the beacan is a beacon for each universe, so maybe he'll be able to travel between them, or aline the machine or something using them, or maybe he'll like hold it hostage on the obervers for information or something. I'm not really sure either way, but I know its going to be exciting.
While I'm on the topic of Fringe, I was actually rather excited to hear the Terra Nova got cancelled. Although this could be taken in a bad way, ie fox doesn't want anymore expensive sci-fi shows, and will also cancel Fringe, it also means that there is one less show (and one less sci-f show, because fox sure wasn't going to renew all of them) that Fringe has to compete with, I was actually really worried that Terra Nova would get renewed, as its ratings we still ok, but I'm so happy tha tit got canned, Alacatraz is also dipping and is looking actually very like it might get cancelled, and the Finder just got moved to Fridays, meaning that unless it does some ratings mircle (which could actually increase Fringe's ratings) it also looks like it might get canceled, and breaking in returned with pretty medicore ratings, so the chances of Fringe renewal is actually looking a bit up, heres hoping
This is just an example of the extreme hubris that the observers seem to have regarding sceine, and really what they the show says about al sciencetists. The beleive that they are just pure observers, imparitial, perfect scientists. Thus I beleive that the real fatal flaw, the real act of hubris that started the whole Fringe situation, was really Spetember's hubris, in thinking that he was just an obsever, and not actually invovling himself in the science. Yet it was his being seen, which prompted Walternate to miss the cure, and thus Walter to cross over. It's interesting to note that the observer's flaw was based on scientific motives, while Walters was based on emotions.
So Fringe is effectively saying that science shouldn't be based be purely scientific, impirical, becuase that leads to hubris, which is definitly a fair enough point, and a very interesting, but really crucial point to note about science, science is based in logic, yet it has such a human impact.
But back on Fringe, why then does September go to such lengths to correct his mistake. Well partly it has to do something about my personal theory if the observers. I believe that, in the fringeverse at least, all times, all timelines, everything exists at the same time, similar to the situation in the subtle knife, where the dude due can cut wholes between universe, and just step through them into different worlds. The observers have the ability to see and cross through all of these universes and times. and I similar to a lot of other peoples thoerys I beleive the obsevers are quite possibly descendants of peter and oliva, but get their powers due to Henry being a child of 2 universes, however that still doesn't explain how Peter and Olivia would have orgianlly meet, being from 2 different universes. I also don't think the September would go to all this trouble just to make sure he exists.
It is however possible that he woulddo all of this to prevent a possible future, which in some ways involves john mosely, the capsule is definitly coming back, (I so called this!) however its purpose is yet unkown, although we do know that the observers can't touch it, and don't want anyone else to have it, so maybe peter is using it to get back home, as I don't know the beacan is a beacon for each universe, so maybe he'll be able to travel between them, or aline the machine or something using them, or maybe he'll like hold it hostage on the obervers for information or something. I'm not really sure either way, but I know its going to be exciting.
While I'm on the topic of Fringe, I was actually rather excited to hear the Terra Nova got cancelled. Although this could be taken in a bad way, ie fox doesn't want anymore expensive sci-fi shows, and will also cancel Fringe, it also means that there is one less show (and one less sci-f show, because fox sure wasn't going to renew all of them) that Fringe has to compete with, I was actually really worried that Terra Nova would get renewed, as its ratings we still ok, but I'm so happy tha tit got canned, Alacatraz is also dipping and is looking actually very like it might get cancelled, and the Finder just got moved to Fridays, meaning that unless it does some ratings mircle (which could actually increase Fringe's ratings) it also looks like it might get canceled, and breaking in returned with pretty medicore ratings, so the chances of Fringe renewal is actually looking a bit up, heres hoping
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Kony2012 and being viral
Unless you've been living underneath a rick for the past 3 days, you'd have noticed the Kony campaign, while the campaign definitly had its flaws, I'm not going to talk about that, I'm going to talk about why the campaign was so successful.
Firstly the target demographic of the capiang, so many campaigns these days are aimed at such wide demogrpahics, playing the numbers game, inbvisable children did the smarter-but more risky- startergy, of aiming it at a very specific demographic, and relying on your demogrpahic to spread the message. Aiming it at the youth is also an estremly sucessful stratery-overlooked by many main-stream meadia campaigns they were effectivly tapping into a untapped audience. Youth is always an obvious choice, having this steal, usally a left-wing eager to help, yet often over-looked by chariety ocasions, because many young people don't have a large, if any disposable income, and many charity's campaings are aimed at raising funds.
Although the campaign got a lot of slack for over-simplifing the issue, this is partially what made it so effect. People want to help, but often it seems so complicated, so the issue so dense, that it seems so hard, people just don't go and help. However the campaign was so clear cut, and most importantly had an achievable, if unrealistic, goal. In addition to this clear goal, the campaign also presented us with cleat ways in which to achieve them, so many people want to help, except they just don't know how. But the Kony campaign gave everyone a clear goal, a clear way to achieve this goal, and evidence that these things ha
Most importantly the campaign was positive. Practically every single other charity campaign works on negative camapign, pictures of black and whd worked before. The campaign showed young people participatng in the campaign, and showed all the effective things they had previously achieved.
invisible children lookingmoing sad, but contrated with happy children and saying that our money can make them happier. But the kony campaign didn't focus on that, it didn't focus on donating money, or about thousands of millions of children that we are never going to be able to save, just one person, and actions that we could do, that didn't require any money, a major turnoff for teenagers, but stil be effective. The campaign also gave the teens something to do now, and something to do in the near future. The april 20th date being a month away, plus the immediate effects of the campaign, tweeting celebrities and politicans gave the campaign instead momentum and enough strength to stop it from fizzing out.
In a nutshell the campaign is something extraordinary, and worked because it was so. It was completely different from other viral videos, and importantly other charity videos, but is what every viral video should do, it's positive, makes people feel good after they do so. People are saying that they don't know why this video is so viral, but really, this is one of the viral videos, where it's viralness is easy to explain, I mean it asked people to tweet celebrities and all, although that doesn't diminish what an extraordinarily good job it did.
Firstly the target demographic of the capiang, so many campaigns these days are aimed at such wide demogrpahics, playing the numbers game, inbvisable children did the smarter-but more risky- startergy, of aiming it at a very specific demographic, and relying on your demogrpahic to spread the message. Aiming it at the youth is also an estremly sucessful stratery-overlooked by many main-stream meadia campaigns they were effectivly tapping into a untapped audience. Youth is always an obvious choice, having this steal, usally a left-wing eager to help, yet often over-looked by chariety ocasions, because many young people don't have a large, if any disposable income, and many charity's campaings are aimed at raising funds.
Although the campaign got a lot of slack for over-simplifing the issue, this is partially what made it so effect. People want to help, but often it seems so complicated, so the issue so dense, that it seems so hard, people just don't go and help. However the campaign was so clear cut, and most importantly had an achievable, if unrealistic, goal. In addition to this clear goal, the campaign also presented us with cleat ways in which to achieve them, so many people want to help, except they just don't know how. But the Kony campaign gave everyone a clear goal, a clear way to achieve this goal, and evidence that these things ha
Most importantly the campaign was positive. Practically every single other charity campaign works on negative camapign, pictures of black and whd worked before. The campaign showed young people participatng in the campaign, and showed all the effective things they had previously achieved.
invisible children lookingmoing sad, but contrated with happy children and saying that our money can make them happier. But the kony campaign didn't focus on that, it didn't focus on donating money, or about thousands of millions of children that we are never going to be able to save, just one person, and actions that we could do, that didn't require any money, a major turnoff for teenagers, but stil be effective. The campaign also gave the teens something to do now, and something to do in the near future. The april 20th date being a month away, plus the immediate effects of the campaign, tweeting celebrities and politicans gave the campaign instead momentum and enough strength to stop it from fizzing out.
