Don’t get me wrong. I, personally, do not hate sandcastles. I quite like them. I also like this kid. The thing I find funny about it is that, after I laughed at his expression, I then noticed that it looks like he’s been eating sand. I don’t think he really hates sandcastles, I think he loves them, but in a culinary sense. Perhaps his hatred is a front, an excuse for the destruction, then afterwards he’s like, “well, it’s ruined, you won’t mind if I take a piece. Nomnomnom.”

So anyway, on with what I actually meant to say… Tim is on his way home as I type this! YAY! I think he won’t be in the best of moods when he gets in, because his plane from LA to Sydney was delayed by about two hours, so he’s going to miss his connecting flight from Sydney to Brisbane. He had caught an earlier flight from New York to LA, because he was worried about making his LA to Sydney flight. LAX can be a real bitch for connections, because they’re so pedantic and annoying. Plus it’s just a stupid airport (so I’ve heard, from several different people). So I know he’ll be tired and fed up, but I’m just going to be so happy to have him home.

A slight deviation – If you are doing an image search, check out this site: Flickr Related Tag Browser

So, this has been Tim’s journey:

Brisbane -> Tokyo -> Singapore ->London -> Frankfurt -> Paris -> London -> Boston -> New Hampshire -> Boston -> New York -> Philadelphia -> New York -> LA -> Sydney -> Brisbane

All that in three weeks. I think that list is right… It’s just the side trips I’m not 100% sure of.

Chris came over this afternoon and hung out for a while. We watched Little People, Big World (there was a weekend marathon of LPBW on) and talked about things. Then, Noelle arrived and we had to stop talking about her and talk about something else. Just kidding. We still talked about her. Not. Ok. I’m going to stop that doubletalk now. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Chris and Noelle, and Po. We watched the Pilot episode of “Dead Like Me”, and then Chris went home to his Doon but Noelle and I kept watching episode after episode of Dead Like Me. I really like it. The girl looks like she’s about 15, but she has weird, grown-up hands. They’re creepy, but it really fits in with the whole grim reaper theme. It reminds me of one of the radio shows of Ricky, Karl and Steve when they were talking about how they had watched that interview with Michael Jackson, where that guy followed him around and you got to see what his life consisted of. When they asked Karl’s opinion on Michael Jackson, he said, “‘e’s got big ‘ands, ain’t ‘e?” (substitute the extra apostrophes for ‘h’ in case you’re not familiar with his accent). Ricky and Steve laughed at Karl, just one more in a long line of extreme non-sequiturs. I can’t listen to the podcasts without laughing out loud. Sometimes I have to stop what I’m doing so that I can concentrate on not laughing too loud, because when I’m listening to the shows I am at work. It’s my escape from the daily grind (like Gloria Jeans wants to be, but we have a coffee machine in the lunch room at work so why would I go all the way to Gloria Jeans to escape the daily grind, there’s not even one near my work.)

I’m really tired. Here is another funny picture (I find it funny. Actually, I find it hilarious. I’m not sure why. Don’t get mad at me if you don’t find it as amusing as I did):

I think I really like that the thing behind it is so ugly, and the text is small and plain, and you could sort of imagine that kitten saying that. If you’re great at anthropomorphising like I am. Not as great as Karl Pilkington, who apparently saw a bee have a heart attack (because London is so stressful and all). Karl also said that ginger cats are always fat (you never see a skinny ginger cat, according to Karl) because life’s more stressful for them than other cats, because they would get picked on for being ginger. He also said they always look ‘fed up’.

Lauren and Nathan are coming over tomorrow morning to hang out before we go get Tim from the airport. Yay!

Anyway, here is the first of my travels:

Not actually the whole of Western Australia, just Perth. The trip over involves a red-eye flight several hours long. I feel like this should mean that people on the Western Coast would be different that the people of the East Coast of Australia, but I guess that we all started out from similar beginnings, and our beginnings weren’t that long ago.

