PooterGeek points out a possible world that is appallingly close to becoming reality.
Year: 2006
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Willy Wonka Gone Bad
Johnny Depp portrays John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Here’s the brilliant prologue to the film. Methinks I should look out for The Libertine. -
We Feel Fine
A near real-time database recording how people are expressing their feelings on the Web with the results displayed graphically. Is it Art? Ist it Science? Is it Both? Whatever it is, it is certainly intriguing.(hat tip to Neatorama) -
Piffle
Madeline Bunting has penned her last column as a journalist on the Guardian today. And forgive me, but I think it’s a load of old piffle. I think it reached its fevered peak in the passage:Many areas of science are legitimising religious thought in ways regarded as inconceivable for much of the past century and half. Quantum physicists question our understanding of reality and Hindus respond: "So what’s new?"; neuroscientists formulate understandings of consciousness and Buddhists retort as politely as possible: "We told you so."Excuse me; one side is exercising the scientific method to explore the universe in a series of carefully tested steps to push back the boundaries of ignorance. The other side is saying don’t bother, the answer’s in our holy book, and if you come up with something that contradicts it, we might just be forced to kill you. And to equate carefully-arrived at theories with folklore takes relativism to an absurd degree.In need of a metaphorical wash after reading her piece, I took an invigorating shower in Why Truth Matters, a terrific little book by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom that frankly puts Bunting’s waffle to shame. As they say:Some people do prefer to live in a thought-world where priests and mullahs claim to decide what is true. Others prefer to live in a thought-world where ideas about what is true are lenient, flexible, fuzzy around the edges; where it is possible to sort-of-believe, half-believe and half-hope, believe in an as if or storytelling or daydreaming way. Others prefer – genuinely prefer, not merely think they’re supposed to – to try and figure out what really is true, as opposed to what might be, or appears to be, or should be.Bunting is off to head up the thinktank Demos. No prizes for guessing which group is likely to characterise the output of Demos… -
The Man Who Knew Too Much
That’s the title of a new biography of Alan Turing written by David Leavitt. The combination of those two names in itself is enough to send me dashing off to Amazon’s web page. The definitive biography of Turing for me has always been Andrew Hodge’s masterwork: Alan Turing: The Enigma, but I definitely want to read how Leavitt has tackled the subject.There’s a good review of Leavitt’s book by Peter Conrad in today’s Observer. Conrad’s opening paragraph delivered practically a hammer-blow to me when I read it. It’s an audacious link between computers and the manner of Turing’s death. Of course, it’s obvious once you see it, but kudos to Conrad for setting my mind reeling for a moment or two. -
The Colour of Bile?
Quick – what is the colour of bilious vomit? Apparently 23 out of 41 mothers questioned in a recent study did not know that bilious vomit has a greenish colour. Even more disturbingly, neither did 12 out of 47 general practicioners (doctors).I tell you, educational standards these days are not what they were when I was a boy…(hat tip, once again to the indefagitble Improbable Research) -
The Smell of Kylie’s Breath?
What? Um, just what I said: "the smell of Kylie’s breath". Just one of the many fragrances (others include the stench of dragon, football changing room and grannie’s kitchen) offered by Dale Air.I know it sounds unreal, but apparently it’s all true…(hat tip to Improbable Research) -
Photo Response
I have a few thousand photos up on Flickr at the moment. Occasionally one of them gets commented on. This was the comment that one of them received today:Dear Ms/Sir:
How are you!
Having had your name and address from the Internet ,We have pleasure in establishing business ship with you and we would appreciate your pushing the sales on your market.
We are a factory including manufacturing and saling daily-used ceramics,also have the right to export .This yesr ,Our products possess many fashion and newest style and deco.which sale at a preferent price to let you compare.You can view our website which is xxx.xxx.com. Or you can add my MSN.
If you have any interesting in the business of ceramics,Please contact with us.
We look forward to hearing from you and I hope a glory future will be created by us.