In a nutshell the campaign is something extraordinary, and worked because it was so. It was completely different from other viral videos, and importantly other charity videos, but is what every viral video should do, it's positive, makes people feel good after they do so. People are saying that they don't know why this video is so viral, but really, this is one of the viral videos, where it's viralness is easy to explain, I mean it asked people to tweet celebrities and all, although that doesn't diminish what an extraordinarily good job it did.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Romney vs Santorium, the new republican rivalry
I know I know, I haven't blogged about politics in so long, in actual fact I've written tons of post (well not tons, but a few) but before I finish the post, something different happens that competly changes the race, and thus the post is not relevant, and I delete it and then I write something new, and then it changes again, but I am absolutly determined to finish this post, so I will. Since the last time I've posted Gingrich has lost his position of dominance as Romney's primary rival, and champion of the consertivite faction, and Sanatorium has taken over. He's now picking up large amount of evangelical and highly conservative votes, votes that typically when to Ginagrich, however Romney has still remained, abliet shakily, the front-runner position.
How has he remained this way? well firstly a bit of luck, after disappointing performances in the caucus states of Colorado and Minisota, he managed to turn his campaign around to win in both Arizona and Missori primaries. How did he do this, well basically because when it comes down to it, Romney has the supiror campaign, and resources, which really is essential for the primaries, with many more people voting than in the caucus states (Maine anyone). Also Arizona and Missori were, just on face value, more likely to go to Romney than Santorium, But Santorium periodically gaining is actually conversely helping Romney. After Santorium peaking, Romeny obviously dop in the polls, thus lowering expectations, which his campaign is now doing rather excellently, and so when his campaigning returns, as it always does when the momentum, which is having an especially short-life span this election cycle. However by exceeding exceptions means that Romney gets a huge postitive boost going into super tuesday, especially after his recent win in the small, but caucus state, which Romney is performing poorly in, of Washington.
All this seems like Romney is doing really well, in part due to good campaigning, but more due to good luck. Firstly Gingrich, just by staying in the competition, is a serious boost to Romney's campaign. Although Santorium is stealing a lot of Gingrich's voters, he still hasn't got all of the, and Gingrich is so much closer to Santorium than to Romney, and almost his entire share would go to Santorium. THis also means that Gingrich and to a certain extent Paul are actively campaigning and trying to steal from Santorium, making it possible for Romney to win, even if he does have this 'celling'.
So what does this mean for the rest of the race? Well at the moment I'd wager that Romney will still eventually win the nomination, and if he manages to scrape a win in Iowa, I'd give him very good odds, however I think its going to be a rocky race and quite possibly come down to a battle of the delegates at the convention. Unless either Paul or Gingrich drops out, Santorum will still probably continue to pick up the caucus states, and other very conservative states, as his campaign, lacking funds, is definitely more the grass-roots campaign which is suited to the caucus states, however these states do not have very many delegates, especially not pledged delegates, so if it does get down to a delegate war, Romney will again have to advantage, so although it might be a long struggle, I think it might go down to Romney.
How has he remained this way? well firstly a bit of luck, after disappointing performances in the caucus states of Colorado and Minisota, he managed to turn his campaign around to win in both Arizona and Missori primaries. How did he do this, well basically because when it comes down to it, Romney has the supiror campaign, and resources, which really is essential for the primaries, with many more people voting than in the caucus states (Maine anyone). Also Arizona and Missori were, just on face value, more likely to go to Romney than Santorium, But Santorium periodically gaining is actually conversely helping Romney. After Santorium peaking, Romeny obviously dop in the polls, thus lowering expectations, which his campaign is now doing rather excellently, and so when his campaigning returns, as it always does when the momentum, which is having an especially short-life span this election cycle. However by exceeding exceptions means that Romney gets a huge postitive boost going into super tuesday, especially after his recent win in the small, but caucus state, which Romney is performing poorly in, of Washington.
All this seems like Romney is doing really well, in part due to good campaigning, but more due to good luck. Firstly Gingrich, just by staying in the competition, is a serious boost to Romney's campaign. Although Santorium is stealing a lot of Gingrich's voters, he still hasn't got all of the, and Gingrich is so much closer to Santorium than to Romney, and almost his entire share would go to Santorium. THis also means that Gingrich and to a certain extent Paul are actively campaigning and trying to steal from Santorium, making it possible for Romney to win, even if he does have this 'celling'.
So what does this mean for the rest of the race? Well at the moment I'd wager that Romney will still eventually win the nomination, and if he manages to scrape a win in Iowa, I'd give him very good odds, however I think its going to be a rocky race and quite possibly come down to a battle of the delegates at the convention. Unless either Paul or Gingrich drops out, Santorum will still probably continue to pick up the caucus states, and other very conservative states, as his campaign, lacking funds, is definitely more the grass-roots campaign which is suited to the caucus states, however these states do not have very many delegates, especially not pledged delegates, so if it does get down to a delegate war, Romney will again have to advantage, so although it might be a long struggle, I think it might go down to Romney.
early uni life
Ack ack ack, while I enjoy it, blogging is getting exceedingly difficult to do with my new 'busy' life, I don't really have any time to blog. I might start bringing my laptop to uni in which case I will get a chance to blog on the bus, but for now I only blog whilst watching TV, like actually on TV, which I only really do once a week, which I'm doing now. What this means, is that until I change I'm going to be doing a lot of really dumping post.
anyway I thought I'd actually fo what most people do when they blog, and actually talk about my life aka my first week of uni. Uni is part fun, part boring, and actually rather like high school. We go through material faste,r but thats probably because lectures are like, only lectures, there no class time dedicated to working on stuff, or or that random time-killing thing that we managed to do in high school, so I guess it is slightly harder, but its also far more interesting. Class sizes are obviously much much bigger, and has heaps more guys, I also kinda miss the really collaborative environment of NSG, but thats probably just because of well smaller classes, and the fact that we all new each other for 6 years.
The campus is also much bigger, and obviously the compute is longer but at the moment kind of bearable. I think I've finally managed to find my way around the campus completely, after finding having my compulsory getting completely lost experience. Actually it wasn't completely my fault, I had a lecture in the chemical sciences building, and I had a 2 hour gap between lectures so I decided to get to the lecture theatre a bit early, luckily I did because the classroom was M18, which is what it said on my timetable but the building code was something like F10 so I was wondering around looking for M18, until I realised that I was on the wrong side of campus, so I rushed in the rain, to tje correct building, and even managed to find the correct room. I got inside, and was pleasantly surprised that the class wasn't packed like the rest of my classes, until I started to get freaked out that I was in the wrong class a couple of minutes later and asked the person next to me, who was reading a law book. Turned out he was also looking for my class and was doing engineering-law. So all was good right, except the lecturer still hadn't turned up yet, no problem, he's just running late right, I started talking to the same person next to me, until 25minutes in, we decided that it really was weird that the lecturer hadn't turned up yet, thus we looked up to make sure the class hadn't been cancelled, turned out the class wasn't cancelled, but had been moved, to the lecture theatre right on the other end of campus. No problem right, the first class of every other class we didn't do anything important, just went through administrative details so nothing important, not quite 5 very puffed minutes later we found ourself in the back of the right lecture theatre, sitting down and having out feet fall asleep right at the back of he only class that did stuff on the first lecture, with a guy with a very scary Russian accent. And no matter how nice the guy actually is I don't think I can ever actually get past my first impression of him being a really strict Russian slave driver teacher/KGB agent. However that being said, it is actually kind of fun, although I'm enjoying some of my other subjects a bit more, we got to build a catapult in Engg1000! A catapult! admittedly it was supposed to work in a war zone, and I definitely wouldn't be using it, but then again, who arms their troops with paddle pop sticks and ballons going into a warzone?