Tim and I are traveling to San Francisco in May this year. It’s exciting because I’ve never been to America before, and this will be my first experience of traveling with Tim. I think we’ll be fine. Tim got the tickets using his frequent flyer miles, which is awesome, because he could have used his miles to get ONE business class return to San Francisco, but instead he got TWO economy return to San Francisco. We’re also going to Canada:

One leg of the trip will be by train, and one will be by plane. Apparently the train trip from San Francisco up to Vancouver is beautiful. I’m looking forward to it. I think we will get a sleeper cabin. Tim was also saying we could spend a couple of days in Seattle, which’ll be good, too. I checked online at the average temperatures for that time of year. The maximum is 17.5 degrees Celsius, which suits me so perfectly you can’t even imagine. I wouldn’t mind it being even cooler than that. Check out the picture of Canada – there are polar bears on there! I swear that means they exist there in real life. I love them. And the elk (if that’s what they are). Yay! It’s going to be amazing.

And finally, toward the end of the year, Noelle and I are traveling to Europe and the UK. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about revisiting Europe, especially when you consider all the people over there I will get to meet up with: Anna, Ben, Simone&Dave, Ruth… I am so psyched! We’re planning on spending time in London (& surrounds), Amsterdam (yay Anna!), Paris (I forgot to remind Noelle about this one :S), Denmark (yay legoland! and the little mermaid!), somewhere in Ireland (maybe Galway?)… and wherever else we have time to go. I’d love to visit Prague, but time constraints may make that difficult. Also the financial aspect… 

That’s it on the travel front. In other news, I have started my new job (the end of this week marked two weeks there). I’m exhausted, but appreciate the plus side. I guess you could say the end justifies the means. I got a new pair of boots today at DFO without worrying that they would break the bank. The fact that they were only $20 should illustrate my point. It felt so good to have my own money. I won’t be able to be this laissez-faire about my pay every week, but for this week it’s pretty nice. I’m going to start my hardcore savings as of next Thursday. Tim has been extremely helpful with this, and I’m glad that my working has been able to take some stress off him as well. I’m infinitely grateful to him for looking after me this entire time. Although it may seem strange, I feel like there is a good side to this entire experience, and that is to be able to know, without doubt or hesitation, that Tim’s love comes without condition. This is an amazing gift. Tim and Matt are currently playing Guitar Hero III, and bemoaning the insensitivity of the red button on our guitar. We had a nice dinner, a yummy dessert, and there is a Po here for entertainment. Life is pretty good.

Even though I’m not lifting or carrying anything, the sifting through old bank statements and birthday cards does get tiring. I find it takes a long time simply because whenever I come across something of interest I stop, read through it, then place it carefully on the ever-building pile of papers to be stored and then sifted through at some unknown time in the future (whenever I get around to it again). I’d love to have a real filing system.

I came across a few interesting things – old photographs from when Lauren, Ruth & I lived in Balmoral, when People and Dinna were just kittens; old christmas cards from people I’m not even in contact with anymore (not deliberately, just through time and continually moving house and workplaces etc); old notebooks (lots of these) with the beginnings of stories in them, old poetry from my angsty days as an angsty teenager…

Probably not interesting to anyone but me I guess.

Settlement is tomorrow!!!!!

I’ll write more later. There are lots of things I need to do an update on – my time off work (over 3 months now), my walking stick, the operation, the process of buying a house…. lots of things!

There is a man who sells strawberries who comes to our work every now and again with a big tray of strawberry punnets on it. I will usually get some, because they are nice. This week they were especially nice. Did you know that the part of the strawberry that we call the fruit isn’t actually the fruit? It’s classed as an “accessory fruit”. I looked it up on Wikipedia to be sure my mind hadn’t made that up, but it’s true! The actual fruit of the strawberry plant are the little seeds which are on the fleshy receptacle (the red part of the strawberry).

I finally got my other group certificate in the mail today. I’ll do my tax return sometime over the weekend hopefully. Tim and I are going to his friends’ place for dinner on Saturday night, and we’re bringing dessert so I will cook that on Friday night (tomorrow night).

Tax breaks came into effect 1st July, so this months’ pay is going to be more money than I would usually get. That means that I should be able to get my ninjapass for my DS. I’m really looking forward to that.

I’m on mum’s computer at the moment, because I left my laptop at Tim’s place, and the TV is on in the background so I’m having trouble concentrating on this.

I give up!

I finish early today. Excel is killing my brain right now. One of my formulas (formulae?) isn’t working, and I don’t know why. Waaaaah!

Another amusing Chris anecdote:

Me: If you were an animal, I think you would be a doe.
Chris: Fuck off! I hate birds!

I would qualify his remark but I think that would take away the humour.

