Why not a kitteh for a lazy Friday afternoon?
There is no way to prove that this cat actually moves on its own, for observing it destroys our ability to detect its movement.
This also says something about selection for hunting behavior.
h/t: Chris
Heisenberg’s cat
August 19, 2011 • 1:51 pm
Non-Doctor Who fans (there must be some out there) may not know what the soundtrack is all about. It comes from probably the best episode of the BBC TV series since its re-launch in 2006, “Blink”. The chap speaking is the Doctor, and he’s on an Easter Egg on a DVD. The “baddies” in this episode are the Weeping Angels who don’t kill you, just take your time energy (oh yes) and send you into the past. Unlike the cat.
I am not a Doctor Who fan, but was interested to see why it was so beloved. That episode “Blink” was recommended to me as a good example of the best of the series. I was very unimpressed. It was campy, badly executed, and the ending made no sense. Despite the explanation being that the angels were caught in each others gaze and thus neutralized, the final configuration doesn’t actually achieve this. (There two angels staring at the angels across from them, but those angels are staring at each other, leaving the original two unobserved). So I found it moderately entertaining but deeply flawed. Still don’t see why it’s considered so fantastic.
Here’s an illustration of what I mean. North and East have no one looking at them.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/blinkangels.png/
your problem is solved by realizing that vision isn’t a two dimensional line, but a cone radiating outwards from the eyes.
all of the statues in that photo can easily see each others faces.
now you can rest in peace.
Yeah, I thought of peripheral vision. Seems like a bit of a cop out. The most likely explanation is that the artist who created the final arrangement had a poor understanding of what was trying to be achieved.
Ah, that’s what’s illogical about it.
TBH, the new Moffatt-run Who (series 5->) blows the Davies run out of the water.
You picked a bad episode to start with- it’s one of the “budget” episodes without the Doctor.
Yes, it’s campy. If that’s not your cup of tea, I can’t defend it.
I could not get into Doctor Who at all.
The only reason I can is that I grew up on it. I can remember as far back as Jon Pertwee, but really came of age under Tom Baker. Looking at it now, all of its shortcomings become painfully obvious.
First episode I saw of it was in BW when I was… about 4.5 yrs old I think?
so… 1969 maybe?
I was just walking by my neighbor’s TV, and saw it on…
Came over to watch it every day until we moved away north.
It says something that I still recall that, I think.
I can (just) remember Jon Pertwee as well, but I’ve seen older episodes when they were repeated. I daresay I’ve seen every surviving episode of the old series at one time or another, sadly enough. I think the golden age was in Tom Baker’s time, particularly when Douglas Adams worked on the show. There were some great episodes, even though a lot of them were silly.
But I’ve never been able to warm to the new series. There’s far too much of the Doctor running around aimlessly shouting and zapping things with his screwdriver, which now seems to be able to do absolutely anything at all. He doesn’t do enough *thinking*: many problems seem to be solved because of some obscure knowledge he happens to have, which isn’t revealed until the last minute. All very unsatisfying. In the old series (at least some of the time) he used to actually work stuff out.
Very often, the new episodes make no sense at all. Don’t get me wrong, the old series had its share of complete nonsense and meaningless technobabble, but the new series…. oh dear. In one episode, someone broke ‘the laws of time’ by undoing something in the past. This naturally meant that random monsters started appearing which – obviously – were attracted to old stuff. Why? It didn’t say. Just lazy.
To be fair, I’ve seen one or two of the latest Moffat-made episodes, which as Abbie says seem rather better. But I’m still disappointed. Sadly enough, I was really looking forward to the series starting up again and was dreadfully disappointed when it did.
I confess I like my cheesier suspense of disbelief to be more polished, here future- instead of past-looking, as “Raumshiff O.R.I.O.N” or “Magnus, Robot Fighter”.
Also, while the question “Doctor. Who?” was somewhat contextually pertinent, the more appropriate question for a time traveler would have been “Doctor. When?”. It is such small annoyances that makes the whole edifice crumble! =D
What a great video, with or without the audio (mine was without).
And I’m one of the few non-cat people hanging about here.
Same here. Great video. I can see how they manage to kill so many millions of birds in the US every year.
Nice double metaphor, combining Schroedinger’s Cat (illustrating the irrelevance of the observer) and Heisenberg Uncertainty (illustrating wave/particle duality)
🙂
Technically it’s “kitteh/statue duality”, and it (or at least its quantum equivalent) goes back to interpretations of Schroedinger’s wavefunction.
Mostly it is abandoned, since quantum mechanics revolves around the wavefunction. (And when quantum field theory is used, it is not a clear duality but goes field -> particle -> field of particles.) Heisenberg Uncertainty is derived from the wavefunction.
Heisenberg is a misnomer here. But they wanted a contrast to the usual gedanken experiment, I assume!
I boasted to a friend ‘I met Heisenberg’s son. He said to me ‘Are you sure?’. True story.
