Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2005

  • The Interrobang

    I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to use this character – and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the wild, either.

  • Don’t Give Up

    A new version of the classic Peter Gabriel song for the sake of a good cause. And if you don’t want to donate via this channel, then there are plenty of others to choose from. Take a moment to pause this Christmas, and think of others who need help.

  • The King William’s College Quiz

    For over one hundred years, King William’s College on the Isle of Man has set a quiz for its pupils at Christmas. I never went to King William’s, but my cousin did. And every Christmas, the entire extended family would sit around scratching their collective head trying to come up with the answers to this notoriously difficult quiz.
     
    If you’d like to have a shot, then the Guardian has published this year’s quiz. Just don’t expect Google to be any help whatsoever.

  • The New World

    John Patterson’s review of Terence Malick’s new film: The New World makes me want to see it. Another "When It Changed" moment – this time captured on film. Malick’s earlier Days of Heaven was a wonder, so I think I will like this new one as well. I see that the review singled out on IMDb categorises The New World as "pretentious drivel", "absolutely painful" and "virtually no dialogue" and suggests that you "rent Disney’s version of Pocahantas [sic] instead". That’s good enough for me, I’m sure I will absolutely love Malick’s version.

  • Nothing Dies On The Internet

    As is well known, the Internet is a fount of true and false information. And often, information that is shown to be false just won’t die. Like a bad penny it turns up again, professing its versimilitude to all who will listen.
     
    A case in point, Neatorama, a site that collects neat things from around the web, published this today. Ostensibly, it’s an article about a pair of identical twins, one of whom has had the amputated arm of his twin surgically attached to his torso. Also, a finger joint has been amputated from one twin’s hand, and used to lengthen the same finger on the other twin’s hand.
     
    The article was originally published in 1999 – April 1st 1999, to be precise. Now, it’s quite possible, and indeed probable, that Neatorama realised it was a joke, but decided to re-publish as it is, in truth, a startling article. Still, the kicker is that I’ll bet that many people out there will think that this is a piece of true reporting – just as many people did when it was first published. And the real eye-opener for me is that some folks really do think that this is a neat thing to do. As I’ve said before, I never will understand human nature.
     
    Update: Nope, Neatorama thought the story was true. Sigh.

  • When It Changed

    Here I am, mentioning the ED SF Project yet again in less than 24 hours. But I feel I have to, because Kameron Hurley has just published her appreciation of Joanna Russ’ story: When It Changed.
     
    I remember reading the story back in 1977, in the paperback of Harlan Ellison’s collection: Again Dangerous Visions. It had a powerful effect on me then, and on re-reading it, I find that the effect is only slightly diminished. It speaks of a very different society from what we experience, and yet one that I (and I think, Kameron) can empathise with. And at the core of the story is the recognition by the narrator that the known world is on a cusp – and from that moment on, because of a meeting, the world is irrevocably changed.
     
    Imagine the meeting between Cortes and the Aztecs as a some sort of two-dimensional object – say a square. Now turn that 2D object into three dimensions – a cube. That extra dimension is what Russ paces out in the nature of the meeting that occurs in this story. You’ll have to read it to understand what I mean. If you’ve read Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness, you’ll have an inkling of what Russ is going to do, except in her story there are no aliens in the sense of being non-human. There are aliens of another form, though, and equally as deadly as invaders from Mars. 

  • Fashionable Disorders?

    Dr. Crippen blogs about something that I wonder about. I’m sure that part of it is a sense of "in my day, you were grateful to live in a cardboard box", but somehow I don’t think that’s all it is.

  • It’s All In The Genes

    Fascinating study summarised by Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings. Could it really be true that sexually differentiated object preferences arose prior to the emergence of hominids?

  • Refugees From Nulongwe

    I mentioned the ED SF Project earlier this month. It’s a collection of appreciations of SF short stories that were published by Ellen Datlow. I’ve been reading the appreciations published by contributors. Many of them make me want to read the original story immediately. Once such came in today – Rhonda S. Garcia’s appreciation of "Refugees from Nulongwe" by M. Shayne Bell. The story does not disappoint. It’s a terrific little story – a perfect example of the "what if" of good SF where it explores humanity and what it means to be human. The footnote to the story gives the clue to how the story came to be written – the situation explored in the story is close to our reality. And the picture of the two strong old women – one human, one not – is striking.  

  • The Scales Of Justice

    Carl Zimmer, over at the Loom, reflects on the judge’s ruling in the Dover creationism trial. And he makes an important point about "balance". Too often, it seems, when reading or viewing a piece of journalism, both sides of the argument are presented as though they have equal weight. This is usually false. As Zimmer says: "Justice holds a balance in her hand, but balance is not what she seeks. Instead, she weighs the evidence to see which way it tips". Absolutely.
     

  • The Definition of Marriage

    I see that Mick Hartley, over at his blog, has also commented on Peter Tatchell’s piece in the Guardian. Unlike me, he doesn’t find the argument compelling, and the reason boils down to "if the definition of marriage is that it is between two people of different sex, then how can it be between two people of the same sex?" Sigh. As Norman Geras points out, this is really a form of question begging.
     
    Sorry to point yet again to the pragmatic Dutch, but faced with the dilemma of how to open up marriage to same sex couples, they had two choices: set up a parallel set of laws to govern the civil marriage of same-sex couples, or gasp, change the definition of civil marriage to open it up to same-sex couples. They chose the simpler and fairer way. As it says on the Ministry of Justice web site:

    The registered partnership was introduced in 1998. Since then, same-sex couples can already regulate their relationship legally in a way that is in most respects equivalent to a marriage. And yet it was decided to open the institute of marriage to two women or two men. The basic tenet of equal treatment was decisive in this. For many people, marriage simply holds special value and carries a certain symbolism. People may wish to confirm a relationship in precisely this manner. And there is no reason to exclude same-sex couples from this.