Before I had my own website, I used to visit a site where people would submit disturbing search requests that had shown up in their log files, and daydream of a time when I, too, had my own disturbing search requests to submit to this site. I had forgotten about this ambition of mine until a few days ago, when I was looking at my site stats. I am now the proud enabler of various odd searches…

harblz - this one is obvious. But I really need to fix the broken links on my harblz pages. I’m in the process of sending them all over to istoletheinternets
brentality – I have previously written about Brentality in a post after I had been tricked by Captain Jim and X C into believing that there were various levels and rites of passage for the emo/scene crowd. It was a pretty good lie though.
acid rain evil – Well, acid rain is evil, wouldn’t you agree? Or maybe you’re more of the scientific mindset and you’ll say, “acid rain does not have a moral proclivity”. To this I would say “For sooth! Are the factories which spew poisonous chemicals into the air not aware of what they are doing? Has not a fair amount of the population seen ‘An Inconvenient Truth’? Fie! Ye scoundrels, ye scum!” etc.
disturbing apple – It’s ok, apples disturb me too. Especially when they’re on Tool film clips
mario kart ds logo – Though I would hope that my site is used as more than just a Nintendo graphic repository, you’ll take what you can get.
todd blankenship gay - Sorry, I’m not privy to Todd Blankenship’s sexual preference. Perhaps you could ask Jack Handey?
formula computation for carpark charges - So my site was one of the best resources for this? Sounds seriously interesting.
i’m not afraid of nichols park – So someone else isn’t afraid of Nichols Park? I wouldn’t know for sure if I’m not, because I’ve never been there, but I have to trust Sufjan Steven’s opinion on the matter because these are lyrics from one of his songs, and if you write a song about something that means you’re really feelin’ it.
lauren and nathan worth - They are priceless.
maybe it’s the beer talking marge but you got a butt that won’t - quit? is that what you were going to say? Yeah, I know, they’ve got these big chewy pretzels here that are mmfhp dpff … Five dollars? Get outta here…

Wooo I’m tired. Noelle and I are having a picnic in Roma St. Parklands tomorrow. I wonder if it’ll be packed… we’re both broke so it’s going to be a surprise picnic! I went grocery shopping today (hence why I am broke) so I should have a few interesting additions. Perhaps some raw diced lamb? Or maybe a sachet of powdered soy milk? I like being creative in things, it makes me feel like I’m on Jericho and we have to ration our food out. But I’m not going to go all mental over salt, because I don’t even like it. Jees.

I found a couple of old emails from work (not current work, a previous job). There were these boys (I think they were brothers… maybe even twins!) who we used to see walking around, and one of them we called Clark Kent, because we thought he looked like Clark Kent. So anyway, this is our conversation after he walked past….

Me: You know one of those clark kent boys always wears the same stripey jumper? I think you may be onto something – he could actually be superman, because doesn’t superman always wear the same clothes?
Melinda:mmm, you are right… maybe one of us should jmump from a great height and see if he saves us!
Me: Yes, because if you ddie then you won’t know that you hadn’t been saved, and if you are saved then whoopdedo! Superman exists!
Melinda: I am not talking about jumping from the 20th floor, I just mean off my desk!!!
Me: There could be one of those holes in the floor just where you jump (you know those hole that are scattered all over the place?*) and when you land on it, it crumbles and you fall through to the R dept**, then there’s another hole directly under that and you fall through to whatever is underneath R dept, and someone says to R dept, “Can we have Melinda?” and they say, “yep, we’ve got her, but we have to fill out the R forms first” and so you wait, and after a few hours you check with them again and they say “Oh actually, we’ve sent her back to Arbiters***”. So then we have to order you from Arbiters, and this all could have been averted had superman existed!

* We worked in an old building. The floor was in urgent need of repair, and little dents started appearing in the carpet. I’m not sure how this happened. But complaints were made because people would trip over them, especially in high heels, so it became kind of a big deal.
** R Department is another department downstairs from ours.
*** Arbiters is the external storage company we used. Note that this is not the actual name of the storage company. Also, note that this was a daily occurence – we would request something from that department, they would say that yes, they had what we were requesting, and that it would be available to us once they had finished their paperwork. Then you’d check back with them later in the day and it turned out they’d sent the thing you wanted offsite, to our external storage company, which wasted another two days time in getting it back to us. I love workplace efficiency.

