If you have surfed the web since Christmas day, you might have noticed a certain face appearing in Facebook profiles, websites and just about everywhere. Do not to panic, you're not going mad. Perhaps this video clip may help explain things a little.



On Christmas Day, BBC aired the first part of the most watched sci fi show in Britain's history, Doctor Who: The End of Time. And the above video was the cliffhanger ending, where The Doctor's arch-nemesis, The Master, turned all human beings into, well..., The Master. No one expected that and from what I can tell it has really polarized the fanbase. The side who loved this cliffhanger has gone all out to literally turn the world into The Master, hence all the sudden changes in Facebook profile pictures and photoshopping The Master's face on everybody's pictures.

The first time I took notice of Carey Mulligan was in the acclaimed Doctor Who episode, "Blink". For those who do not know, Doctor Who is a critically acclaimed and wildly popular ratings hit British science fiction series. For this particular episode, the regular lead actors David Tennant and Freema Agyeman were busy shooting the season finale and so the lead character fell on to guest actor Carey Mulligan.

Initially, I thought the producers were taking a very risky move of letting a young and unknown guest actress to fill the lead role in a multi-award winning television series, even if it was only for one episode. However, by the end of the episode I had been won over. The unique story of "Blink" combined with Mulligan's portrayal of Sally Sparrow was simply brilliant. This particular episode has gone on to win multiple awards including BAFTA Best Writing Award and the Hugo Awards. The episode is also considered by fans to be a classic, must see episode of Doctor Who.

So when I learned that Carey Mulligan is starring in An Education, I simply had to watch it. Here in Singapore, the movie is only aired at one cinema (GV's Cinema Europa), at one time every day (4:50pm). Despite the lack of accessibility and strange time, the theater was half full when I caught it today. The subject matter of An Education was pretty tame, mundane, boring and in no way climatic. Yet, it wasn't a boring movie because the stellar cast carried the movie very well. I know I sound like a fan boy now, but Carey Mulligan really pulled off a very nuanced, well beyond her age performance.

The rumor mills have it that An Education would get a nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And that Carey Mulligan would not only get a nomination for Best Actress, but that she stands a high chance of winning the award itself. Only time will tell, but I wish all the best of luck to her.

Recently, I have stumbled upon a little gem of a show, "Being Erica". The show is a strange mix of two completely different genres. On one hand, "Being Erica" is similar to "Sex and the City", looking at the love and life of a single 30 year old woman and on the other hand it has the time traveling aspects of "Quantum Leap". Sounds weird, but somehow the show creates television magic with this premise.

The show revolves around, Erica Strange, an intelligent 32 year old woman who is in a rut. Although she has a Masters degree in English Literature, she holds a job as a call center operator (and was fired right in the first episode). She is also single, living alone and pitied by friends and family. After a particularly disastrous day she meets an enigmatic therapist, Dr. Tom, who claims he can turn her life around, fix her past mistakes if Erica is willing to commit to changing her life for the better.

Erica takes up the commitment and she suddenly discovers herself transported back in time, where she can literally fix her past mistakes. Here is a short clip of Erica traveling back to her university days to face an abrasive poetry professor who made her terrified of confronting assertive people.

Here's the season finale promo. Erica is given a chance to go back in time to say goodbye to her brother before he dies in a barn fire. Can she resist the temptation to play god and save her brother's life instead?

Wired Magazine has a layman's article about the discovery that monkeys do speak to each other. (See http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/monkey-talk/)

While the speech syntax and semantics used by the monkeys are rudimentary, it nevertheless IS language. This may be news to some people, but as a computational linguist and a dog owner I am not surprised by this news. My dog, Polo (female), can definitely learn from repeated examples and rewards.

For example, she love car rides. She also knows that I typically use the car in the evenings to fetch mum from the MRT station. As a result, she would not even budge when I call her to the car in the mornings or afternoons. The same cannot be said about evenings, as she would get very excited, jumping about and even bark at me for a car ride.

Of course, she understands all the standard dog commands such as sit, stand, roll over. So if a dog is able to discern human noises, monkeys can surely recognize monkey noises.