Anyway uni is fun, although tiring, and I have no idea how I'm going to cope this weeks with labs and tutes cutting into my lovely long breaks, and making me stay at uni later, still should be fun
anyway I thought I'd actually fo what most people do when they blog, and actually talk about my life aka my first week of uni. Uni is part fun, part boring, and actually rather like high school. We go through material faste,r but thats probably because lectures are like, only lectures, there no class time dedicated to working on stuff, or or that random time-killing thing that we managed to do in high school, so I guess it is slightly harder, but its also far more interesting. Class sizes are obviously much much bigger, and has heaps more guys, I also kinda miss the really collaborative environment of NSG, but thats probably just because of well smaller classes, and the fact that we all new each other for 6 years.
The campus is also much bigger, and obviously the compute is longer but at the moment kind of bearable. I think I've finally managed to find my way around the campus completely, after finding having my compulsory getting completely lost experience. Actually it wasn't completely my fault, I had a lecture in the chemical sciences building, and I had a 2 hour gap between lectures so I decided to get to the lecture theatre a bit early, luckily I did because the classroom was M18, which is what it said on my timetable but the building code was something like F10 so I was wondering around looking for M18, until I realised that I was on the wrong side of campus, so I rushed in the rain, to tje correct building, and even managed to find the correct room. I got inside, and was pleasantly surprised that the class wasn't packed like the rest of my classes, until I started to get freaked out that I was in the wrong class a couple of minutes later and asked the person next to me, who was reading a law book. Turned out he was also looking for my class and was doing engineering-law. So all was good right, except the lecturer still hadn't turned up yet, no problem, he's just running late right, I started talking to the same person next to me, until 25minutes in, we decided that it really was weird that the lecturer hadn't turned up yet, thus we looked up to make sure the class hadn't been cancelled, turned out the class wasn't cancelled, but had been moved, to the lecture theatre right on the other end of campus. No problem right, the first class of every other class we didn't do anything important, just went through administrative details so nothing important, not quite 5 very puffed minutes later we found ourself in the back of the right lecture theatre, sitting down and having out feet fall asleep right at the back of he only class that did stuff on the first lecture, with a guy with a very scary Russian accent. And no matter how nice the guy actually is I don't think I can ever actually get past my first impression of him being a really strict Russian slave driver teacher/KGB agent. However that being said, it is actually kind of fun, although I'm enjoying some of my other subjects a bit more, we got to build a catapult in Engg1000! A catapult! admittedly it was supposed to work in a war zone, and I definitely wouldn't be using it, but then again, who arms their troops with paddle pop sticks and ballons going into a warzone?
Anyway uni is fun, although tiring, and I have no idea how I'm going to cope this weeks with labs and tutes cutting into my lovely long breaks, and making me stay at uni later, still should be fun
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Does Fringe have a chance at renewal?
Yes it is only February, but the scary season of TV is well uponn us, and for, having the fortune to like very high rating shows, the show I am really worried about it Fringe. Fringe is so beautifully fantastic, but with positivly awful ratings that would get it yanked off the air on many a network, it has clung onto it's Friday night. But does it have a chance at coming back? that is the million dollar question.
Fox usually cancels at least 4 hours of drama each year, so basically Fringe just has to be slightly better than the 4 it cancels, with House ending this year, thats only 3 shows that have to be cancelled. Now due to American Idol and the X-factor, and the fact Fox doesn't program the 10p hour they don't have that much drama and their sunday night or animation is essentially set, there is very few shows for which Fringe to 'beat'. Although Glee is getting a lot worse, it is still almost definitely coming back, New Girl is also a shoe in for renewal, and Bones is also extremely likely. That just leaves, Terra Nova, Alcatraz, Breaking In, The Finder and Touch. Now luckily all of these shows have fairly marginal ratings, however unfortunately all of these shows only have half-seasons. Thus the possibility of a full season of Fringe is unfortunately really unlikely. Also assuming Bones is getting a full season pick-up, and Fox doesn't expand its comedy hours (which is unfortunately quite possible) 4 or 3 of these shows must be cancelled.
Thankfully Alcatraz has rather quickly declining ratings, as with it's quality, thus as long as the ratings continure to decline, it probably will be cancelled. Terra Nova did not have great ratings, but unfortunately they weren't that bad to make for instant cancelation. It has so-so ratings, but being a hugely expensive freshman show, it does not get much layway for bad ratings, another thing is that as the Australian dollar is stronger, it is again more expensive, and I don't think that Fox really wants to get in bed with another expensive, cultish, low ratings show, and they definitely don't want 2, or 3 of them, so there is a very real possibility it could get cancelled.
The Finder, although I enjoy the show, does have pretty poor ratings, it is currently on after American idol, and thus its ratings ae almost entirely inflated. So there is a very real possibly that Fox will also cancel it, knowing that the ratings are not going to continue. It reminds me of the Criminal Minds spin-off, because spinoff usually don't get a lot of layway, especially since Bones is also dipping in ratings. (actually I'm watching Bones right now, and it does seem like it is it's final season, although I still think its got a few more left in it luckily)
Then we have Breaking In. I personally believe this was picked up when they shorten the season of Bones, as it was canceled last season and had pretty terrible ratings, I don't think its very likely to get a third season, so even though it hasn't premiered yet, I'd say that it easily a lock for cancelation, so hopefully thats one less show to beat.
Finally we have Touch. I personally didn't like this very much, but the preview drew big ratings, well a 3.3 which is more like very respectable ratings instead of good ones, however previews do often rate higher, and there have been countless examples of shows that have had huge ratings drops.
Unfortunalty last years Fringe renewal came on March 23rd, meaning as Fringe has wrapped up for 4 weeks, there is no chance ofr its ratings to rise, and only a small amount of times for shows like Breaking in and Touch ratings to fall. As they have said in multiple occasions, they are going to give Fringe enough time to wrap up the series, they are more likely to cancel it early, and wait to decide on other shows, instead of renewing Fringe, and cancelling shows with ratings falling, but shows that aren't awful yet. Although the same thing does also go for Terra Nova, so there is some hope.
There is one other possibility, American Idol's ratings are crashing, and crashing hard, they are still very good, but still just good, they're around the average of good shows. Not to mention, as in all seasons in American Idol the ratings decline every week, so the ratings could be right down by the end of the season. Idol is an extremely, extremely expensive show, and while the ratings might be on the slightly higher end of spectrum, there is a possibility they might want to retire Idol on a high note, maintaining it's legacy, instead of putting it out for another season, and waiting for the ratings to crash and have to slink off the schedule.
While Fringe is also really expensive, what it really has going for it, is syndication possibilities. 13 episodes would it 101, thus making it possible for syndication, and although it is possible to syndicate it at 88 episodes, the more episodes, the more money Fox makes off it.
