Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2005

  • Language Anoraks

    As if to demonstrate that the term anorak is not confined to those of a trainspotting disposition and computer geeks, over at the Language Log, Mark Liberman goes to mindnumbing lengths to deconstruct a joke that was pretty weak to start with.

    In Syntax Is A Disturbance In The There, he argues that Anthony Lane’s expression of disgust (Break me a fucking give) over Yoda’s weird syntax (I hope right you are), is when you get right down to it, not really an expression of Yoda’s syntax.

    Mark, it’s a joke, OK? Sheesh.

  • The History of Computer Languages

    For the geeks – sorry, I mean aficionados of computing history – amongst us, here’s a web site devoted to the history of computer languages, complete with a family tree. There’s about 50 languages listed here, but if you’re a real anorak, then follow the link to Bill Kinnersley’s page – he has 2,500 listed. In the course of the years, I’ve had a working knowledge of about 15 along the way, but now I’m rusty in practically all of them.

  • Wedding Bells

    Two friends of ours are getting married tomorrow in this Dutch castle. Here’s hoping they have fine weather – because they will be arriving in a horse-drawn carriage… Yours truly is one of the two official photographers. First time I’ve done this "officially", so fingers crossed here as well.

    OK, now can I have the bride and groom – click – right, now the families… – will the bride’s mother please watch her hat – we nearly had an industrial accident there…

    I wonder what the Dutch equivalent of "Say cheese!" is?

  • Darth Vader’s Blog

    You may have noticed that my "Somewhat Bizarre" links list includes a link to Darth Vader’s blog. It’s been an entertaining read, but it looks as though it has now come to an end with a barnstormer of an entry. More serious in tone than most of the other entries, which had a Douglas Adams style of absurd humour running through them, it is a good piece of writing and brings the diary of Vader to a satisfying conclusion.

    The blog was the work of Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming, and there’s a good interview with him here.

  • Birdwatching

    I cycled out into Reeuwijk again today, and managed to see a Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa) and a pair of Barnacle Geese with their young.

  • Your Knife Sucks

    Over at the Collision Detection blog, Clive Thompson introduces us to the rather unsettling presence of Greg Gillespie – inventor of the World’s Fastest Knife.

    Freud would have a field day with the video.

    If I’m ever in the presence of Mr. Gillespie, remind me not to sneeze. He might think I was looking at his wife and stab me in the eyes… Yup, there are some scary people out there. But somehow, I’m not convinced that having an arms race is the way to deal with it.

  • Way to Go, George!

    Nope, not Dubya, but George Galloway yesterday, in his appearance before US senators to dismiss allegations he profited from oil dealings with Saddam Hussein.

    The BBC has a recording of the complete hearing. And the Daily Kos has the transcript of his opening statement.

    A masterful performance. Staring straight at Senator Coleman, and without notes, Galloway absolutely skewers the committee with his opening statement. The resulting cross-examination never really recovers from this opening blast (how could it – the allegations are, as Galloway says, "utterly preposterous"). I wish that there had been some video of senator Coleman’s face – I bet it would have been rather like a rabbit caught in car headlights.

    While I don’t necessarily agree with Galloway’s politics, he is not the bogeyman that the media would like him to be. And on the strength of this performance, the knockabout politics of the Mother of Parliaments is more than a match for the milquetoast mewlings of the US system.

  • Squirrel Is Back On The Menu

    The Times food critic reports that Squirrel is back on the menu. Well, I suppose it makes a change from chocolate-covered scorpions. The Times sub-editor also has a sense of humour, judging from the title of the piece.

  • Fools Rush In…

    …where angels fear to tread?

    Professor William D. Rubenstein is a respected historian at the University of Aberystwyth. By his own admission, he posesses an enquiring mind. This led him to ponder on a field outside of his own expertise, to whit: evolutionary theory.

    Either his ponderings are a truly masterful piece of deadpan satire, or he is quite awesomely unaware of the nonsense he has spouted in The Theory of Evolution: Just A Theory?

    The title alone is a typical Creationist jibe, and while Professor Rubenstein may not be a Creationist, he does seem to be repeating a number of their tired arguments. He has certainly stirred up a hornets’ nest, judging by the number of comments pointing out the errors in his piece.

    The many replies may seem like pounding sledgehammers all after a very small nut, considering the schoolboy howlers in his piece. But I think that would be to miss the point. In the USA, there is a very real war of words (and legal battles over what can be taught in schools) going on between the Creationists (both the original form and the newer flavour of Intelligent Designists) and the scientific community. And with the global reach of the Internet, the web site of the Social Affairs Unit may not be the quiet backwater it once was.

