Friday, April 08, 2005
Default First Post
First posts... what to say in them.. You can't say anything too bumptious because I reckon the first post will probably end up being the most viewed... I mean, whenever I come across a new blog I go and look at the first post to see how different it was from the current posts...
But, I have no idea where this will go... No doubt it will be full of gripes that I currently direct at my poor wife.
Talking of which.. last night on TV I watched a program that called "Life before Birth". The trailers looked great, all about the stuff babies get upto while being carted around in their mother's tum. It looked pretty impressive at first, with poetry from the point of view of the baby. However, other than the fact it was padded to two hours (it felt like we were watching pregnancy in real-time), the suggestions they were making (although they proffered them so assertively it made them sound like fact) seemed massive leaps of the imagination. From a 2 frames-per-second, blocky, computer-generated, 3D ultrasound view of the womb, they were making assertions that the baby was yawning, had hiccups (all in fluid, of course) or was sucking its thumb (none of which I saw any hard evidence for). They were making assertions that made the 24 week old baby sound like it had high cognitive powers. For example, they said babies can dance in beat to the music its mother was listening to. I mean, come on! Half the people in the country STILL can't dance in time to a beat. Half-way through, it became clear that the views from inside the womb were actually very good computer graphics, sadly let down when the baby opened its eyes. Computer's still can't do realistic eyes. Suddenly the whole credibility of the show took a slump, and I felt like doing something else.
However, if it had one good effect, that was to show how painful childbirth was. Made my wife think again, just as I was coming around to the idea, too.
But, I have no idea where this will go... No doubt it will be full of gripes that I currently direct at my poor wife.
Talking of which.. last night on TV I watched a program that called "Life before Birth". The trailers looked great, all about the stuff babies get upto while being carted around in their mother's tum. It looked pretty impressive at first, with poetry from the point of view of the baby. However, other than the fact it was padded to two hours (it felt like we were watching pregnancy in real-time), the suggestions they were making (although they proffered them so assertively it made them sound like fact) seemed massive leaps of the imagination. From a 2 frames-per-second, blocky, computer-generated, 3D ultrasound view of the womb, they were making assertions that the baby was yawning, had hiccups (all in fluid, of course) or was sucking its thumb (none of which I saw any hard evidence for). They were making assertions that made the 24 week old baby sound like it had high cognitive powers. For example, they said babies can dance in beat to the music its mother was listening to. I mean, come on! Half the people in the country STILL can't dance in time to a beat. Half-way through, it became clear that the views from inside the womb were actually very good computer graphics, sadly let down when the baby opened its eyes. Computer's still can't do realistic eyes. Suddenly the whole credibility of the show took a slump, and I felt like doing something else.
However, if it had one good effect, that was to show how painful childbirth was. Made my wife think again, just as I was coming around to the idea, too.