Of course if Fringe is going to be renewed it probably is only going to be for a 13 season, series finale (so no chance of ratings getting better and getting a 6th season) and on a hugely reduced budget, but any Fringe is better than no Fringe.
Fox usually cancels at least 4 hours of drama each year, so basically Fringe just has to be slightly better than the 4 it cancels, with House ending this year, thats only 3 shows that have to be cancelled. Now due to American Idol and the X-factor, and the fact Fox doesn't program the 10p hour they don't have that much drama and their sunday night or animation is essentially set, there is very few shows for which Fringe to 'beat'. Although Glee is getting a lot worse, it is still almost definitely coming back, New Girl is also a shoe in for renewal, and Bones is also extremely likely. That just leaves, Terra Nova, Alcatraz, Breaking In, The Finder and Touch. Now luckily all of these shows have fairly marginal ratings, however unfortunately all of these shows only have half-seasons. Thus the possibility of a full season of Fringe is unfortunately really unlikely. Also assuming Bones is getting a full season pick-up, and Fox doesn't expand its comedy hours (which is unfortunately quite possible) 4 or 3 of these shows must be cancelled.
Thankfully Alcatraz has rather quickly declining ratings, as with it's quality, thus as long as the ratings continure to decline, it probably will be cancelled. Terra Nova did not have great ratings, but unfortunately they weren't that bad to make for instant cancelation. It has so-so ratings, but being a hugely expensive freshman show, it does not get much layway for bad ratings, another thing is that as the Australian dollar is stronger, it is again more expensive, and I don't think that Fox really wants to get in bed with another expensive, cultish, low ratings show, and they definitely don't want 2, or 3 of them, so there is a very real possibility it could get cancelled.
The Finder, although I enjoy the show, does have pretty poor ratings, it is currently on after American idol, and thus its ratings ae almost entirely inflated. So there is a very real possibly that Fox will also cancel it, knowing that the ratings are not going to continue. It reminds me of the Criminal Minds spin-off, because spinoff usually don't get a lot of layway, especially since Bones is also dipping in ratings. (actually I'm watching Bones right now, and it does seem like it is it's final season, although I still think its got a few more left in it luckily)
Then we have Breaking In. I personally believe this was picked up when they shorten the season of Bones, as it was canceled last season and had pretty terrible ratings, I don't think its very likely to get a third season, so even though it hasn't premiered yet, I'd say that it easily a lock for cancelation, so hopefully thats one less show to beat.
Finally we have Touch. I personally didn't like this very much, but the preview drew big ratings, well a 3.3 which is more like very respectable ratings instead of good ones, however previews do often rate higher, and there have been countless examples of shows that have had huge ratings drops.
Unfortunalty last years Fringe renewal came on March 23rd, meaning as Fringe has wrapped up for 4 weeks, there is no chance ofr its ratings to rise, and only a small amount of times for shows like Breaking in and Touch ratings to fall. As they have said in multiple occasions, they are going to give Fringe enough time to wrap up the series, they are more likely to cancel it early, and wait to decide on other shows, instead of renewing Fringe, and cancelling shows with ratings falling, but shows that aren't awful yet. Although the same thing does also go for Terra Nova, so there is some hope.
There is one other possibility, American Idol's ratings are crashing, and crashing hard, they are still very good, but still just good, they're around the average of good shows. Not to mention, as in all seasons in American Idol the ratings decline every week, so the ratings could be right down by the end of the season. Idol is an extremely, extremely expensive show, and while the ratings might be on the slightly higher end of spectrum, there is a possibility they might want to retire Idol on a high note, maintaining it's legacy, instead of putting it out for another season, and waiting for the ratings to crash and have to slink off the schedule.
While Fringe is also really expensive, what it really has going for it, is syndication possibilities. 13 episodes would it 101, thus making it possible for syndication, and although it is possible to syndicate it at 88 episodes, the more episodes, the more money Fox makes off it.
Of course if Fringe is going to be renewed it probably is only going to be for a 13 season, series finale (so no chance of ratings getting better and getting a 6th season) and on a hugely reduced budget, but any Fringe is better than no Fringe.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Spillard
so the story of the week here in aus (although it had been gathering international attention) is the gillard vs rudd re-spill. After months of tension, trupmed up by the media, we actually have a confrotation when Rubb resigned at an extremely inconvienat time-zone (espeically to his publicists ohh I don't want to think about how wacked their sleep cycles must be) time when he was still in Washington DC. Gillard then made a rather large gamble, but really the only thing she could do, in a winner takes all re-count, and the looser goes to the back bench and relinqhues all leadership ambitions, annoyingly, on the first day on uni, aka the only day I can't watch it live, which also happens to be the day of the oscars! annoyance at uni timetabling!
-Just an observations before we continue on-firstly the media often refers to Julia Gillard as Julia, but never to Kevin Rudd as Kevin, its always Rudd, this is possibly a gender thing, because in environments where people do get called by their last names, girls often get called by their first names, but if it is, it's interesting to note how seeped in gender rolls are-
Anyway I am a Gillard suppoerter, so this post will be biased, but then again it is my blog so deal with it, but I really think that Rudd winning would be devastating for the labour party, the public has more or less managed to get past the upset in leaders 2 years ago, but another upset is just going to destroy the public's faith in the party. Although we do not run on the american system, and the party can more or less change prime minsters as they will, the parties promote themself by their leader, people vote for either Rudd or Gillard, not usually their local member, or infact sometimes not liberal or labor, the head of the parties really are that, and people want to vote them in, and not whoever the party feels like putting in as the leader, it makes people feel like they have more control, like it is more like a democracy
Thus if Rudd replaces Gillard, not only will the media hype up the possibility of her coming back (where as they might calm down a smidge if Rudd goes to the back bench, feeling like he's contested, failed, so he's less likely to challenge again) so the party will seem to be even more unstable, people won;t feel like their voting in a particular leader, they'll feel like the government, not them, has the power, and I suspect their polling number would initially rise but drop.
Speaking on polling number, Rudd is running a fantastic campaign at the moment, with much higher poling numbers, although these numbers I suspect will not correlate to an election, where people are not interested in supporting the underdog, or supporting Rubb because its the right thing to do, because he was elected in first or whatever (stupid reasons) they'd be looking for stability in government, which with a good media campaign by the liberals, would mean a rather large swing away from any labor government.
Then there is the rather tricky question of the independants to consider, I'm am almost definite their would be further speculation about whether the independants are going to side with labor or not now with Rudd in charge, I believe that they eventually would, but they wouldn't be politicians if they didn't continue to milk their again heightened importance for all it was worth, and depending on how well the liberals play it, there would be a possibility for another election. I don't think an election is very likely, it's another thing that is continuously hyped up by the media, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a possibility, because a lot of the independant have seen their numbers plummit, and thus there is a slight possibility that they can hope to regain some support by now siding with the liberals, or on the condidtion that they will side with them if an election is called.
My point being that if Rudd wins, the crisis isn't over, there is still going to be this massive speculation about leadership, and has Gillard really given up all leadership ambitions and what about the independents and the labor party will just seem very unorganised and chaotic, and that more than any other policy, will loose them the election, baring a miraculous turn around, which based on Rudd's record, seems highly unlikely.
