Diamond Geezer lays out his proof that time travel doesn’t exist. It sounds pretty convincing to me, although there is that inverse effect of inflation to consider.
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The Age of Endarkenment
Continuing on the theme of the enemies of reason, here’s a good article by David Colquhoun that points out the evidence that woo is on the rise: the age of endarkenment. Essential reading.Leave a comment
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The Enemies of Reason
Good to see that Richard Dawkins’ latest series Enemies of Reason is available via Google Video already.The opening minute already had a laugh out loud moment for me as the camera panned across a roomful of people chanting and coming to rest on Dawkins sitting with a bemused expression on his face. Truly the epitome of the old "your intrepid reporter made his excuses and left" moment.And then there is the sight of Neil Spencer, the Observer’s Astrologer (oh, how a once mighty newspaper has fallen) refusing to accept that a scientific experiment to test the accuracy of astrology is anything other than mischief. No wonder he penned a cri de coeur in the Observer last Sunday. Of course, that still didn’t make it anything other than nonsense, but then what did I expect?And as for Satish Kumar, well, I’m sorry, but he must be the living proof of the danger of having too open a mind is that your brain falls out.Leave a comment
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The Evil of Flash
Very rarely, I come across a web site that uses Flash technology where I think: yes, that is good.Most of the time Flash is pure evil, and Flash developers should be lined up against a wall and shot. Tim Spalding gives chapter and verse on a case in point.Leave a comment
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Pop-Up Music
I’ve mentioned before that I have a weakness for Pop-Up books. This takes it one stage further. A brilliant piece of art made by Price James.Leave a comment
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Doctor Who – The History Mix
Here’s something that brings back memories to me – a mix of all the various versions of the Doctor Who theme tune. In the forty-odd years of the series, it’s interesting to hear how the versions reflect some of the musical fashions of the time; the "Telstar" influence is very prominent in one version. I’m not so sure about the slowed-down version of the theme; it sounds very bombastic and Nuremberg Rallyish to me.I hadn’t appreciated, until I saw the credits on this, that Delia Derbyshire was responsible for the orchestration and production of the very first version, which remains as startling today as it was all those years ago. She was a terrific composer and champion of electronic music. Her theme for another BBC series, about Tutankhamun’s Egypt, continues to haunt me*.* Unfortunately, at the time of writing, that music clip no longer seems to be available. Even though it is listed on this page, whoever is responsible for the page has put in the wrong hyperlink, so what you hear when you click on the "Tutankhamun’s Egypt" link is, in fact, Derbyshire’s "Music of the Spheres" piece.Leave a comment
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Why?
Today marks the 60th anniversary since the Partition of India. Last night I watched a documentary on BBC 2 about it: Partition: The Day India Burned. It’s worth seeing. Yes, it had the curse of drama reconstructions laid upon it, but those moments were thankfully outweighed by plenty of archive footage, and most importantly, eye-witness accounts told by Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and the British who were caught up in this terrible event. I hadn’t appreciated before that up to 15 million people were made homeless by the redrawing of the boundaries, and up to a million people were slaughtered.There were terrible moments relived by the eye-witnesses. One old man (who just before partition had been in jail for assault) was completely unrepentant about the fact that he had lost count of how many people he had killed with his sword, after all "they were trying to kill us". But for me the most dreadful part was when an elderly Sikh broke down as he told of the moment when, as a teenage boy, he watched his father behead his own sister to prevent her from being captured and raped by Muslims (such rapings, practised by all sides, were common). And his sister was not the only woman to be executed – all the womenfolk in his village were killed by their menfolk, and there were no struggles. The women went to their deaths quietly.The last word was given to another Sikh, whose grandfather had tried to persuade, unsuccessfully, the authorities to let Muslims continue living in harmony in their village. He said that as a young boy, who couldn’t understand why his boyhood friends had to leave, and neither did they. He said he asked "why" at the time, and now, 60 years later, he still asks the same question: "why?".Leave a comment
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The Ichneumonidae
Carl Zimmer writes on a topic that fascinates him (and me, in a toe-curling way): the life of parasites. This time, it’s the group of parasitoid wasps callen the Ichneumonidae that gets the Zimmer treatment. Eye-opening reading. Even Charles Darwin found this aspect of Nature red in tooth and claw a little unsettling: "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."2 responses to “The Ichneumonidae”
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Fascinating. I read his piece on the wasp whose stings redirects the neural responses in a cockroach’s brain, killing its motivation and turning it into a pliant zombie that the wasp then leads to its lair and where it waits quietly to be chewed on from the inside out.
