These little beauties are rather fascinating. I think I know what I’d like for Christmas…
The only problem is that each one of these MicroDrones costs $60,000. Oh well, give it 10 years and they’ll be affordable toys.
Year: 2007
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Brain-Eating Bacteria
Sometimes, Mother Nature lets slip the mask, and shows us what she’s really capable of… -
Hand Shadows
Part of my self-education when I was growing up was to read my father’s collection of bound copies of "The Boy’s Own Paper". Poring through the contents I’d come across articles on knot-making, or survival skills, or magic tricks in amongst the stories about the relief of Mafeking. I remember one of the articles was about using the hands to make shadow puppets. I avidly practised this (it was cheap and required no special materials other than a lamp and a wall).I can’t say I was ever particularly good at it, though. If you want to see a master at work, then here’s Raymond Crowe…(hat tip to Neil Gaiman for the link) -
The Broken Column House
Pruned has an intriguing entry about the architectural follies in the Désert de Retz. Money and decadence, how often they seem to combine in our species… -
The Art Of Being Human
Liz has been invited to attend a Buddhist weekend meditation workshop called "The Art Of Being Human". She has mixed feelings about it. I can understand why. -
Another National Treasure
Today’s Guardian has an excellent article about another National Treasure: the illustrator Quentin Blake. Worth reading, although I think I could have done without the "don’t think of a hippopotamus" trick at the end of the first paragraph. Apart from that one rather false note, it paints a clear portrait in words of the great man. -
Henze’s Phaedra
Here’s an interesting interview with Hans Werner Henze, talking about his life and his latest (and probably his last) opera, Phaedra. It makes me want to see it. I remember seeing an earlier opera of his, The Bassarids, in London in 1974, and being profoundly moved by it. -
British Values
Prospect magazine asked "50 writers and intellectuals" (erm, so they are distinct groups, are they?) to define what they meant by the phrase "British Values". It provides an entertaining read, showing that the meaning is very difficult to pin down.However, I was rather taken by Brian Eno’s restatement of Gandhi’s aphorism:The values we usually claim as ours: democracy, peaceableness, equality of opportunity, pluralism, social responsibility, diplomacy, fair play, the rule of law —are all fine by me. Now let’s try them. -
i-Sobot
Ooh – move over Aibo, I think you’ve got competition… -
The Hoax of Hatto
Joyce Hatto was a pianist whose husband, William Barrington-Coupe, perpetrated an extensive hoax for years. It’s a riveting story. I’m only sorry that the Coupe name has been besmirched by such goings-on… Really, one should expect better… Havagesse, indeed! Harrumph! And yet, there’s something sad about it too. -
Travels In Hyper-Reality
David Byrne travels through the USA. It makes me remember echoes of Umberto Eco… -
Sign The Petition
It’s a small thing perhaps, but sign the petition. -
Exploding A Myth
Vaughan, over at Mind Hacks, points out that the famous sequence of cat pictures painted by Louis Wain that are supposed to illustrate his descent into madness actually do nothing of the sort. Damn, there’s another factoid that I’ve held on to for years suddenly whipped out from under me. -
An Interview With Oliver Sacks
This is an interview with Olver Sacks. It’s worth reading. He sums up my feelings almost exactly:I intensely dislike any reference to supernaturalism, but I think there can be profound mystical feelings which do not have to call on fictitious agencies like angels and demons and deities. The whole natural world is bathed in wonder and beauty and mystery. The feeling of the holy, the sacred, the wonderful, the mystical, can be divorced from anything theological, and is conveyed very powerfully in music.Absolutely. But, I would add, the powerful conveyance of those feelings is not simply constrained to music alone. -
Not A Good Idea
I really wish they wouldn’t do it. Microsoft, I mean. It’s almost as though they encourage the "evil empire" persona – the company that you love to hate. They’re at it again. They’re showing off the technology that enables dynamic advertising within computer games."The idea is to have advertisements appear and fit in naturally to the games just as they would in real life," said Jay Sampson, vice president of North American and Asia Pacific sales for Massive, Microsoft’s in-game advertising marketplace.Er, listen Jay, I detest the pollution of advertising, and the thought that you are gleefully bringing it to new frontiers makes me want to vomit. -
Weapons of War
Ophelia sums it up far better than I can. It’s what she says. -
Alien Quadrilogy
I recently plonked down some hard-earned dosh for the 9 DVDs that constitute the collection of the four "Alien" films, plus lots of "the making of" extras. Yep, I bought Alien Quadrilogy. Well, since Amazon were offering it at nearly 75% discount, how could I refuse?And, I have to say, I am still impressed with these films. Ridley Scott’s original Alien is an astounding piece of work. It is still, to me, the best of the four. But the others have their attractions also. James Cameron’s Aliens was a magnificent sequel in that it didn’t try to reprise the original, but took it into the realm of the action movie, where Cameron delivered in spades. The moment where Ripley comes out in the loader exoskeleton and says: "Get away from her, you BITCH!" to the Alien Queen is one that I will always treasure. When we saw it on the original release in the cinema, the whole audience erupted with cheers, and it still gives me goosebumps. The ultimate cat-fight, I suppose.The later films seem to have mixed receptions. I suspect that the bleak vision of Fincher’s Alien3 was too strong for many, and the very individual style of Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection was too campy for most.I have to say that I enjoyed them both in their own way. Alien3 is indeed bleak, but Sigourney Weaver and Charles Dance turn in excellent performances, and the warped monastic religious overtones of the prison colony seemed to me to be entirely likely. Charles S. Dutton as the preacher character, Dillon, was right up there with Weaver and Dance.As for Alien: Resurrection, well, yes, I can quite appreciate that those who worship the sort of film that James Cameron does would heartily detest the style of Jeunet. Me, well, I like the style, what can I say? The outrageous visuals and characters that inhabit films such as Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, came home to roost in Alien: Resurrection, and I liked it enormously.All in all, what I see here in these four films are variations on a theme. All very different, and depending on your outlook on life, some are going to appeal more than others. I actually like them all, and all for different reasons, but Ridley Scott’s original has a special place because it kicked the whole thing off – with a bang, or shall we say: a chestburst.Update: Oh, BTW, I should perhaps add that the version of Alien3 that I was impressed by was the Special Edition, not the Theatrical Release. The latter was totally emasculated by the studio suits. The Special Edition restored at least something of Fincher’s vision and a better plot. -
Another World
I see that the Dutch "Scientific Council for Government Policy" in its report to the Dutch government has stated that the fact that a person holds dual nationality need not be an obstacle to their integrating into Dutch society. Phew, that’s a relief I thought, metaphorically clutching my British and Dutch nationalities to my bosom.It seems perfect common sense to me. And for that reason of course it gets right up the nose of rightwing politician Geert Wilders who claims that the council is living in "another world". Well, suck it, Geert. -
Woodpeckers
There’s a pair of Green Woodpeckers (Picus viridis) who often visit the garden. Here’s the female (recognisable by having all-black around the eyes):
And here’s the male (with a red stripe under the eye):
They’re both extremely shy, so it’s difficult to get close shots of them. Here’s a closer shot of the male, taken last year:
In the nearby woods, I often catch glimpses of Great Spotted Woodpeckers (Dendrocopos major), but today was rather special. I saw a Black Woodpecker (Dryocopus martius), the first one I’ve ever seen in my life.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 