I think Gillard has a good chance of winning, although it is not at all certain, and its quite possibly going to be very close, especially if it is a secret ballet. Gillard has the advantage of being considered the front-runner, thus if it isn't secret ballet a lot of people may vote for her, trying to suck up more or less, because if she does win, its best to show that your loyalties lie with Gillard, and not Rudd, but if it is a secret ballet, then Rudd has a much better chance. Whatever the outcome, it is certainly going to be a very interesting time in politics.
-Just an observations before we continue on-firstly the media often refers to Julia Gillard as Julia, but never to Kevin Rudd as Kevin, its always Rudd, this is possibly a gender thing, because in environments where people do get called by their last names, girls often get called by their first names, but if it is, it's interesting to note how seeped in gender rolls are-
Anyway I am a Gillard suppoerter, so this post will be biased, but then again it is my blog so deal with it, but I really think that Rudd winning would be devastating for the labour party, the public has more or less managed to get past the upset in leaders 2 years ago, but another upset is just going to destroy the public's faith in the party. Although we do not run on the american system, and the party can more or less change prime minsters as they will, the parties promote themself by their leader, people vote for either Rudd or Gillard, not usually their local member, or infact sometimes not liberal or labor, the head of the parties really are that, and people want to vote them in, and not whoever the party feels like putting in as the leader, it makes people feel like they have more control, like it is more like a democracy
Thus if Rudd replaces Gillard, not only will the media hype up the possibility of her coming back (where as they might calm down a smidge if Rudd goes to the back bench, feeling like he's contested, failed, so he's less likely to challenge again) so the party will seem to be even more unstable, people won;t feel like their voting in a particular leader, they'll feel like the government, not them, has the power, and I suspect their polling number would initially rise but drop.
Speaking on polling number, Rudd is running a fantastic campaign at the moment, with much higher poling numbers, although these numbers I suspect will not correlate to an election, where people are not interested in supporting the underdog, or supporting Rubb because its the right thing to do, because he was elected in first or whatever (stupid reasons) they'd be looking for stability in government, which with a good media campaign by the liberals, would mean a rather large swing away from any labor government.
Then there is the rather tricky question of the independants to consider, I'm am almost definite their would be further speculation about whether the independants are going to side with labor or not now with Rudd in charge, I believe that they eventually would, but they wouldn't be politicians if they didn't continue to milk their again heightened importance for all it was worth, and depending on how well the liberals play it, there would be a possibility for another election. I don't think an election is very likely, it's another thing that is continuously hyped up by the media, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a possibility, because a lot of the independant have seen their numbers plummit, and thus there is a slight possibility that they can hope to regain some support by now siding with the liberals, or on the condidtion that they will side with them if an election is called.
My point being that if Rudd wins, the crisis isn't over, there is still going to be this massive speculation about leadership, and has Gillard really given up all leadership ambitions and what about the independents and the labor party will just seem very unorganised and chaotic, and that more than any other policy, will loose them the election, baring a miraculous turn around, which based on Rudd's record, seems highly unlikely.
I think Gillard has a good chance of winning, although it is not at all certain, and its quite possibly going to be very close, especially if it is a secret ballet. Gillard has the advantage of being considered the front-runner, thus if it isn't secret ballet a lot of people may vote for her, trying to suck up more or less, because if she does win, its best to show that your loyalties lie with Gillard, and not Rudd, but if it is a secret ballet, then Rudd has a much better chance. Whatever the outcome, it is certainly going to be a very interesting time in politics.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
dispersing waves
Wow that was a bad tittle, but what do you tittle something that starts off as one thing, but ends in another? the creative process is what, and that creativity leads me to weird pretentious names such as dispersing waves. Anyway, another collections of my nails, I originally had an idea of waves kinds radiating, off, but I didn't like how the first one turned out, so I more or less abandoned it and just thought of crazy patterns, especially with the second hand. I then tried to go with contrasting colours, but put one of the colours in each nail that would be the focus of the next nail, although that kinda stopped when whatever I was watching (I think the X-files) got to interesting. Still I do really like the end result, even if it was very random
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| you can kinda see a wave (by which I mean wavelength) theme going on in this hand, use your imagination! |
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| I actually really love this design, and it was completely unplanned, it was just one of those things that works out :) |
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| Of course the one that I loved had to be the one that broke patern |
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| This was the original nail, it was supposed to be more like the sun, with waves rays of heat and energy rolling off it, like in monte, but it failed rather badly when I choose the wrong base coat, and had the adjust colour with suckier brushes, still. It's wired, usually I draw inspiration from the first one to make a series, and link all the nails, this time it was just random, and the first one actually felt out of place. |
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| total abandonment of wave theme |
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| You know your running out of ideas when you go to spots |
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| yes, there all random designs, but I actually really like how it all seemed to come together, I may do another random design one soon! |
Valentines day nails
I was going through all my photos, and realised that I haven't uploaded any pics of my nails yet! Which being the main reason I decided to get this blog, I think I'd better rectify the situation pretty quickly. Look forward to spam posts of my nails, really for the past year, or actually really for the past 2 years, since I've started recording them, anyway, this is the design I have on at the moment (although I'm taking them off tonight, imaginary people, I need suggestions for what next!) They're fairly obviously Valentines day themed, and not up to my usual standard, because I did them in about an hour, just before I was going out, and was interrupted by a random plumber guy who wanted to explain to me in great detail all about different types of water filters, it was fascinating, anywho, my nails!
yeah like I said, kinda boring, run of the mill, still I actually quite like them, and the photo (taken off my iphone-real top quaility photography) don't do them a whole lot of justice+the fact that they're all chipped but hey, happy late valentines day!
Monday, 20 February 2012
Why we watch too much TV
Right so I've reccently been posting about how much TV I myself watch, and Australians as a whole, and really wondering, why do we watch TV.
I think we watch TV in two ways, passivly and argessivly
Passivly watching TV is the sort of TV you watch after you've had a long day. Its TV you watch in fornt of dinner, or when you doing something boring and want entertainment. Its when your channel surfing and then land on a show, something that you enjoy, but you don't activly engage in. Breakfast TV, and sitcoms are perfect example of this, at half an hour, lots of people can just crash infront of an episode of the big bang theory or whatever, to rejuvinate, but it isn't like you'll be devasted if you miss an episode, its just fun TV.
I think we watch TV in two ways, passivly and argessivly
Passivly watching TV is the sort of TV you watch after you've had a long day. Its TV you watch in fornt of dinner, or when you doing something boring and want entertainment. Its when your channel surfing and then land on a show, something that you enjoy, but you don't activly engage in. Breakfast TV, and sitcoms are perfect example of this, at half an hour, lots of people can just crash infront of an episode of the big bang theory or whatever, to rejuvinate, but it isn't like you'll be devasted if you miss an episode, its just fun TV.
Then you can activly watch TV, and I have to say as a person of extrmes, this is the only sort of way that I watch TV. Activly watching TV is when you really engage in the show, you deliberlty go and watch it, instead of just finding something to watch. You'll probably watch every episode, or if your more on my scale of active TV, you definitly watch every epsidoe, you read interviews by cast members, you talk to other people about the show, and you'll look forward to episodes. You'd classify yourself as a fan of the show, instead of just liking it, maybe more like passive TV.
So if thats the two forms of TV, why do we watch it? Well as I've mentioned before, Escape. People watch TV to get away from their life, if they've had a big day and want to relax in someone else's life, or they find active engagement in a show, in doing something different. yet this still doesn't explain why we watch TV.
