Back on track(ish)

Wow. A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my last post offering advice; it was really useful and there were a couple of thoughts in there that really helped me to come to a decision.

My application is being passed onto Warwick's Computer Science department for consideration to be accepted for a 4-year MEng CS course (for some reason the 3-year course is a BSc qualification; 4-years is an MEng). I've been advised that the entry requirements are a grade higher - A-A-B instead of A-B-B, so if I don't achieve those grades then I'll have to take Bath's Physics with Comp Sci course instead. Doing a straight CS course with a few Physics modules where I can get them seems to me to be a pretty good solution - I was never looking to have a career in Physics, really.

Fingers crossed it all works out.

Why 'Terminator' is definitely better than 'T2'

[On request from and inspired by dvd ;) Please note, this is a rough transcription of a rant which would be better delivered through speech. Spoilers herein.]

"The main difference between the two films is the terminator robot, yes? Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first film and Robert Patrick in the second? The brilliance of the first film is just the simple premise that, for whatever reason, there's this thing coming after you, this killing machine, and it's headed specifically straight for you and because it's a robot and has been programmed to do this, it can never do anything else until it is destroyed in some way. Cue the whole "you can't reason with it, and it will not stop until you are dead" speech. Okay, so there's this unstoppable thing coming for you, and the whole film is just a cat-and-mouse chase with Linda Hamilton staying just ahead of it all the time. But. But but but but. You fire a huge machine gun at it for about ten seconds solidly and this slows it down because it falls over and doesn't get up again for another five seconds. And you've damaged it a bit, which is to be expected if you machine-gun a robot for any period of time. And this gives you just enough time to get a little bit further away. So it chases you for days and eventually in desperation you blow up the big tanker lorry it's driving and it explodes in a huge ball of flames. And you subside with relief, and then it gets up. (Incidentally, that would have been an almost perfect shot had the camera not been focused quite so obviously on the background.) And you think, my God, what do you have to do to this thing to stop it? It's really rather damaged of course, but it's still there and it's still coming for you. And then in the factory at the end you smash it to pieces and you think, that must have done the trick, and then you see that it's putting itself together again, and again in terrified awe you think, what do you have to do to this thing? And then you find out that, in fact, you have to crush it in one of the machines, which you do gratefully. Fine. It may be very sophisticated, but you can see it's just a machine with little working bits. Fine. And now we come to T2:JD in which the bad robot is super-super-sophisticated technology and can somehow just absorb bullets in its chest and keep walking the whole time without even slowing down? And can suddenly unform itself to take on the shape of a little pool of mercury? I mean, come on, that's just CHEATING! And with this marvellous facility it can magically reform its arm into a machine gun complete with bullets? CHEATING! And can also perfectly take on the appearance of anything or anyone? CHEATING! In the first film, I know the robot could take on the voice of anyone it had heard but I'm prepared to believe that it could replicate a voice-print. Knowing what to say is another matter, but we'll let that one slide. But just completely reforming the body like that? CHEATING! And at the end of the very first chase scene they blow up the big tanker lorry it's driving and it explodes in a huge ball of flames. And lo, the robot - the cheating robot - comes striding out of the flames COMPLETELY unharmed. What can I say? Cheating! And in desperation they freeze it with liquid nitrogen or something and shatter it and, oh look, it does the mercury-pool thing and starts running together, and reforms itself COMPLETELY unharmed again. Cheating! And you think, not in terrified awe this time but in exasperation, my God, what do you have to do to this thing to stop it? Why doesn't it just die, already? I forget how they killed it in the end - it's a few years since I've watched it - but by that point the film had totally lost any shred of credibility it had and I found it very difficult to suspend my disbelief quite that far."