Rock me, Amadeus..

.. On this, the anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, I make no apologies for reposting what many consider to be the finest performance of his Symphony no. 40 in G minor..

.. still can’t help but get the feeling he’d have loved it..

Big Brother’s watching himself watching you..

.. Speed cameras in the Scottish Borders may soon be monitored by security cameras to protect them from vandals, reports the BBC..

.. but how will they monitor the security cameras?..

It’s been a fairly recursive day all round. I spent the morning filling in an online application form in order to apply for an application form for a new passport. On receipt of my online application, the passport office will send me a physical application form, which I then sign and return to them, Upon receipt of the form, signed by me, they will then generate my new passport and send it to me, upon receipt of which..oh, I can’t remember now..

Man and Rocketman..

..Bill Shatner uses the 1972 Elton John/Bernie Taupin classic as a vehicle to explore Jungian duality in an increasingly technological age, and, in the closing verse and chorus, asks some searching questions about the relevance of the Freudian trinity of id, super-ego, and ego in a time when we find ourselves more alone and isolated from our fellow man than ever before..

Time-lapse Picasso..

Had a VHS copy of this once – taped off the TV donkey’s years ago and long since lost.
Made by Henri-Georges Clouzot in 1956. He rigged up a screen that Picasso could paint onto and filmed the process from beginning to end..

I remember at the time thinking that, generally, I really liked the pieces when they were about two thirds of the way through the process, and that he’d lost them by the end, trying too hard for the camera perhaps. This one I like all the way..

Life is a rollercoaster..

..spent the better part of the morning riding this thing.. currently feeling a little green around the virtual gills.

..probably requires a fast connection, or, for the full effect, do what I did – download the quicktime movie and watch full screen with the big speakers on.. the real thing will be open to the public in May, apparently..

The Buttered Cat Paradox..

..I’ve recently been playing about with a widget that, when activated, displays a random article from Wikipedia. It’s usually pretty arcane stuff, but this morning it gave me this..

1. Cats always land on their feet.

2. Buttered toast always lands buttered side down.

The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a height.

Some people maintain that the experiment will produce an anti-gravity effect. They propose that as the cat falls towards the ground, it will slow down and start to rotate, eventually reaching a steady state, hovering a short distance from the ground while rotating at high speed as both the buttered side of the toast and the cat’s feet attempt to land on the ground. This, however, would require the energy that keeps them rotating and hovering to come from the gravitational energy expended in the system’s fall, otherwise it would violate the Law of Conservation of Energy..

Merci et bonsoir..

.. I leave you with perhaps the finest moment in movies..