Taking it a step forward, I think its more about emotions, and our emotional connections. A good TV show will make us feel something, it will manipulate our emotions, it will completly suck us in to its world and it will do this all in 43 minutes. And we, I'd argue as humans, want that. Its not that we want to escape nessirly your life, its that we want to escape ambivilence of feeling. You go out with your friends for a few hours, you (hopefully) are happy for those hours, or maybe you are in work and possibly bored, but do you really know what you are feeling? What we are usually doing is feeling a combination of emotions, or just noting at all, just 'meah' we are rarely sure of exactly what we are feeling, expect if we are feeling the extreme. (ie you know when you are absolutely elated, and heart broken, but honestly how many other points in your life, how much of life do we feel ambivalent?) and as humans I think we fear this 'meah', we are constantly haunted by our limited time, and we feel a need to make use of time, not to waste time, except we don't know how. We feel like feeling nothing is wasting time, we have to be feeling something, we have to do something, that's why we go skydiving, or scuba diving, for experiences yes, but more so for emotional clarity, to feel something different.
However in a good TV/movie/book/whatever we get crystallised extreme bursts of emotion. We know exactly what we are feeling, and this fills us with happiness. It lets us know that we are human, we are capable of feeling, and that we are not wasting our time. Of course I feel that this is all happening on a sub-conscience level, it is for this reason that we enjoy doing these things, and we want to do these things, because so often our conscience mind labels them as wasting time, and not important. But I'd argue that watching TV, or entertainment in general is still a very important thing, and quite frankly we shouldn't be ashemed of the fact that we watch huge amounts of TV, because TV, and entertainment in general is still important.
So if thats the two forms of TV, why do we watch it? Well as I've mentioned before, Escape. People watch TV to get away from their life, if they've had a big day and want to relax in someone else's life, or they find active engagement in a show, in doing something different. yet this still doesn't explain why we watch TV.
Taking it a step forward, I think its more about emotions, and our emotional connections. A good TV show will make us feel something, it will manipulate our emotions, it will completly suck us in to its world and it will do this all in 43 minutes. And we, I'd argue as humans, want that. Its not that we want to escape nessirly your life, its that we want to escape ambivilence of feeling. You go out with your friends for a few hours, you (hopefully) are happy for those hours, or maybe you are in work and possibly bored, but do you really know what you are feeling? What we are usually doing is feeling a combination of emotions, or just noting at all, just 'meah' we are rarely sure of exactly what we are feeling, expect if we are feeling the extreme. (ie you know when you are absolutely elated, and heart broken, but honestly how many other points in your life, how much of life do we feel ambivalent?) and as humans I think we fear this 'meah', we are constantly haunted by our limited time, and we feel a need to make use of time, not to waste time, except we don't know how. We feel like feeling nothing is wasting time, we have to be feeling something, we have to do something, that's why we go skydiving, or scuba diving, for experiences yes, but more so for emotional clarity, to feel something different.
However in a good TV/movie/book/whatever we get crystallised extreme bursts of emotion. We know exactly what we are feeling, and this fills us with happiness. It lets us know that we are human, we are capable of feeling, and that we are not wasting our time. Of course I feel that this is all happening on a sub-conscience level, it is for this reason that we enjoy doing these things, and we want to do these things, because so often our conscience mind labels them as wasting time, and not important. But I'd argue that watching TV, or entertainment in general is still a very important thing, and quite frankly we shouldn't be ashemed of the fact that we watch huge amounts of TV, because TV, and entertainment in general is still important.
How much TV do we watch?
If you've been reading this blog, or know me at all, you know that I really like TV. I also have a huge obbession with the TV ratings, however unfortunalty due to the fact the Oztam is one of the suckiest orginisation ever, they have this wierd obbession with keeping the ratings a secret, and rarely release ratings quickly, never release demo's and only give us the 5 capitical city ratings and never the final, unless you want to pay. Its a very sucky system so I stick mainly to US ratings, because I need my fix somehow, but today, something momentous has happened, Oztam has temporily forgetted how precious its ratings are and released a report! A report! one that isn't grossly outdated and about something borring. No they've released the first ever Australian Multi-screen Survey! Forget the fact that the rest of the world has been doing this for years, and the report and press release are possibly the worst things ever written, riddled with inaccuracies, refusing to define terms, making the meaning murky, and giving numbers that aren't well defined. Yes it took me a good 3 hours to track down exactly where all of the numbers came from, and even then they weren't even on the Oztam site! Welcome to the world of mulit-screen reporting, and please, please, please do a better job next time. Its a good thing I'm a bored uni student with too much time on my hands.
The good news is I'm far from alone in my TV obbession. Infact Australians spend an average of 5 hours and 3 minutes a day watching TV ( a lot more than I do, see I'm not that bad), and a further 9 minutes a day streaming internet video (a heck of a lot less than I do). Another failing of the report is that all of the three companies colloborating all had different age brackets, so I'm not even going to attempt to look at age trends, however in the quilivant American report, it was very interesting to note that the caotrgy that used internet and mobile streaming by far the most was the 25-34 age bracket, not the college age 18-24 age bracket that I would have expected. Back on Australian shores, men watch more internet TV (62%) but marginally less actual TV ( 47%) proving what media experts have been saying all along, that the prime advertising catorgry is men, 18-34 (but really any 18-34) because they are the most rare and less accessable. Why Australia still goes by total people, over-populated by older people already set into their viewing habbits astounds me (or even worse, obbessing over the "grocery buying audience" eurgh, people statistics, they're important) and further proves just how sucky the Australian TV industry is.
Anyway compare this to the 4 hours and 52 minute that the average american watches, and additional 39 minutes of internet streaming video, which is rather a scary comparison, considering the very high penetration cable in america (90%) and the fact that this cable accounts for 74% of all viewing, Australians watch a lot of TV. Even including digital channels, full penetration is at 70% and digital only accounts for about 10% of all TV viewing, and pay TV only 15%.
Of course non of these figures includes downloads of TV shows, which probably won't have that big an influence on the total numbers, which are dragged up by the older population, who don't download, but for me personally, and probably in the 18-24 age bracket downloads certainly account for a huge amount of TV broadcasting. But what this basically means is that while Americans have more reason to watch TV (they also have a higher internet pentration 98% compared to 77%- a very scary figure- in Australia and an average of 3 TV's per household compared to Australia's 2.4 and although Australians have a higher percentage of people who own a working TV, 99% compared to 97% of Americans) Australians are watching much more TV. This could be slighly explained by our marginally higher life expectancy, although if you look at the age population graphs, they are almost identical, basically I think we just like watching TV.
The good news is I'm far from alone in my TV obbession. Infact Australians spend an average of 5 hours and 3 minutes a day watching TV ( a lot more than I do, see I'm not that bad), and a further 9 minutes a day streaming internet video (a heck of a lot less than I do). Another failing of the report is that all of the three companies colloborating all had different age brackets, so I'm not even going to attempt to look at age trends, however in the quilivant American report, it was very interesting to note that the caotrgy that used internet and mobile streaming by far the most was the 25-34 age bracket, not the college age 18-24 age bracket that I would have expected. Back on Australian shores, men watch more internet TV (62%) but marginally less actual TV ( 47%) proving what media experts have been saying all along, that the prime advertising catorgry is men, 18-34 (but really any 18-34) because they are the most rare and less accessable. Why Australia still goes by total people, over-populated by older people already set into their viewing habbits astounds me (or even worse, obbessing over the "grocery buying audience" eurgh, people statistics, they're important) and further proves just how sucky the Australian TV industry is.
