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“The intelligence of 11-year-olds has fallen by three years’ worth in the past two decades (in the UK)”. This is a very bold claim put forward by researchers at Kings College. As a matter of fact, the resulting discussion on Slashdot was very revealing. Many persons, including myself, think that this must be true.

Why?

Because kids today simply don’t play with Mecanno, never had the “delightful” experience of getting a 220V surge in the hand (and understanding electricity and the Maxwell equations in 1 second…) and (more important for me) learning to program their computer.

They are learning facts at school but I’m not sure they are understanding them and their implications. Kids are becoming less intelligent and I’m feeling that at tertiary level every day (I may be mistaken though).

What can we do? Can we still do something?

(Image courtesy of Irobotics India)

Tonight, I had dinner with five friends who were in my class in primary school twenty-two years ago (at Notre Dame des Victoires RCA in Rose-Hill if you want to know).

We talked and talked and talked about our souvenirs. It was fantastic!

Here are those who came: Cindy Seeyave, Nadine de Coriolis, Catherine Jangeerkhan, Gilles Martial and Binesh Mungur.

Next time, we’ll try to get more people :-)

For those who don’t know, I am a die-hard fan of Depeche Mode. I have all their albums. And many singles. And books etc. etc.

Depeche Mode is IMHO the best music band in existence. Their music is fantastic and the lyrics are very evocative for me…

As read on allmusic, “[o]riginally a product of Britain’s new romantic movement, Depeche Mode went on to become the quintessential electro-pop band of the 1980s; one of the first acts to establish a musical identity based completely around the use of synthesizers, the group began their existence as a bouncy dance-pop outfit but gradually developed a darker, more dramatic sound which ultimately positioned them as one of the most successful alternative bands of their era.”

Their new album, Playing the Angel, was released on the 18th of October and I’ve been patiently waiting for it to become available in Mauritius even though my brother had downloaded the tracks from some dubious MP3 sites one day after the launch.

And, I’ve bought it today!!! I paid Rs. 775 (about $25) which is perfectly ok as the album is currently being sold by Amazon at $20.99

By the way, I’ve bought the Limited Edition album comprising:

• A hybrid Super Audio CD containing:
  1. one layer in Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format (which has a frequency response of over 100kHz and a dynamic range over 120dB across the audible frequency range) but which I can’t listen to as I do not have a SACD-capable player
  2. one layer in normal 44.1 KHz 16-bit Audio CD format
• A DVD containing:
  1. The complete album in DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 format (yes!!! the album has been mixed in full surround which sounds coming from the front, from the sides and from the back — it’s awesome!)
  2. A short featured film “Making The Angel”
  3. An acoustic version (audio+video) of “Clean” (from Violator)
  4. The video of “Precious”, one of the best songs of the album

Today, I’ve listened to the whole album in 5.1 DTS and I’m very very impressed by the quality of the songs (and, obviously, by the quality of the sound)

Here is the track listing:

1. A Pain That I’m Used To
2. John The Revelator
3. Suffer Well
4. The Sinner In Me
5. Precious
6. Macro
7. I Want It All
8. Nothing’s Impossible
9. Introspectre
10. Damaged People
11. Lilian
12. The Darkest Star

Everyone has been raving about this album and now I understand why. In short, all the songs are fantastic. Listen to the album at least twice (like most Depeche Mode albums, it gets better and better and better with time). Read the lyrics while listening. You will be impressed by the songwriting!

Playing the Angel is a revelation!