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Geoff Coupe's BlogThoughts of a retired stiff Getting Colder…We’re having a cold snap at the moment, and some of the visitors to the garden have noticed the bird feeder…
2009/12/15 The Unconsidered LifeA short video of the philosopher AC Grayling talking about the need for critical thinking, and being a well-informed citizen of the world.
2009/12/13 StormI've mentioned it before, but here's another version of Tim Minchin's wonderful poem "Storm"...
Depressed? - Very!Ben Goldacre has another excellent Bad Science column - this week looking at Climate Science - and the truly depressing vile mixture of denialism and conspiracy theories that's swirling around it. As Ben says, "the same rhetorical themes [are] re-emerging in climate change foolishness that you see in aids denialism, homeopathy, and anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists". Add to that the fact that Zombie arguments are stalking the land of public discourse in droves:
I get very depressed when I read the comments of people who constantly reiterate these Zombie arguments. Rationality has seemingly gone out the window with them. Mind you, I have also little hope that Copenhagen will produce anything of value. At best, it will be a case of too little, too late. Not that this will affect me much - I'll almost certainly be dead before the more drastic effects of climate change will impinge on me. But my great-nephew is almost twelve, and there seems little doubt that his life will be greatly affected by the changes. He and others of his generation will be quite justified in cursing us for being people who wilfully stuck their heads in the sand and partying like there was no tomorrow. Which, when you think about it, might well turn out to be the case, at least for civilisation as we know it. Pretentious? - Moi?Olympus UK have launched their new PEN camera with a series of video adverts. You can see them here - click on the video tab to choose between them (once you've pressed play to activate it).
I have to say that I'm in the camp that finds the Kevin Spacey adverts pretentious twaddle; more evidence that Marketing people should be first up against the wall, come the revolution. However, the 'Stop Motion' advert is a little gem. It also tells you absolutely nothing about the camera, but as a work of art, it shines. Foreign Influence At WorkAnother report in The Observer today about the anti-gay bigotry that is growing in Uganda. The report also makes it clear that Uganda is not the only country in Africa where gay people are proscribed - there are a total of 37 countries where gay sex is illegal, in some cases punishable by death. In the meantime, ordinary Ugandans have to tread very carefully. 2009/12/12 'Tis a Puzzlement......that in the 21st Century Archbishop Williams can still state, in all seriousness, that he and his followers should not be seen as "oddities". But, y'are, Blanche, y'are - and what are these awful things that I'm supposed to be doing to you...
2009/12/10 The Running Man VanishesHere's a nicely-performed illusion by Ilya Larionov. He claims that there are no camera tricks, and I think he's telling the truth. This can be done by skill alone - oh and having a fourth person to help out...
Hat tip to Richard Wiseman. 2009/12/6 What Will Happen...... when the bill becomes law?
I'm talking about a particularly pernicious piece of legislation that is before the Ugandan parliament. If this is passed, it becomes possible for gays to be sentenced to death in Uganda. People like this man. The Twelve Days of ChristmasAn updated version from Carol Ann Duffy. God, she's good. Windows 7 - The Camel In ActionThe old saw says that "a horse is a camel designed by committee". When I first saw the default background that comes with Windows 7, I had to agree with Peter Bright - it is simply god-awful. The first thing I did with the three new installations of Windows 7 in our household was to banish the default background to the great bit-bucket in the sky.
I wondered how on earth something so bad could have actually ended up being shipped by Microsoft. Here's the answer. A video of Denise Trabona, who is a Senior UX (User Experience) Lead on the Windows Design and Research Team, talking about the process that ultimately led up to the choice of the default background.
The pragmatic Dutch have a very good word to describe this process: mierenneuken. Literally, ant-fucking. The sort of nit-picking that loses sight of the wood for the trees, the inability to recognise that despite all the huffing and puffing over miniscule choices, what you have ended up with is simply not very good at all. Books of the DecadeI see that the Guardian has published its list of the 50 “books of the decade” with comments from a variety of authors and critics. It’s worth reading their comments for insight. Here’s just the list – bolded titles are the ones that I’ve read. Only 15 out of the fifty, not a particularly good score, I’m afraid. However, nothing would ever persuade me to read anything written by Dan Brown - “Bestselling” does not guarantee quality; it’s a logical fallacy. Still, there are definitely some titles here that I would like to add to my reading list; Wolf Hall, for example. 2000
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2009/12/4 The Wonder of ParasitesI’ve blogged about my wonder concerning Toxoplasma gondii before. I’ve also blogged about Robert Sapolsky before. It gives me great pleasure, therefore, to be able to point you towards a video of Robert Sapolsky talking about Toxoplasma gondii. This is literally mind-blowing stuff. Go watch it. Shiver when you consider the fact of the interest from the US military in this parasite. And then wonder if a future autopsy of Jeremy Clarkson will reveal that his brain was riddled with Toxoplasma gondii cysts. I think the likelihood is high. There's also a section at the end, which is not reflected in the transcript, about research on premature ageing. That is also worth listening to and reflecting upon. 2009/12/1 World AIDS Day 2009Today is World AIDS Day. One of those occasions that you wish you didn't have to have, but which is important to remember and do something about.
At a personal level, it's a chance for me to recall some lost friends: Kerry, Lance, Eric, Humphrey, Peter, John, Kingsley, Graham, and Neil. I'm sorry that you're not around with the rest of us today.
2009/11/29 The Atheist FundamentalistsJust been watching the Intelligence Squared Debate on the proposition that “Atheism is the New Fundamentalism”. Speaking for the motion were Richard Harries and Charles Moore. Speaking against the motion were AC Grayling and Richard Dawkins. It won’t come as a surprise to learn that the proposers of the motion were trounced.