Of course non of these figures includes downloads of TV shows, which probably won't have that big an influence on the total numbers, which are dragged up by the older population, who don't download, but for me personally, and probably in the 18-24 age bracket downloads certainly account for a huge amount of TV broadcasting. But what this basically means is that while Americans have more reason to watch TV (they also have a higher internet pentration 98% compared to 77%- a very scary figure- in Australia and an average of 3 TV's per household compared to Australia's 2.4 and although Australians have a higher percentage of people who own a working TV, 99% compared to 97% of Americans) Australians are watching much more TV. This could be slighly explained by our marginally higher life expectancy, although if you look at the age population graphs, they are almost identical, basically I think we just like watching TV.
here is the report if you're at all interested. I have to warn you, its pretty basic, and not very clear, but its better than nothing.
I watch too much TV
I was going thourgh my sidereel trakcer and have come to the conculsion that I spend way to much time watching TV. Well actually I think I'm still below the average, amount of time people spend watching TV but still too much. Now this may have been fine while I was on holidays but with Uni starting, I really need to find a way of cutting down on my TV intake.
Firstly some stats, according to my sidereel tracker (sidenote: sidereel is quite possibly the best site ever invented) I am currently tracking 16 shows. Yes that is a lot, Now assuming each of those shows aired a new episode every week, I would spend 16 hours a week watching TV, which is 9.5% of my week, and 15% of my awake week. Now that is a heck of a lot of time, although not every shows airs every week, I like some cable shows which only air in summer, and some shows only have a half season, not to mention I watch a lot of stuff online, so if you average my TV viewing out through the year, it becomes the more managable figure of 4% of my life or 6% of my awake life, still a lot, but smaller. Thats assuming I spend an hour per show, which I'm taking, because I do like to look up trailers, and ocasionally spoilers and the like. Also that figure doesn't account for all the TV I'm catching up on, currently the X-Files and SVU, but that I can fairly easily cull, or restrict to watching on the bus and stuff.
Anyway none of that brings me back to the problem of what am I going to do when I no longer have literally all day just to watch TV, and also the nagging question in my mind, how many shows is a good number. I've picked up 6 new shows this year, which is a fairly significant increase, espeically considering how not all of this years new shows haven't premiered yet, and I took prime suspect off my tracker after it got cancelled, effectivly meaning I've doubled my TV intake. Now I know this is very early to be writting about, but I'm actually kinda scared that I'll do the same thing next year, pick up ridiclous amounts of TV, because some of the pilots (I'm asshamed to say CW ones) actually sound very good. So what to do
I'm feeling a bit like CBS, too many good choices, and I want to add more, so what to do; luckily for me pan-am is getting csncelled, infact I probably wouldn't have stuck around with it if it wasn't getting cancelled. in danger of getting cancelled are The Finder, Nikita, and although I hate to say it Fringe. Potentially SVU, although I think thats highly unlikely. Although I do enjoy it, I could probably cut back on Nikita and The Finder, bar a mirclous turn around, I think I am going to stop watching glee as well. But here comes my coundroum, of all the shows I'm thinking of dropping back on (Revenge, Once upon a time) are all new shows, and there are no non-new shows that I want to drop, even though really I did only start watching criminal minds this year, and fringe, and the mentalist WOW I really did start watching a lot more TV this year. Except for Nikita, which is only 2 years old, none of my veteran shows are getting bad, which is probably why they've surivied to be vetern shows, and which I love, but my time management doesn't.
Of course I could always start getting creative, downloading shows to watch on the bus, or as much as I don't like to admit this, mulit-tasking. Espeically as it looks like I'm going to be working on the weekends, and I've joined a club that meets on friday afternoons, which sounds really fun, but when am I going to have time to watch stuff! I may have to push friday night TV binge back to Saturday night, because if I'm being honest I rarely have the stamina to work past about 6 on Saturdays, the downside of that is that I'll have to delay Fringe watching time/cut back on Fringe spazzing time, which would actually be a good thing for my time management. I could also start watching shows on Australian TV. Why would this be advantageous, as I'd loose my 15minutes of add time. However most of the shows airing in Australia start after easter, meaning that I'd essentially cut down some of my watching time, and offset it, in the US summer, where less shows air. However the downside of that is that I really like being up to date, because it means I can read articles and interviews, and go on chats, and all the fun stuff associated with watching TV, because while I enjoy the actual process, I enjoy talking an anticipating and stuff more. Also there would be a rather high chance that I wouldn't even get to watch it on TV anyway, and just watch it online later, which really doesn't do anything.
So after that very long self indulgent discussion, what am I going to do? I have no idea, I think I'm going to bank on the fact that most shows don't air a new episode every week, and thus I wouldn't be up for 7.5 hours a week (10 shows currently airing-add time) which is a more manageable figure, and cut back on my catch TV time, except come may sweeps, which is like finale time, meaning all new episodes and much more time reading up and theorising, although I can totally do that on the bus right, I'll be fine, right?
Firstly some stats, according to my sidereel tracker (sidenote: sidereel is quite possibly the best site ever invented) I am currently tracking 16 shows. Yes that is a lot, Now assuming each of those shows aired a new episode every week, I would spend 16 hours a week watching TV, which is 9.5% of my week, and 15% of my awake week. Now that is a heck of a lot of time, although not every shows airs every week, I like some cable shows which only air in summer, and some shows only have a half season, not to mention I watch a lot of stuff online, so if you average my TV viewing out through the year, it becomes the more managable figure of 4% of my life or 6% of my awake life, still a lot, but smaller. Thats assuming I spend an hour per show, which I'm taking, because I do like to look up trailers, and ocasionally spoilers and the like. Also that figure doesn't account for all the TV I'm catching up on, currently the X-Files and SVU, but that I can fairly easily cull, or restrict to watching on the bus and stuff.
Anyway none of that brings me back to the problem of what am I going to do when I no longer have literally all day just to watch TV, and also the nagging question in my mind, how many shows is a good number. I've picked up 6 new shows this year, which is a fairly significant increase, espeically considering how not all of this years new shows haven't premiered yet, and I took prime suspect off my tracker after it got cancelled, effectivly meaning I've doubled my TV intake. Now I know this is very early to be writting about, but I'm actually kinda scared that I'll do the same thing next year, pick up ridiclous amounts of TV, because some of the pilots (I'm asshamed to say CW ones) actually sound very good. So what to do
I'm feeling a bit like CBS, too many good choices, and I want to add more, so what to do; luckily for me pan-am is getting csncelled, infact I probably wouldn't have stuck around with it if it wasn't getting cancelled. in danger of getting cancelled are The Finder, Nikita, and although I hate to say it Fringe. Potentially SVU, although I think thats highly unlikely. Although I do enjoy it, I could probably cut back on Nikita and The Finder, bar a mirclous turn around, I think I am going to stop watching glee as well. But here comes my coundroum, of all the shows I'm thinking of dropping back on (Revenge, Once upon a time) are all new shows, and there are no non-new shows that I want to drop, even though really I did only start watching criminal minds this year, and fringe, and the mentalist WOW I really did start watching a lot more TV this year. Except for Nikita, which is only 2 years old, none of my veteran shows are getting bad, which is probably why they've surivied to be vetern shows, and which I love, but my time management doesn't.
