Here’s the second part of the speech that Daniel Dennett gave at the recent Atheist Alliance International conference. Thought-provoking stuff.
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Ayaan Hirshi Ali
If you haven’t read Hirshi Ali’s autobiography Infidel, then here’s a chance to see her telling part of her life’s story. Well worth watching. I never thought that something so mundane as the Nancy Drew stories could have such a far-reaching effect…Leave a comment
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Saturn
Phil, over at Bad Astronomer, has a post on the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Saturn probe: Cassini. Amazing images, new knowledge, and the killer sentiment:"That’s how we learn. That’s how we grow. And that’s what science does for us".Amen. It’s a pity that so many of us will seemingly retreat into the false fuzziness of woo…2 responses to “Saturn”
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Oh pish with your false fuzziness. In fact, the only people who call it warm and fuzzy are those who don’t seem to know about it. Me? I adore science and what it reveals, and I’m about as warm and fuzzy as a pissed off aligator.
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Thanks for putting me right about the link Geoff – don’t know where my head was at.
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Men And Their Members
Mark Hoofnagle, over at denialism blog, has a wickedly good post on the eternal search by the male of the species for tumescence. I particularly liked the lengths (as it were) that British physiologist Giles Brindley went to in order to demonstrate the efficaciousness of his research. Egad, sir, we British are afraid of nothing in the pursuit of scientific truth…One response to “Men And Their Members”
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Damn that was funny. The benefit of a particularly visual imagination helped.
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Autumn II
I’ve hardly blogged at all during the last week. We’ve had family visiting us from Scotland, so we’ve been showing them the sights. Here’s some of the things we saw…
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No Duality
Dr. Lisa Saksida explains that there is no such thing as mind/brain duality in this short video.(hat tip to Mind Hacks for the link)2 responses to “No Duality”
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Was there sound? Couldn’t get any.
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Er, yes, there was sound. Try downloading the file, or use the alternative format to see if that makes a difference…
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Well-Deserved
I see that Doris Lessing has won the Nobel prize for literature. It is well-deserved. To understand why, go and read this.Leave a comment
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Down The Toilet
What in heaven’s name has happened to The Observer? This was once a quality Sunday newspaper. But today it carries what at first glance seems to be a serious news story about forensic analysis. However, Ben Goldacre points out the facts. The journalists in question, Mark Townsend and Ned Temko should hang their heads in shame. Disgraceful, truly disgraceful.3 responses to “Down The Toilet”
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Also in the Independent (on Sunday) so maybe they have both copied it from some common handout. Doesn’t stop them checking their facts first though!
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Yes Geoff. My parents got The Observer every Sunday when I was growing up, and a good slightly different paper it was too. Now? It seems to be going the way of all else and scraping around the bottom of the toaster tray. They just did the same with the bookclub I belong(ed!) to for years – the only one worth the trouble. A new editor has come and turned it into some tabloid offering without a single book I desire. When I ‘phoned to cancel my membership they were surprised to find my reason was that the Q in the title of the club had stood for quality and now no longer did. Q seems to be vanishing all over.
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Hi Geoff,
I was just surfing around spaces and fell into here, I don’t like to leave without at least saying hi I, oh and the photographs below are brilliant.
Eth 🙂 x
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A Journey
Carolyn Porco takes us on a journey. Come along with me and wonder.2 responses to “A Journey”
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That was simply stunning. Heck I hope we get reincarnated – I want to see so much more..
