Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2007

  • Family Tree Applications

    I’ve mentioned before that my brother has an interest in genealogy, and is doing his best to trace our family tree. I’ve recently come across a couple of software applications that aid in visualising genealogical data.
     
    First up is Family.Show – a rather jazzy application written for the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) software that is present in Windows Vista. Actually, it’s more of a concept than a full-blown application. It was expressly created to show off the capabilities of WPF, which is does to quite a striking effect. The source code of the application is freely available, if you want to have a go at extending it.
     
    Next is a web-based application, available at www.geni.com. The interesting thing about this is that is it a collaborative application. Both my brother and myself (or indeed anyone else we explicitly invite to join us) can work on the same family tree. This collaboration feature is a terrific plus point. It’s meant that we can each work on building up different branches of the family, as well as correcting errors or adding details to each others’ work. Geni is still in beta, but is definitely usable at the moment. The development team have a blog, and there are discussion forums devoted to the application. Worth checking out if you have an interest in drawing up your family tree.

  • Alice In Sunderland

    While I’m on the subject of graphic novels, I must mention Bryan Talbot’s Alice In Sunderland. Its subtitle is "An Entertainment" – and what an entertainment it is! A great fireworks display of a book – fizzing with ideas and connections over the history of Sunderland and the people who have strutted on its stage. If you’ve never dipped into a graphic novel, thinking that you left comic books behind with your childhood, then I do urge you to take a look at this. It will open your eyes and create sparks in your brain. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

  • Fun Home

    I mentioned Alison Bechdel’s biography of her family, and her father in particular, some while back. Now, Amanda Marcotte writes a review of the book (Fun Home) that is worth reading in itself.

  • Another National Treasure

    And talking of National Treasures, here’s someone else who I really do believe deserves that title, even if he, and many other people, would recoil at the idea. It’s Peter Tatchell. There’s a good profile of him in today’s Guardian.

  • A National Treasure

    That’s Victoria Wood. I’m pleased to say that she’s back on our TV screens at the moment with a series called Victoria’s Empire. Lucy Mangan’s review in The Guardian captures the same sense of pleasure that I felt watching it.

  • The Banana

    Although this seems like something that the Monty Python team would have produced, apparently it’s a deadly serious attempt to show how God has designed the banana for human consumption. Words fail me.
     
     
    Someone should tell the makers of this video that the culinary banana is the result of selective breeding by humans.  

  • Thank God For Sex

    Chris Clarke, over at Creek Running North, crystallises an astounding insight: Evolution is an epiphenomenon of sex.
     
    Extraordinary. I think I would probably say that rapid evolution is an epiphenomenon of sex, but nonetheless, it’s a staggering concept to ruminate on.

  • One Small Step

    There’s something about the current fad for celebrities wanting to spend $200,000 on a trip into space that I find faintly distasteful. Marina Hyde summed it up in her usual mordantly witty fashion here. However, I hold no such misgivings at the news that Stephen Hawking has recently taken the first step by experiencing a zero-G flight. He thoroughly deserves the experience.
     
     

  • Drowning in the Psyche

    The BBC recently had a short series of excellent documentaries on British Science Fiction: The Martians and Us. Here’s an extract devoted to the work of J. G. Ballard. It makes me want to re-read The Drowned World onceagain.
     
     
    (hat tip to Ballardian for the link) 

  • Pan and Daphnis

    Yes, both characters in Greek mythology, but also the names of two of Saturn’s many moons. There’s a stunning shot posted on the Cassini-Huygens web site showing the two moons and Saturn’s rings. You may need to view the high resolution image to see Daphnis clearly. Fabulous.

  • Darwin vs. Design

    Zachary Moore has an excellent essay over at Goosing The Antithesis that crystallises his argument why Intelligent Design is philosophy, rather than the science that it purports to be. Worth reading.

  • A Day Out

    I had a day out yesterday. An old colleague was retiring and I was invited to his farewell party in The Hague. So it was an opportunity to see him and the old firm, as well as a chance to browse around the bookshops.
     