My 2nd and 3rd fingers of my right hand (counting from left-right, not including the thumb as one of the fingers) are painful to type with, because I cut them on the lid of a plastic box this afternoon. I don’t know how I manage to do these things, I really don’t.

That email from work reminded me how much I miss the guys I used to work with… Calum has gone down to Melbourne but I’m in pretty regular contact with him, so it’s ok. Melinda I got emails from last week, and I have to email her back so hopefully I have a bit of time to breathe this week at work and not too tired when I get home, and Ben… I haven’t heard from him in ages, not since a couple of weeks after I left work. I miss Benyamin. I get the feeling he may have already left on his overseas trip, and in that case he’ll probably be in much higher spirits than he was when I last spoke to him… The place we were working tended to suck the happiness and life out of people.

Anyway, I’ll see if I can post some pictures from this picnic we’re having tomorrow. If I feel like writing, or whatever. Whatever dude! Tewtally!

We were all standing in a big area with lots of covered stalls, like a market, but every table had different types of keyboards on it. I found a “2″ key, and took it from the keyboard, but then realised that because it was an ergonomic keyboard, and the keyboard of the bomb was just a normal old beige one, it wouldn’t fit. Everyone then started searching for a suitable keyboard to steal the key from. I finally found one that was similar, and stole the “2″ key, and some other keys as well (I have no idea why). Someone came up to me and told me to put the keys into a basket so that we could keep them afloat and swim out to the bomb, so I put all keys except the “2″ key in there. I said that it would be safer if I just held it myself.

We then ran down to the dock, and were searching for a place to dive in where there weren’t any rocks. As I was running up and down the dock, I saw a dead body lying on the ground. It had slashes all over it’s body where blood oozed out. I said “I can’t dive in here. I’m going further up.” I found a spot without rocks and jumped into the water, careful not to go too deep in case there were rocks i couldn’t see, or I had misjudged the depth. When I was in the water, I realised that there were lots of people who had been slashed just like the dead body on the dock, and they were all Sudanese refugees, all floating in the water around me. I saw a boat just beside the dock where the refugees were going and a man there would slash patterns onto their chests and abdomens as they tried to get on the boat.

Then I woke up.

I thought I’d write that down to remember it. I have a bad memory, but for some reason if I write something down, I will be more likely to remember it.

This week has been a tough week, especially with Tim being away. Work was busy with end-of-month, plus now learning Payroll and Super. It’s good that it’s a long weekend, because I really need the rest. I need to do a spring clean of my room, and do some laundry, and move the boxes out of the spare room that I put there with all these good intentions of going through them to figure out what I had and what I needed for when I eventually move out. It sounded like a relaxing Sunday afternoon task, something that I wouldn’t need to think a lot about, but then I got distracted by something and so it never got done.

I’m really good at procrastinating. I have all these grand plans of rearranging my room, putting away in boxes downstairs all the things I no longer use, the books I know I won’t read, and untangling all the cords under the computer desk and beside my bed. I hope that this does happen, but already this morning I’ve procrastinated by deciding that right now is the best time for me to write a blog (it’s been hard to get in the mood to write lately. I go with the flow, baby!), and also that I have to make a cool “spring clean” playlist in WMP that i can listen to while I clean. I really do need a playlist, it’s easier to keep going with cleaning if I am listening to awesome music.

I think I’ll also pause during the clean to read old notes kept in my “things to remember!” shoebox, and by looking through the photographs from our trip overseas, maybe finish off putting them in their photo album just because I think, “If i was really cleaning up, then EVERYTHING should be in order and finished”. I mean, it’s not like I don’t have the time. These are things that are good to do to keep me occupied, because looking through photos of our overseas trip makes me feel happy (but also nostalgic). I also need to write up the conglomerate of my diary from the trip. I’ve been meaning to do that for ages, but its such a big job :S.

I also need to update the graphic memes on istoletheinternets, and create a decent design for the site. I’m not a graphic designer, which makes it difficult, but Nathan did make me a banner to put up which I might try to use the design from for the header. Or something.

It’s good having Tim as part of my life, even though I miss him terribly. He’s in Scotland at the moment, and sent me this photo of a view from a hill a few days ago. He’s going to visit Loch Ness. Last week, Japanese scientists explaced… placed explosive detonators at the bottom of Lake Loch Ness to blow Nessie out of the water. Sir Cort Godfrey of the Nessie Alliance summoned the help of Scotland’s local wizards to cast a protective spell over the lake and its local residents and all those who seek for the peaceful existence of our underwater ally. Lol. But seriously, Tim is such a generous, thoughtful, funny (either deliberately or accidentally) person. I hope he’s having an awesome time, but I can’t wait until he gets back.