  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali

    Today’s Guardian carries an excellent profile (by Alexander Linklater) of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician. Well worth reading to gain an understanding of what drives her, and why she requires round-the-clock protection of bodyguards.

  • I’m Glad I’m Not a Ratepayer in Auckland…

    … otherwise I’d have steam coming out of my ears over this. It’s this kind of thing that gives diversity a bad name.

  • Why the Bleep Should I Care?

    Oh dear, another piece of pseudoscience trash hauls its scummy carcass onto the screen. I’m talking about "What the Bleep Do We Know" – a film that has taken America by storm (why am I not surprised?), but now threatens to do the same in Europe.

    Supposedly a film about quantum physics, it’s actually about pushing the message of Ramtha – a "35,000 year old warrior spirit from Atlantis" being "channelled" by a housewife from Tacoma, Washington. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

    But, hey, don’t take my word for it, go and read Skeptico to start with, and then today’s Guardian piece (but Professor Greated should be ashamed of himself).

  • The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

    The mind is an amazing thing. I spent much of last night, both awake and asleep, with that phrase – the [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff – running through my head. By this morning I had recognised it as the title of a Science Fiction story. A quick Google, and I had established it as a short story by Theodore Sturgeon from his “The Joyous Invasions” collection.

    Now why I should be thinking of that phrase, I have no idea. The last time I probably read that story was when I bought the Penguin paperback (complete with a front cover painted by Alan Aldridge, the fashionable illustrator of the time) way back in 1967.

    So I’ve just got the book out of the library upstairs (yep, I still have the book) to re-read. Perhaps that will give me a clue about last night.

  • The Piano Man

    Fascinating story in the news today (here and here) about a man who was found wandering, dripping wet, by the sea last month. Unable, or unwilling, to speak, his only method of displaying his emotions thus far is by playing a piano in the psychiatric unit where he is being cared for. Do you know who he is?

    Update: This is who he is…

  • Becoming Human

    One of the most interesting stories (to me) is how did we become human? What were the triggers that developed our culture and set us apart from the other animals? One web site that explores these ideas in an engaging way is Becoming Human.

    Check it out…

  • Lazy Day

    Having a lazy day today. Have been trying to drum up enthusiasm to continue assigning and correcting keywords on my photos, but without too much success. The weather hasn’t helped, it’s been overcast and miserable for much of the day so far, but there’s some blue opening up now. So I’ll head off on the bike soon in an attempt to blow the cobwebs away.

    I also need to think about dinner this evening. I think I’ll do slices of breast of chicken with black pudding in a tarragon and muscat sauce, on a bed of spinach with a few steamed potatoes lightly flavoured with carraway seed.

  • Friday the 13th, April 2029

    What are you going to be doing on Friday 13th, April 2029? Well, according to NASA, you may be thanking your lucky stars that the Earth did not get hit by asteroid 2004 MN4. It is, however, going to be a close call. I hope I’m around to see it.

  • Flickr Adds IPTC Support

    Back in February, I wrote the first of a series ( number 2 and number 3) of posts on managing photo libraries. In the first post, I mentioned Flickr as an example of an online service, but noted that it did not yet support the (to me) all-important metadata standards of IPTC/XMP.

    Well, blow me down, on the 11th May, Flickr announced support for IPTC metadata:

    “IPTC support (finally)! Friends, today there’s another good thing in Flickrland, and that’s support for IPTC data embedded into your photos. Keywords become tags! Captions become descriptions! Marvel as one framework’s terminology is swapped for another! Smile as the location fields in IPTC become Flickr tags!”

    This may prove to be the trigger to make me upgrade my free Flickr account to a Pro account, so that I can share all my photos with friends and family.

    MSN Spaces needs to catch up with Flickr – the lack of support for IPTC/XMP, not only in MSN Spaces but also in any Microsoft product (from operating systems to digital photography applications) should embarrass Microsoft.

  • Two Data Points on Family Values

    Data point (a): Chile lesbian loses child appeal. "The Chilean court said her children’s development was at risk because she was living in a lesbian relationship".

    Data point (b): Joe Valentine’s parents. Joe Valentine is a successful baseball player who happens to have been raised by two lesbians.

    When will people realise it’s the quality of parenting that matters to a child’s development, and not the sexual orientation of the parents?

  • ELP Laser Turntable

    For those audiophiles amongst you who continue to insist that the analogue LP is superior to digital CDs comes news of the ELP Laser Turntable. Forget about the wear and tear of using an old-fashioned stylus – this turntable uses a laser. It even looks like a retro CD player.

    The ELP web site is very coy about saying what the price is, which led me to suspect that it would be a case of "if you have to ask, you can’t afford it". And yep, sure enough, prices (depending on the model) range from a cool $14,999 up to a staggering $18,999.