Of course I could always start getting creative, downloading shows to watch on the bus, or as much as I don't like to admit this, mulit-tasking. Espeically as it looks like I'm going to be working on the weekends, and I've joined a club that meets on friday afternoons, which sounds really fun, but when am I going to have time to watch stuff! I may have to push friday night TV binge back to Saturday night, because if I'm being honest I rarely have the stamina to work past about 6 on Saturdays, the downside of that is that I'll have to delay Fringe watching time/cut back on Fringe spazzing time, which would actually be a good thing for my time management. I could also start watching shows on Australian TV. Why would this be advantageous, as I'd loose my 15minutes of add time. However most of the shows airing in Australia start after easter, meaning that I'd essentially cut down some of my watching time, and offset it, in the US summer, where less shows air. However the downside of that is that I really like being up to date, because it means I can read articles and interviews, and go on chats, and all the fun stuff associated with watching TV, because while I enjoy the actual process, I enjoy talking an anticipating and stuff more. Also there would be a rather high chance that I wouldn't even get to watch it on TV anyway, and just watch it online later, which really doesn't do anything.
So after that very long self indulgent discussion, what am I going to do? I have no idea, I think I'm going to bank on the fact that most shows don't air a new episode every week, and thus I wouldn't be up for 7.5 hours a week (10 shows currently airing-add time) which is a more manageable figure, and cut back on my catch TV time, except come may sweeps, which is like finale time, meaning all new episodes and much more time reading up and theorising, although I can totally do that on the bus right, I'll be fine, right?
Eurozone crash
Guess what! I'm not going to talk about TV or politics! I know I'm as shocked as you are, instead I'm going to apply my wonderful 18-year-old wisdom to a new non-science topic (very wierd for me, but I guess I'm just getting all my science fill in other places, but no one ever wants to here me talk about TV or politics) I'm going to talk about economics!
Unless you have been living under a very large rock for the past year, you probably know the eurozone is in trouble, and by in trouble, its in huge trouble. Greek, Spain, Ireland, Protgugual, you name it are all frankly scrabaling to right there economies to avoid a Eurozone crash. But what does a Eurozone crash mean, and what will it hold for the rest of the world? Well as my extensive google search, by which I mean I clicked through to page 3 of google search results yielded no answers, I'm going to make some up myself.
Firstly by Eurozone crash, I am going to refer to the Eurozone breaking up, basically everyone going back to their respective currencies before the Euro. So what would happen? Well firstly very bad things for practically everyone in Europe. The big countries, like Germany, who have a strong economy, would suddenly find that their dollar is much stronger, (like what happened to Australia about 5 years ago) and thus bad for both tourism (why would you go somewhere with a strong dollar?), exporters, as they would have to lower their price, and thus profit margin, to remain competitive, and drive away further investers. Now Germany has a pretty strong economy, it would almost definitly survive, but it would take a pretty serious hit, as would global markets, because Germany is such a big exporting nation. This could actually possibly be good for other exporting companies, as they would have a chance to move in on Germany's share on the market, but Germany would probably have to do some belt tighting measures, which combined with the other countries in Europe, could seriously impact of global markets, as their share would no longer be there.
And secondly it would be very, very, bad for small struggaling countries like Greece, Ireland, and actually a lot of countries in the Eurozone. Without the stabaling balence of the Eurozone, their currency vaule would pulmit, making it even harder, if not impossible to pay off their massive loans, which would simply get bigger with interest, resulting in high inflation and probably bankrupcy, also effectivly taking these countries out of the global market, which would obviously have a huge impact.
So the Eurozone crashing sucks if you're in Europe, but what about the people around the world? Well it may actually be good for countries such as India and China, with less competitors in the global market for exporting, but not really anyone else. With Europe's share in the global market diminishing, and thus not buying as much, thats a hefty part of the world companies can no longer sell to. Trade plays a huge roll in moderating the economic climate, and with trade right down, it is not at all inconceivable that there could be another world-wide rescission. Which of course with the world just recovering from the one 4 years ago, would be a very bad thing. Another likely result, but not one oft connected is that Obama would almost definitely loose the upcoming presidential election, or at least his chances at winning would be diminished. Economic factors, especially change in economic factors in the election year, have by far the biggest impact on the election. Voters rarely consider social factors in times of economic hardship, and many voters will probably view the recession as a failure by Obama. Not to mention Obama is currently doing very well with a high job creation rate (if there was one peacetime factor that influenced politics the most, it would be the change in number of jobs) a number that would surely plummet if the Eurozone crashed.
Wow, well looks like I did talk about politics after all, but that what I think will happen if the Eurozone crashes. Fortunately its not very likely, thanks to Greece and other countries electing to adopt further austerity measures, and bailout funds from the IMF, but there is still a long way to go, before the crisis is really averted.
Unless you have been living under a very large rock for the past year, you probably know the eurozone is in trouble, and by in trouble, its in huge trouble. Greek, Spain, Ireland, Protgugual, you name it are all frankly scrabaling to right there economies to avoid a Eurozone crash. But what does a Eurozone crash mean, and what will it hold for the rest of the world? Well as my extensive google search, by which I mean I clicked through to page 3 of google search results yielded no answers, I'm going to make some up myself.
Firstly by Eurozone crash, I am going to refer to the Eurozone breaking up, basically everyone going back to their respective currencies before the Euro. So what would happen? Well firstly very bad things for practically everyone in Europe. The big countries, like Germany, who have a strong economy, would suddenly find that their dollar is much stronger, (like what happened to Australia about 5 years ago) and thus bad for both tourism (why would you go somewhere with a strong dollar?), exporters, as they would have to lower their price, and thus profit margin, to remain competitive, and drive away further investers. Now Germany has a pretty strong economy, it would almost definitly survive, but it would take a pretty serious hit, as would global markets, because Germany is such a big exporting nation. This could actually possibly be good for other exporting companies, as they would have a chance to move in on Germany's share on the market, but Germany would probably have to do some belt tighting measures, which combined with the other countries in Europe, could seriously impact of global markets, as their share would no longer be there.
And secondly it would be very, very, bad for small struggaling countries like Greece, Ireland, and actually a lot of countries in the Eurozone. Without the stabaling balence of the Eurozone, their currency vaule would pulmit, making it even harder, if not impossible to pay off their massive loans, which would simply get bigger with interest, resulting in high inflation and probably bankrupcy, also effectivly taking these countries out of the global market, which would obviously have a huge impact.
So the Eurozone crashing sucks if you're in Europe, but what about the people around the world? Well it may actually be good for countries such as India and China, with less competitors in the global market for exporting, but not really anyone else. With Europe's share in the global market diminishing, and thus not buying as much, thats a hefty part of the world companies can no longer sell to. Trade plays a huge roll in moderating the economic climate, and with trade right down, it is not at all inconceivable that there could be another world-wide rescission. Which of course with the world just recovering from the one 4 years ago, would be a very bad thing. Another likely result, but not one oft connected is that Obama would almost definitely loose the upcoming presidential election, or at least his chances at winning would be diminished. Economic factors, especially change in economic factors in the election year, have by far the biggest impact on the election. Voters rarely consider social factors in times of economic hardship, and many voters will probably view the recession as a failure by Obama. Not to mention Obama is currently doing very well with a high job creation rate (if there was one peacetime factor that influenced politics the most, it would be the change in number of jobs) a number that would surely plummet if the Eurozone crashed.
Wow, well looks like I did talk about politics after all, but that what I think will happen if the Eurozone crashes. Fortunately its not very likely, thanks to Greece and other countries electing to adopt further austerity measures, and bailout funds from the IMF, but there is still a long way to go, before the crisis is really averted.
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