Nathan is one of the smartest people I know. For real, and I work with a lot of doctors (though not the medical kind).

Plus, I find these Cyanide and Happiness comics amusing. Check them out.

On a brighter note, this long weekend has been FUN. Friday I hung out with Tim. Saturday afternoon Ro & I had breakfast in the Valley with Chris & Doonz and checked out the markets. Saturday evening, dad came up from Yamba and we had Indian take-out from Scheherezade Restaurant in Morningside (they are really good), and then we went out to John & Pai & Dan’s housewarming. It was really good to catch up with Pai (who I haven’t seen in aaaages) and John, and meet new people etc.

We left the party to go to Lolly’s bday celebrations in the Valley at about 12:30am. These had started off at Mustang Bar, but by that time had migrated to 299. I’ve been to 299 a few times, and the very first time we went (around the time of my birthday last year) it was so much fun. The next couple of times I went there, however, the only music they played was dirgy crap (I am very aware that it’s an emo club). This time though, it was more of how it had been that very first time. They played lots of fun songs. As we were leaving, “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand started playing, and Lauren, Nathan & I went back upstairs again to dance .

I, as per usual, drunkenly stated my intention of walking home rather than wait in line for a cab for an hour. Nathan & Lauren ended up convincing me to go back to their place and stay in their spare room, since we would be going over to their place for lunch Easter Sunday anyway. So, we got back to theirs at about 3:00am, and didn’t end up getting to sleep until 4:30am, because we started playing Singstar and I guess that time flies when you’re drunk and having fun doing stupid shit. (I will almost never play Singstar when I am sober – it’s about as awkward to me as watching Mr. Bean. I’m not sure why…)

I woke up at about 7:00am feeling tired but otherwise fine (I love my liver). Lauren was fine too, but Nathan was pretty sick, and didn’t make it to church with the others. Dad ended up coming over and picking me up so I could go home and get changed into fresh clothes, and maybe have a nap before lunchtime.

Lunch was nice. Lauren made caesar salad, Glynis cooked a quiche and potato salad, and also cheesecake for dessert (I can has cheezcake?). We went home at about 2:30pm. I had a shower and laid down on my bed to read for a bit, but fell asleep almost immediately and didn’t wake up again until 6:30pm, when Dad had already left to drive Rosie to work then head back down the Coast. I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get to say goodbye to him before he left.

Ever wondered what a melted wheelie bin would look like? While on our way from the car to the mall for breakfast on Saturday, I spotted this in a carpark beside the footpath, just down from the Tibetan kitchen. “Those beers are from my work!” Rosie said. “Someone got drunk at my work and then came here and set this bin on fire!”. That’s lame.

This is the little gingy cat that lives in Abuklea Street, near the Wilston train station. I usually see it on my way to the train in the mornings, and sometimes in the afternoons. In the afternoons, it is on the other side of the road. It’s smart because it knows which side of the road to be on at which time of day to get pats. It’s really friendly. If you go near it, it will miaow and wait for you to pat it.

So now it’s Monday. I’ve got quite a bit to do today (washing, cleaning etc) before work tomorrow. I think I should get started. I’ll probably post some more later today, but for now I’m going to put some laundry on

From: Neil P
Sent: Friday, 30 March 2007 4:03 PM
To: Cassandra Brisbane
Subject: Thought I’d just take umbrage with….

I noticed you had your own blog so I took a look.

Tim and I had an interesting discussion about the saying “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” over email. I originally said that I didn’t agree with the saying, that it wasn’t really feasible and was just bad maths. After thinking about it a while, I came up with this:

As a systems engineer, I can categorically (and beyond shadow of a doubt) state that the “whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts”. I use this quote (from Aristotle) to demonstrate this point in the systems engineering presentations I give.

Case in point. A car. A car is a complex system that relies on the integration of many components to realise its greater function. The engine, on its own, has no real purpose, i.e. without the surrounding infrastructure it has no real use. Similarly the gearbox, the chassis, the doors etc. Even down to the nuts and bolts that bolt it all together. Meaningless as an individual commodity, meaningful in the wider context.

