Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2008

  • A Hit, A Palpable Hit

    So there I was, meandering around the blogs today as is my wont, and I come across Charles Darwin raising a well-deserved eyebrow at the news that the UK government has embarked on a solicitation exercise to empower society to have its say about science. I know, I know, it freezes the braincells even to imagine the trainwreck that will inevitably ensue. However, be that as it may, I was most taken by the comment from Henry Gee on this news. To my mind, he has gone straight to the heart of the matter. And as a result, I have now discovered Mr. Gee’s most excellent blog, which I shall endeavour to read forthwith.

  • Get It While It’s Hot

    I mentioned that Joss Whedon has returned with a sing-along blog: Dr. Horrible. What I didn’t realise is that it will only remain up on the web for a few days, so if you haven’t seen this musical in three acts, get thee hence before it’s gone. I thought act II was the strongest both musically and visually, although the dénouement of act III certainly has its ironical moments.

  • Sticking in the Mind

    Thomas M. Disch committed suicide on the Fourth of July. I meant to comment on it at the time, but the moment slipped by. I was sure that I have certainly read some of his work, but checking in my library turned up only The M.D., not, I think, his best work. That is often reckoned to be Camp Concentration, but I don’t currently possess a copy, and I’m not sure that I have ever read it.
     
    So the fact that I only seemed to have one example of his work, and the fact that he is often spoken of in the same breath as Samuel Delaney (whose work is well represented in my collection), surprised me somewhat. Then, a chance remark by Neil Gaiman on his blog made me realise that I had read at least one of his short stories. I read Descending probably forty years ago, and the final image continues to haunt me. It is an unstoppable engine of a story. Go and read it – it won’t take long – and see whether you can ever rid yourself of it. I know that I haven’t. Perhaps the horrible power of that story scared me off from wanting to read too much more of Mr. Disch.

  • A State Funeral

    I see that the joker Harry Phibbs is back to lend his support to the disgusting idea that Margaret Thatcher should be given a State Funeral. You can tell that I don’t agree with that.
     
    I think I’m more in line with the surreal thoughts of Steve Bell on this one. His current series of If… strips playing upon the idea of Gordon Brown as Heathcliff and Margaret Thatcher as an evil zombie are closer to the mark of the respect that I feel for her.

  • The Periodic Table

    The Periodic Table of Videos is an entertaining collection of short videos, each devoted to describing one of the elements of the periodic table. Try the one on Sodium (Na) to see what I mean. Charmingly amateurish, good boyish fun and complete with the perfect image of a mad professor.
     
     

  • It’s Time To Automate…

    I’ve seen some wacky advertising in my time – but this takes the biscuit… Please tell me it’s a joke?
     
     
     
    (hat tip to The Intersection)

  • Mamma Mia!

    Mark Kermode reviews films on a BBC radio show every Friday. I always make a point of listening to them, since the good Doctor is very good value. Here he is reviewing Mamma Mia!… skip to about four minutes in when he revs up the engines and drops the clutch on the review… The QE2 quip is a classic…
     
       

  • Pull Yer Pants Up

    I had visions of Flying Toasters during this.
     
     
     
    Just one thing – I refuse to download iTunes, so this Flash version is all that I will experience.

  • In My Day…

    …we understood engineering. Whoever was responsible for letting this advert (doubtless produced by meeja-studies graduates) loose into the real world should be downright ashamed of themselves. Students of the London South Bank University hopefully are feeling abashed. Me, I would probably be calling for someone’s blood. Clue: this geartrain cannot move, thus rendering it totally fucking pointless…

  • Mistempered Weapons

    Rachel has a brilliant entry on her blog where she writes about the appeal of knives and the predictable results when it’s mixed with human emotions, particularly those of a teenager "awash with hormones and insecurities, dreamy and silly and hyper-sensitive to the pettiest slight". Go and read it, and then come back here. Go on, I’ll wait.
     