    That last sentence is worth re-reading: "And there is no reason to exclude same-sex couples from this". A refreshing recognition that inclusion is better than exclusion.

  • How Does A World End?

    I mentioned one virtual world – WoW – a couple of days ago. Now comes news that another virtual world – Asheron’s Call – is about to die. The game’s owners will pull the plugs on its servers at the end of the month. Wired has a bittersweet article about the demise of the world.
     
    Wired has another article on the theme of "all things must pass" – the Bay Area NeXT Group is closing its doors. The NeXT computer was a machine that was ahead of its time – too far ahead as it turned out. It was a computer that I lusted over, but could never hope to have. Still, the ghost of NeXT lives on – in the Mac OS X operating system.

  • The Fascination of Pi

    I came across a number of mentions of Pi today. First, Neatorama tips its hat to people who memorise Pi, including Daniel Tammet, who has recited Pi to 22,514 decimal places. Second, I was listening to Kate Bush’s latest double CD, Aerial, which has a song about Pi on it. In it, she recites the decimal places of Pi. Sounds bizarre, but it works. However, Simon Singh, in the Telegraph today, points out that Kate gets it wrong – she misses out 22 digits in the middle of the string. Something that Daniel would never do…

  • The Iliad

    Nope, not Homer’s epic poem, but an electronic book reader due to be released in 2006. Could be interesting to watch out for.

  • Caption Competition

    Suburbia – stranger than fiction.

  • IDiocy Thrown Over The Cliffs Of Dover

    I see that the judge has ruled in the Dover school board case in the US. And has said that Intelligent Design (ID) has no place in the science curriculum. Quite right too. The 139-page ruling from Judge Jones contains some rather direct language as well:
    To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
     
    The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.
     
    With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.
     
    Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
    (hat tip to Pharyngula for highlighting the above)
     
    But I fear that the forces of irrationality are not going to retreat into the shadows as a result of this. It’s quite depressing to read some of the comments on the BBC’s Have Your Say bulletin board on this story. All the usual crap is there: "Evolution is ‘just a theory"; "Students need to taught both sides of the story"; "Prove to me that God does not exist", etc. etc. Some folks never bother using the brains that evolution has given them.

  • Civil Partnerships

    With all the news from the UK about the establishment of civil partnerships, it’s very easy to miss one thing in all the current euphoria.  And that fact is nailed very succinctly by Peter Tatchell in today’s Guardian. The core of it is simply this:
    While this milestone is a cause for celebration, it also has a downside. For the first time in modern British legal history, instead of repealing discrimination parliament has reinforced and extended it. Civil partnerships are for same-sex couples only. Straights are excluded. Conversely, marriage remains reserved for heterosexuals, to the exclusion of gays. The differential treatment of hetero and homo couples is enshrined in law. Welcome to segregation, UK-style.
    He’s absolutely right. And while people may talk of ‘gay marriage’, it quite clearly isn’t. Once again, I am pleased to live in the Netherlands, where the pragmatic Dutch recognise three forms of a couple living together: informal co-habitation (perhaps with a legal agreement entered into by the individuals concerned), registered partnership, and full civil marriage. All three forms are open to both different-sex and same-sex couples. 

  • “Any Policy Will Sometimes Lead To Errors”

    So sayeth the shoe-shopping Secretary of State of the US, Condoleezza Rice. Here’s an example. Do as you would be done by, Ms. Rice.

  • The Gay Community

    The title of this post is meant to be ironic – since I don’t really believe that there is such a thing as "the gay community", any more than there is a "left-handed community". It’s a convenient label for folks to use – a form of shorthand that immediately conjures up, for good or ill, some aspects of people who belong to a particular group.
     
    As an illustration, take the story in today’s Observer: Gays Who Shape Our New Britain. Reading the thumbnail sketches of the 20 individuals named does not give me a sense that they all belong to a "gay community" – they are simply 20 talented individuals who have stamped their mark on UK society in a variety of areas, and who happen to be gay. It’s interesting that even in 2005, the Observer notes that they had to drop three people from the list because the people concerned are unwilling to be known publicly as gay. I bet I know who two of the three are; the "senior government adviser" I have no idea about, because I have no knowledge of political circles.
     
    Today’s Observer turns out to be a veritable convoy of gay buses, all turning up at once. As well as the article mentioned above, there’s also a piece from Adam Mars-Jones on Brokeback Mountain and an article from Sir Elton John. 
     
    Mars-Jones dissects Hollywood’s uneasy relationship with gays very well (for a wider trawl through Tinsel Town’s history, I can thoroughly recommend Vito Russo’s Celluloid Closet, a book that unfortunately stops at 1980 because of Russo’s untimely death). Mars-Jones is right to be suspicious of Hollywood. If you want to read a full-fledged rant on this topic, then I can heartily recommend Charles Karel Bouley II’s bucketful of bile in The Advocate. He hits the target fair and square.
     
    Finally, Sir Elton’s piece surprised me with its considered, and activist, nature. Perhaps I’m guilty of using shorthand labels a bit too readily myself, and pigeon-holing Sir Elton merely as a disgustingly rich drama queen celebrity. He’s more than just a one-dimensional caricature – just like the rest of us humans.
     

  • Warning – Kangaroo Ahead

    A motorist in Friesland (part of The Netherlands) collided with a kangaroo yesterday. The kangaroo was killed, and the motorist surprised. Quite what a kangaroo was doing roaming around in Friesland has not yet been established. If there’s more than one, perhaps the authorities ought to be thinking of a Dutch version of the Australian warning sign.