All systems are the same and they do not have to be thought of in terms of cars, planes, trains. The legal system, for example, is the collection of disconnected meaningless things that take on meaning when assembled as a whole.

So in summary:

Don’t argue with Aristotle!

---

From: Cassandra Brisbane
Sent: Friday, 30 March 2007 4:11 PM
To: Neil
Subject: RE: Thought I’d just take umbrage with….

I was just thinking… mathematically speaking, it doesn’t really work. 2+2 will never = 5. As each number has a specific value, the whole will always equal exactly the sum of its parts.

---

From: Neil
Sent: Friday, 30 March 2007 4:30 PM
To: Cassandra Brisbane
Subject: RE: Thought I’d just take umbrage with….

Disagree:

1) 2 apples plus 2 apples is 4 apples. 4 apples constitute the same thing and don’t combine to make anything greater. When you add 1 egg, 1 quantity of flour and 1 quantity of pastry, you may have eight or nine physical items. As individual components, they exist in their own space with a limited meaning. Combined, the systemic meaning changes.

So mathematics does not come into it. It is the intangible nature of the interconnectivity/interrelationship between the components that serve to add the systemic meaning. While I can connect things together and express them mathematically, I can only ever express them as a complex function. Modelling does exactly this. All a model is, is a mathematical representation of a system. I have created mathematical models to show, for a given input, what the given output would be for a system. The systems I reduced to mathematical functions were relatively simple but the mathematics gets tricky. Did you know that 99% of integrals cannot be solved?

So mathematics cannot account for the intangible nature that is associated with the interconnection of independent components. It’s like the soul – tangibly, it weighs 13grams. We can reduce it to meaning. But most academics would agree that the soul itself cannot be expressed as a whole by the assignment of a man-made constant to it. It has an intangible quality that cannot be quantified in itself. Systems are the same.

So, i’ve given the whole thing pretty good coverage, and haven’t censored anything that would make me look uninformed. Because, y’all already knew that, right?

Anyway, I had a look at the usage stats for my blog, and at some of the search string referrers. I don’t know how “superted glasses” brings them to my site. In most cases (as with most searches that lead to blog posts) I don’t think that they found what they were looking for.

It’s totally the weekend right now! I’m totally going to go do some laundry and stuff!

Tim and I had an interesting discussion about the saying “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” over email. I originally said that I didn’t agree with the saying, that it wasn’t really feasible and was just bad maths. After thinking about it a while, I came up with this:

I was thinking about that “greater than the sum of its parts” thing last night, and I have come to the conclusion that it does work in things where value is not entirely quantifiable. But then again, if you can’t find the value for something, how do you even know if the total is greater than the sum of the individual parts? A good example is voltron. The whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts. But am I de-valuing the pilots and their goLions by saying that? The opinion of a group is worth more than an that of just one individual (or so history would prove), so that might be another example. Not that I actually believe that. I think that it’s more a case of that it’s difficult to get someone to listen to you unless you’ve got other people to back you up.

Tim responded with:

That’s an interesting take. I guess when I think of the saying ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ I would see it as relating to the parts relevant to that task rather than the overall value of the part. Physically you can’t get something from nothing but if something has a superfluous or redundant feature when in isolation but that feature can work when used together with other parts I think the saying can hold. Or I could just be full of it, take your pick!

I chose “full of it”, just because I was given the option. Actually just because I can be obnoxious sometimes.

When I searched wikipedia for any possible theories on it, I found the Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe formula, which made me amused by my own ignorance. There are so many things in the world that I have no idea exist. Look here:

The Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe formula (BBP formula) permits the computation of the nth binary digit of π. It is a π summation formula discovered in 1995 by Simon Plouffe. The formula is named after David H. Bailey, Peter Borwein, and Simon Plouffe.

The discovery of this formula came as a surprise. For centuries it had been assumed that there was no way to compute the nth digit of π without calculating all of the preceding n-1 digits.

Yes, I guess that I would be surprised too! You mean that nth DOES compute? I imagine a group of mathmagicians all crowded around a whiteboard with scribbled numbers and symbols on it, and suddenly they all go, “omg!” And it just blows their mind. Or they say, “gosh, what a surprise!” haha. I don’t know why I find that amusing.

I did find an actual reference to the saying, but it was only in ecological anthropology, whereas I was looking for a more blanket explanation/definition. Or just a blanket. One with hot air balloons on it (for Chris: Ballooens).