TKS&B.RGDS
Your faithfully
RAYOh well, at least it wasn’t someone from Nigeria wanting to empty my bank account… -
the Hive Mind
Wikipedia is a fascinating phenomenon that seems to polarise people: either they love it or they hate it. Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, famously likened Wikipedia to a public restroom – a vistor never knows who has been there before him.A more considered essay – Digital Maoism – has now been penned by Jaron Lanier, and is well worth reading. In it, he considers the hazards of the collective mind at work. There’s also a follow-up to his article in the form of a collection of responses from what could be termed the chiperati – the shakers and movers in the cybernetic world. That follow-up is also worth reading.The most arresting response to my mind comes from George Dyson, who quite rightly points out that the individual mind of Jaron Lanier is itself the production of a hive collective of processes within his brain. "All intelligence is collective. But, as Lanier points out, that does not mean that all collectives are intellingent". -
I’m Sorry, What Was That Again?
“The weight of international leadership is not borne easily,” Rice said, “but we as Americans are more than equal to this challenge, and we must be, for if we imagine a world without American leadership we are led inescapably to this solemn conclusion: If America does not serve great purposes, if we do not rally other nations to fight intolerance and support peace and defend freedom, and to help give all hope who suffer oppression, then our world will drift toward tragedy.”The truly terrifying thing is that she probably believes, in the face of all the evidence so amply provided by the current administration, that she is fulfilling this aspiration. But from where I stand, she and her colleagues are part of the problem, not part of the solution… -
Jaundiced in Vegas
Brian Sack is in Las Vegas. Right up there with his despatches from China in the morbid fascination stakes. It certainly brings back memories to me, shudder. -
Good Neighbours
A story from Tom Reynolds, who sees a lot of life as it is lived in London. The bottom line:When the patient’s real son turned up he appeared more concerned about the inconvenience that his mothers fall was causing him. The neighbour’s son was more concerned with her health.Sometimes we need to look beyond the surface and into the humanity of those around us. -
MSN Space Oddities
As you may be aware, I use MSN Spaces as my vehicle for blogging – along with about 100 million other users a month. For the most part, I have no complaints, the system works as expected. Within the last few days, though, there’s been a major upgrade to MSN Spaces that seems to have introduced a couple of odd things.First, the RSS feeds from blogs on MSN Spaces appear to have dried up, at least as far as my RSS Aggregator (RSS Bandit) is concerned. Even though I know that the blogs have new entries, they aren’t getting through to RSS Bandit.Second, the list of trackbacks to my blog keeps jumping between giving the list and saying that there are no trackbacks.Third, the comments list appears and disappears in the same way as the trackbacks list…Presumably just teething troubles, but slightly irritating all the same, like a pebble in the shoe. I feel like the princess out of the Grimm’s tale of the princess and the pea… -
The Effeminate Sheep
This month’s Seed Magazine has an interesting article on Joan Roughgarden and her theories on sexual selection. While she makes some valid observations, some think that her conclusions are a step too far ahead of the data. PZ Myers, for example, in a well-argued piece on his blog.
Both PZ Myers and the original article are well worth reading. I like the lightness of touch and the flashes of wit and irony that the author of the article (Jonah Lehrer) has brought to bear on the topic. For example:
As this list of activities suggests, having homosexual sex is the biological equivalent of apple pie: Everybody likes it. At last count, over 450 different vertebrate species could be beheaded in Saudi Arabia. You name it, there’s a vertebrate out there that does it.And I think Myers is right when he argues that:
Roughgarden is an awkward case that provokes a difficult split in people’s opinions. She is 100% right that homosexuality is common and that its prevalence ought to be regarded more seriously as an indication of an interesting and enlightening phenomenon in evolution. However, she’s completely wrong in rejecting sexual selection: in rejecting a simplistically heterosexual view of nature she swings too far the other way, adopting a simplistically homosexual view instead of a messy, complex, and almost certainly more correct mixed view.By the way, if you want to read more about the 450 species who are ignoring the disapproving looks of God and Allah, then the best serious book to look out for is Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemihl. If you want to laugh out loud at life’s rich tapestry, then go for How Animals Have Sex by Gideon Defoe, one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long, long time.
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Oh Dear…
I assume that we are not to take this fashion outfit seriously, are we? I’d sooner suffer myxomatosis that walk down the street in that… More designs (owing a heavy debt to Edward Scissorhands, I feel) from Gareth Pugh here. -
The Cherry Tree
We have a cherry tree in the front garden.
I was quite looking forward to harvesting some cherries, but I hadn’t reckoned on the local starling population. Now that the cherries are ripe, they have descended en masse onto the tree and are proceeding to strip it bare.Bastards.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