    Good piece, wasn’t it? Now, while you’re digesting it, I’ll tell you something. Last Monday evening, we were out working in the garden. We heard the sound of a moped passing the end of the drive. To our astonishment, we also heard the sound of its teenage rider yelling "Homo! Homo!" as he passed by. I was instantly seized by an adrenaline rush and became extremely angry. For a moment there, if I had been in a position to do so, I am sure I would have dragged the young oik off his bike and given him a good thrashing. So it is not just teenagers who can be hyper-sensitive. Still, I would like to look that boy in the face and ask him why he was being such a wanker.

  • Switching on the LHC

    We’re getting closer to the time when the Large Hadron Collider becomes fully operational. Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy, points us towards this web cartoon that pretty much summarises the gamut of reactions to this. I also like the artist’s statement below the cartoon. Extract:
    The U.S. was to have built such a supercollider in Texas, but congress cancelled funding for it back in 1993. Science is one of the stupider things I can think of to get jingoistic about—it’s up there with art as one of the great collaborative intergenerational human undertakings–but it still disappoints me that my own country, which split the atom and landed a man on the moon, decided it didn’t have the money to resolve some of the profoundest questions about the nature of reality but did manage to come up with funds for the destruction of Iraq. This seems to me kind of like not being able to afford music lessons for your daughter but somehow always having enough cash on hand to buy cocaine every weekend. 

  • Happy Families

    An extraordinary interview with the writer Paul Abbott in today’s Guardian. The term dysfunctional doesn’t even come close to describing his family background. At least he managed to escape.

  • The Doctor Cometh

    I see that Joss Whedon returns next week with a sing-along blog: Dr. Horrible. What’s not to like? Whedon’s work (Buffy, Firefly, Serenity) always struck me as a cut above the usual pap we see on the haunted fishtank or the silver screen. I’m curious to see what he will do with the Web.

  • The Chill of Costume

    David Thompson, over at, er, David Thompson, has a nice piece on the work of Steve Schofield and his photographs of British Science Fiction fans who like to dress up in the costumes of their favourite characters. There’s a bittersweet technicolor Diane Arbus quality about them, though, like Thompson, I’m not convinced about the spin Schofield puts on them. Frankly, I don’t care if they do dress up as American cultural SF icons. It’s also quite clear that some Americans simply don’t understand our own home-grown ones. And they never will, ha ha ha.

  • Head-Wall-Head-Wall II

    A discussion between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins. My take? I wish that I had the patience of Job that Dawkins exhibits. Were I there, I would be slapping Lennox with a fish within ten minutes. What an absolute wanker. If this is the best "evidence" that a Christian can offer, then why in god’s name does anyone believe this tripe?
     
    It’s interesting that others are saying that Dawkins should not have taken the tactic of letting Lennox simply hang himself (as he clearly does), because believers will simply delude themselves that Lennox has "won" the "debate". I also think that this is probably true. Dawkins also concedes the possiblility, but points to the one who will follow him. Apparently, Christopher Hitchens will debate Lennox next month. Dawkins and I both look forward to that conversation.  

  • Language and the Brain

    A commonly-held view is that the human brain has evolved mechanisms that enable it to deal with language – and hence children demonstrate remarkable facilty for learning language at very young ages. But now comes a new proposal that states, in effect, that languages have adapted to the capabilities of the brain. It’s intriguing. More on this can be found over at the Babel’s Dawn blog, complete with a link to a 62 page draft of the paper laying out the proposal. Gulp.

  • All in the Mind

    An interesting episode of the Australian radio series on science: All in the Mind, which deals with out-of-the-body experiences. I’ve only ever had one of those in my life, and it was both interesting initially and somewhat scary once I realised what I was experiencing. 
     
    (hat tip to Mind Hacks for the link)

  • Magnetic Movie

    Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy, draws our attention to this mesmerising visualisation of the magnetic fields that surround us all the time. Nicely done.
     

  • Turning The Tables

    I never seem to get these gentlemen on the doorstep – it’s always the other kind…

  • The Annotated Turing

    Jeff Atwood, over at Coding Horror, draws my attention to The Annotated Turing, by Charles Petzold. Sounds interesting. Alongside Andrew Hodges’ magisterial biography of Turing, this looks to be a worthwhile exploration of the man’s work.  It is just somewhat depressing that, judging from the comments on Atwood’s post, even now the fact that Turing was gay brings the bigots out of the woodwork.