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Cronenberg’s Worlds
There’s a good interview with David Cronenberg in today’s Guardian. Worth reading.Leave a comment
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Feeding Frenzy
A chance, in these last warm days of Autumn, to store energy for the final metamorphosis…
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An Ode To Autumn
2 responses to “An Ode To Autumn”
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Beautiful Geoff, you lived my spirits. You are, as I keep saying, a wonderful photographer
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It’s Gel btw, signed in on my other account
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Compare and Contrast
Joel turns over the iPod and the Zune and reads the fine print. What he says is, on one level, perfectly true. Apple captures a feeling and Microsoft just sucks in the attempt.But, on the other hand, the statements make me feel as though both marketing departments should be first up against the wall, come the revolution. They strike me as written by a bunch of tossers… Apple because they deliberately fuck with your brain, and Microsoft because they are so completely clueless.Leave a comment
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We Band of Brothers
James Anderson (Andy) Thomson gives a most thought-provoking talk on the motivations of suicide terrorists. Well worth watching.Leave a comment
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A New Party Game
I can’t resist passing on this idea for a new party game. The fact that I scored extra points for using the word turgidity has absolutely nothing to do with my enthusiasm. It’s simply a great game… honest.Leave a comment
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Winter’s Coming
One thing about having a large garden is that there’s always work to be done. As a result of the storm last January, we had a lot of wood that needed to be chopped into firewood. We spent a couple of days this week doing just that with the aid of a hydraulic cleaver hired from a neighbour, and a friend who spent a day with us toting wood in a wheelbarrow (thanks, Carolien!). She also took these photos…Here’s me using the cleaver…
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More Metadata Woes
I’ve mentioned before that managing my digital photos is not exactly problem free. I’ve just noticed the latest little problem.
For some reason, Microsoft’s Vista insists on lying to me about the time when a photo is taken. It tells me that the photo was taken one hour later than it actually was. Let me illustrate this. I have a photo that I know was taken at 08:16 am on the 23rd September 2007. I know this a) because I took the photo at that time and b) the EXIF information created by the camera and attached to the file says it was taken at 08:16am.
OK, so then I review my photos within Windows Live Photo Gallery, and I notice something odd. WLPG swears blind that the photo was taken at 09:16 am. Here’s the evidence:
Except it wasn’t. It was taken at 08:16 am. OK, so then I look at it with Vista’s Windows Explorer. This seems to have come down with schizophrenia: while the details pane at the bottom shows the incorrect time of 09:16 am, the cursor pop-up shows the correct time of 08:16am…
What on earth is going on here? Well, it turns out that I have installed Microsoft’s own Photo Info plugin onto my Vista. And Photo Info replaces Windows Explorer’s own cursor pop-up with its own more detailed pop-up. So Photo Info gets it right, but Windows Explorer gets it wrong? It certainly seems that way…
So, Microsoft’s Photo Info tells the truth, while Microsoft’s Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Explorer lie through their teeth. Wonderful. My suspicion is that the fact that we are currently in European summertime has something to do with all this. I wonder what I will find next month when we are back to wintertime?
The moral of the story is that bug-free software is as rare as hen’s teeth.
Update 6th October 2007: I think the cause has been tracked down. Photo Info seems to display the value of the EXIF metadata field for the date/time when the photo was taken. However, Vista’s Windows Explorer and Windows Live Photo Gallery doesn’t use this. Instead, they look at the XMP metadata field for the date/timestamp. Now, EXIF has a single absolute value, whereas XMP uses GMT plus a timezone offset. The XMP value had been written by IDimager – and the developer has acknowledged that Daylight Savings Time wasn’t being accounted for. That’s now been fixed, but I’ll wait to see what happens when we revert to Wintertime at the end of the month before I conclude that the issue has been resolved…
2 responses to “More Metadata Woes”
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[…] More Metadata Woes […]
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[…] More Metadata Woes […]
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Life’s Too Short
Geoff Arnold reminds me why I’ve stopped reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Life’s too short to waste on reading tosh like this. Geoff shows up the emptiness of it by quoting wise words from Frederick Crews.2 responses to “Life’s Too Short”
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And that’s exactly the point and what Geoff Arnold is incapable of understanding, either because he’s simplistic or won’t allow for a view that doesn’t match his own. Faith has nothing to do with empiricism and does not claim immunity from scepticism. That’s what Sully argues. Arnold is claiming apples to Sullivan’s oranges but he’s not thinking straight in approaching the argument from a vantage point Sullivan does not claim. Sullivan might have elaborated more on Jessica’s conception of sin, but it wouldn’t have made any difference to Geoff Arnold. The difference is telling: Arnold, like Dawkins, is certain in his dismissal of faith; Sullivan leaves room for doubt in his acceptance of faith. Personally, I’d rather go for the open mind.
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And that’s where we part company. An open mind is one thing, brain falling out, I’d rather not have.
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