Harries was ineffectual and Moore was bordering very close to ad hominem attacks on Dawkins. The problem that the proposers had is that, as evidenced from their opponents’ performances tonight, Dawkins and Grayling clearly aren’t “Atheist Fundamentalists”, no matter how much Harries, and Moore in particular, would like them to be. Dawkins and Grayling were very good and effortlessly staked out their position against the motion. It seems to me that an Atheist Fundamentalist is something of a mythical beast, invented by the religious, and has no more likelihood of existence than a pink unicorn. It’s a simplistic label for the lazy to rail against the Four Horsemen of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens. 2009/11/27 Global Warming 101As we're now in the run-up to Copenhagen, there's a couple of things that I think are worthwhile drawing your attention to. The first is the Copenhagen Diagnosis report produced for the conference by 26 climate scientists. The report has been written, not for an audience of scientists, but for the policy-makers and the general public. This makes it accessible to a far larger group of people, and this is a good thing.
The second item of interest is that David Archer, a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, has put up a series of videos of his class for non-science majors on the topic of global warming. Definitely worth checking out. 2009/11/23 Flood Prone AreasReading about the floods resulting from the heavy rainfall in Cumbria last week made me think about the potential for disaster here in the Netherlands. By coincidence, I see that the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics published an item on the 19th November that states that 6 million people live in flood-prone areas of the Netherlands, and those areas are also where one-third of the GDP is generated. It's small comfort to note, looking at the map on that page, that we have at least relocated ourselves from the heart of a flood-prone area to one which is not. 2009/11/22 Willingness To Help: 10; Practicality: Null PointsI amuse myself in my idle monents by browsing some of the web forums set up to help people get to grips with their computers. I do this partly out of a drive to actually try and help people with their computers, but also I fear out of an increasing realisation and desperation of the fact that we are all trapped in an inner circle of hell.
Here's an example: an innocent request from someone in Ireland who wants to know how to find a digital Photo-Frame that will connect with the online FrameIt service.
The answer: it's in Japanese.
Are we any the wiser? Er, no, probably not. Another Triumph For The ArtsExcuse me, but I'm having another Victor Meldrew moment about a dance artist who wants to induce an epileptic fit in herself in the name of art. The statement from an Arts Council spokesperson is indicative of the levels of fuck-wittery going on:
I'll hand you over to David Thompson for the full Meldrew rant... 2009/11/21 All You Wanted To Know About Digital PhotographyThere's a new web site that just been launched, which is devoted to the topic of Digital Photography. It looks very comprehensive, and covers topics such as best practice in Digital Photography and Workflows.
The site has been set up by the American Society of Media Photographers with funding from the US Library of Congress. The project team includes Peter Krogh, who has written a well-respected book on Digital Asset Management and Digital Workflows.
If you're interested in Digital Photography, this definitely looks like a site worth checking out. 2009/11/20 Warning - Purple Prose AheadSteven Poole draws our attention to a strangely fascinating opening sentence:
It comes from a New Yorker article, so I suppose one should expect nothing less. Still, it does seem like a worthy contender for a Bulwer-Lytton prize. 2009/11/18 Network CrashMartin complained that his mobile phone wasn't working today. It's an old Nokia, which has proved flaky in the past, so I thought that we'd probably need to get it replaced. Still, I thought I'd take a look at it and see if it just needed cleaning. First thing I noticed was that it was not showing as being connected to a network. Funny, thought I, so I took a look at the settings. Try as I might, I couldn't get it connected to the Dutch Vodafone network, while my mobile, which also uses Vodafone was OK.
I thought that it might be a problem with the phone, so I swapped Martin's SIM card into my phone. Still no network. Very odd, thought I. I then tried to look at the Dutch Vodafone web site - and that was also out of action. A news item on the Tweakers site revealed the cause - there's a countrywide problem with Vodafone's mobile network, and doubtless the web site has crashed through the actions of thousands of irate Dutch Vodafone subscribers trying to find out why their mobiles have stopped working. Having replaced Martin's SIM card in his own phone, and restarted mine, I see that now my phone is also not working.
The problem started at 13:15 today, and as of now, 16:45, it's still not resolved. Vodafone personnel must be feeling very uncomfortable at the moment - as an old acquaintance would put it: they're running around in brown trousers...
Update: it's now over 21 hours since the problem started, and the Vodafone network still isn't back in the air. I suspect thousands of the 4.7 million Dutch subscribers are beginning to think about changing their mobile service provider...
The Indian ClerkI’ve just finished reading David Leavitt’s The Indian Clerk (or The IND1AN CLƐRK as the book’s cover would have it). I found it very good indeed. It’s a novel based on real people and real events that happened mainly in Cambridge, England, between 1913 and 1920. The two central characters are G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan. Hardy was a prominent British mathematician, and was instrumental in bringing Ramanujan, a mathematical genius, from India to Cambridge. The novel imagines Hardy’s innermost feelings as it tells the story of the relationship between the two mathematicians, both personal and professional. There are many other real people and real events contained in the book, and Leavitt has done a wonderful job in bringing them and the society to life. In particular, the evocation of life at Cambridge, and the Cambridge Apostles is very well done. I did notice one small mistake, though. On page 374, he mentions the “scent of Dettol permeating the air” in a nursing hostel where Ramanujan has been taken. Unfortunately for Leavitt, Dettol wasn’t invented until after 1929 and marketed in 1933. |
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