Have you met Wigner’s friend? I’ve actually met Wigner but not his friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner's_friend
You could not have because Wigner does not have a friend. 😉
Im not intellectual enough for cat videos. This is more my speed:
Here is another…I posted this before, but I don’t think many noticed…
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=EVwlMVYqMu4&vq=medium#t=125
Thank you both, those were great fun.
I must admit to being fond of Dr. Who (campy or not) so I can’t resist sharing this adorable photo of David Tennant & kitteh.
http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kzw67faNBG1qaxihzo1_500.jpg
That’s Doctor Who. True Whovians know that it’s never abbreviated!
The other newbie error is that the protagonist’s name is Doctor Who. It’s not. It’s just The Doctor. (Although, for shame, the scriptwriters made that error in a Jon Pertwee era episode.)
And if you thought “Blink” was campy, you should see some of the original series – esp. late Tom Baker, Peter Davison and Colin Baker eras.
But we love it nonetheless. It’s as much part of being British as cricket, cream teas and warm beer.
/@
PS. Very many pre-teen children (and not a few sensitive teens) became very wary of all statues after watching “Blink”!
As I remember it, the first two assistants were teachers of the Doctor’s grand-daughter who had followed her from school and discovered the Tardis. At one point in the first episode, one of the teachers says to the other: ‘He says he’s a doctor, but Dr Who?’
I don’t remember how the first episode was resolved – it’s been a while.
I couldn’t find that in the transcript of “An Unearthly Child”, but in the second episode, “The Cave of Skulls”, there’s this:
🙁 blockquote close fail
There we go – the impermanence of memory. A lot of things didn’t happen they way I distinctly remember them. But it was a long time ago and I haven’t seen it since. The first Doctor was William Hartnell who, as I remember it (!?), was more alien and distant than any subsequent actor. But I could be wrong. Patrick Troughton was the second Doctor.
“(Although, for shame, the scriptwriters made that error in a Jon Pertwee era episode.)”
There were a few cases where “Doctor Who” was played with, usually as a sort of joke. For instance, during Jon Pertwee’s cost-cutting exile on Earth, he had a car with the license plate “WHO 1”
I once wrote a limerick about this famous video (originally unedited and titled ‘stalking cat’, I believe, with unadorned audio).
————–
The path of a curious feline
To her prey could not be a beeline.
So she stalked and she spied
As the cameraman shied,
And fled at the sight of a jawline.
—————–
I know that trick. It’s plain old ordinary teleportation. Bryxie could do it, and Merlyn is getting pretty good at it. I haven’t seen a non-British shorthair do it before, though.
Baihu doesn’t do teleportation that I know of, but he does turn invisible.
I kid you not. I’ll wonder where he is, look all through the house, all his favorite hideouts, and finally spot him…calmly sitting in his favorite chair in the living room — which of course, was the first, fourth, sixteenth, and forty-second place I looked.
And when he wants to hide from strangers? Well, in those cases, he has secret locations that I’m sworn to not reveal….
b&
That is sort of the point, isn’t it?
Stupid out-crossing…
Those who cannot appreciate the brilliance of Doctor Who are more to be pitied than censured, I suppose it must be a bit like being colour blind. You don’t get it and explanations don’t help. Blink was definitely the most nerve wracking ep yet, so clever and so sad. I have seen the cat video before but not the two put together like this. Very effective!
I laughed so hard that the neighbors’ dogs a couple of houses over heard me and started barking.
Lou Jost – I laughed so hard about the dogs in the restaurant that I completely clogged my sinuses. That is the best thing I have ever seen on You Tube, & the human owners/ trainers deserve awards. Thanks!
Felicia, glad you liked it so much. I reacted the same way—I laughed so hard I was crying by the end of it.
Another fine film brought to you from the artists at Kittwood.
Bryxie could be invisibule, too. “I been right here the whole time, Dave. What?” How many times did I hear that?
Merlyn hasn’t shown a knack for invisibulity yet, but he does have a helium leg that kinda floats up in the air unless he makes a conscious effort to control it. At first we thought it was an anti-gravity leg, but an ultrasound showed that it was hollow. Sometimes he fills it with food.
Must be Mister Mistoffeles.
Sorry, response to Ben @ 8.
I am just so messed up this morning apparently.
‘Sokay. Just blame it on one of the cats. I’m sure they’ll return the flavor….
b&
Well, we had a power failure last night which wiped my username, etc, then when I retyped my comment in a hurry, I didn’t put it in the same place. And I’m going to plead sleep deprivation. I don’t like blaming the cats, because it is revisited on me tenfold. Or so I’ve been warned…
I’ll hazard a guess and suggest that the sleep deprivation was because you didn’t play with the cats enough so they kept you up demanding attention. So, you might as well blame them and pay the penance of extra play time and extended belly rubs so you can finally get a decent night’s sleep!
b&
Ha, I got into the nerd zone before opening the post – I guessed the cat video correctly.
But I didn’t guess the Who mix. I guess there is hope for me yet!
I am afraid for Coyne now though. 😀
The video was excellent. So perfect that they put that together. I’m pretty sure I saw the cat video without the good Doctor (the yummy David Tennant).
Thanks for posting it Jerry.