    It takes about 2½ hours by train to get from the depths of the countryside (here) to The Hague (there). I couldn’t help but reflect that the closer I got to The Hague, the more the quality of the air visibly deteriorated, and the cause was equally obvious – lots of people living and working in a relatively small area. Whole tracts of what used to be open fields, even in my memory, are now built up with factories and housing.
     
    Still, I enjoyed my day out. It was good to see lots of familiar faces at the old firm, although many of them, like myself, have also retired.
     
    I also had a good bookshop browse and picked up a few bargains. And I found a brand new cookshop in The Hague’s newly restored Passage. DOK Cookware is a veritable Aladdin’s cave. Had I not been on foot and already carrying two bags of books on a hot day, I could have cheerfully stocked up on cooking paraphernalia from there. As it was, I couldn’t resist a cook’s blowtorch. Crème brûlée, here I come!

  • Cat’s Cradle Discussed

    There’s a good article by AC Grayling, which has been reposted over at the New Humanist Editor’s Blog. Entitled What’s Up With Physics? it is a view of the debate in physics around string theory, set in the context of Lee Smolin’s new book. Excellent stuff, and makes me want to know more about the debate.
     
    Aad, this is probably of interest to you too. 

  • A Japanese Dr. Sarton

    I was reminded of Asimov’s Caves of Steel when I read this story in today’s Guardian. Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro has designed a humanoid robot in his own image, just like the Dr. Sarton of Asimov’s tale. The news story is quite interesting, although my eyebrows raised at this:
    The close similarity between Dr Ishiguro and his robotic replica has caused some curious psychological effects, he said. "When the body of Geminoid is touched by somebody, I get very similar feelings of being touched," he said.
    I think Dr. Ishiguro needs to get out more. 

  • A Year In 13 Days

    Fascinating reports of the discovery of a potential water-bearing planet orbiting a star just 20 light years away. But the fact that really stretches my synapses is that a year on this planet lasts just 13 days. Birthdays must be a bit of a bore there.

  • Skeletons In The Closet

    I see that The Times today carries a story on the late Ted Heath, and the suggestion that he "propositioned men for sex". Whether that’s true or not, I have no way of knowing, but what I find faintly risible is that, even now, some of his friends will still publicly deny that he was gay, claiming that he "had close relationships with unmarried women". Well, I have "close relationships with (unmarried) women" as well, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I’m queer.
     
    I think a truer view of the matter is the portrait offered of Ted by Matthew Parris.

  • Flowering Teas

    Chinese Flowering Teas look intriguing. I must keep an eye out for them, but I doubt that my local Coop stocks them.
     
    (hat tip to Gastronomy Domine for the link)

  • Waiter, There’s A…

    …I’ll leave the rest unfinished. Desperately sad, but at least he was only a danger to himself.

  • The Children of Húrin

    That’s the title of the posthumous novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien, and now completed by his son, Christopher Tolkien. I’m uncertain whether to take the plunge and get it. On the one hand, we have a strong recommendation from Nicholas Whyte, but on the other, we have the digested read that appears in today’s Guardian. I suspect that the latter is probably closer to how I will find it.
     
    In my old age, I’m getting a bit tired of epic fantasy. I was recently recommended A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (what is it about these R.R. initials, anyway?). It wasn’t bad, but halfway through the second book I came down with fantasy fatigue. Endless pages of characters discussing their lineage, forsooth, doth not a gripping yarn make. Still, I battled on, and yes, there were places where my interest quickened. But what came as a really cold shower was the realisation that the author was churning out these books like there was no tomorrow (What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?). There are at least six books in the projected series, and I’m exhausted after three.
     
    Which makes me a trifle nervous about investing in the latest product from the Tolkien family.

  • Koninginnedag’s Coming

    Koninginnedag (the Queen’s Birthday) is celebrated in The Netherlands on the 30th April. Basically, it’s an excuse for a countrywide party. Already the preparations are underway. Last Friday evening, for example, Martin and I joined in with a small group of neighbours to create this piece of festive decoration. Similar pieces, done by other neighbourhood groups, are now popping up all around the area…
     
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