James Blunt songs do that to me. -
I don’t think that I have ever knowingly heard a James Blunt song. I don’t even know what he looks like. Perhaps I should keep it that way.
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Cloud Cover
I managed to have an hour outside on Saturday night with a clear sky in which to see the Perseids. Despite the claims that the meteor shower has a broad peak, in that hour I only managed to spot 15 meteors, and five of those weren’t Perseids. In fact, one of the five was the most spectacular of the night – a slowish-moving meteor with a double fireball as it fell.Last night was the peak of the Perseids. And of course, last night the clouds rolled in. In 90 minutes of frustrated viewing, peering through the occasional clear patch, I managed to see just two Perseids. So much for the predicted 60-80 per hour. At least I’m not the only one who was frustrated; Justin didn’t seem to have much fun either. But at least I didn’t have to put up with a shower of idiots on the ground as he did, just the occasional screech of an owl, and the croak of a frog or two.Leave a comment
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Neighbourhood Bike Ride
Yesterday, Martin and I went out on a 40 Km bike ride with forty other neighbours, young and old. It’s an annual event organised by three of our neighbours, who plan the route, including stops at cafés along the way, and who shepherd their flock safely throughout. It’s a great day out, a chance to socialise with the neighbours while enjoying pleasant scenery along the way.
10 responses to “Neighbourhood Bike Ride”
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How beautiful! And the cornflowers are lovely. But tell me: what is all that bright light and where does it come from? We don’t have that down in Belgium. Is it the flash on your camera? Great effect!
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How beautiful! And the cornflowers are lovely. But tell me: what is all that bright light and where does it come from? We don’t have that down in Belgium. Is it the flash on your camera? Great effect!
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How beautiful! And the cornflowers are lovely. But tell me: what is all that bright light and where does it come from? We don’t have that down in Belgium. Is it the flash on your camera? Great effect!
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How beautiful! And the cornflowers are lovely. But tell me: what is all that bright light and where does it come from? We don’t have that down in Belgium. Is it the flash on your camera? Great effect!
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How beautiful! And the cornflowers are lovely. But tell me: what is all that bright light and where does it come from? We don’t have that down in Belgium. Is it the flash on your camera? Great effect!
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How beautiful! And the cornflowers are lovely. But tell me: what is all that bright light and where does it come from? We don’t have that down in Belgium. Is it the flash on your camera? Great effect!
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oh heck, not again. Sorry!
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oh heck, not again. Sorry!
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oh heck, not again. Sorry!
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You’ve clearly got some sort of echo effect on your computer… As for the bright light – we were really lucky with Sunday; one of the few days of Summer that we’ve had this year. Today it’s quite pleasant, but heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow… So I must finish cutting the headge today, and try not to fall off the ladder again…
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Pepys’ Slide-rule
I didn’t know, but apparently Samuel Pepys was a 17th century geek; besotted with his slide-rule. I learn something new every day.Leave a comment
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The Unlightenment
Charlie Brooker has a real talent for rants. His latest on Woo is a masterpiece…Welcome to a dangerous new era – the Unlightenment – in which centuries of rational thought are overturned by idiots. Superstitious idiots. They’re everywhere – reading horoscopes, buying homeopathic remedies, consulting psychics, babbling about "chakras" and "healing energies", praying to imaginary gods, and rejecting science in favour of soft-headed bunkum. But instead of slapping these people round the face till they behave like adults, we encourage them. We’ve got to respect their beliefs, apparently.Well I don’t. "Spirituality" is what cretins have in place of imagination. If you’ve ever described yourself as "quite spiritual", do civilisation a favour and punch yourself in the throat until you’re incapable of speaking aloud ever again. Why should your outmoded codswallop be treated with anything other than the contemptuous mockery it deserves?Preach it, Charlie, my boy!2 responses to “The Unlightenment”
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Seems to me he could do with a dose of Sanatogen. Why is it not possible for Spirituality to be the by-product of a curious mind, indeed a function of the imagination? To have a spiritual aspect of oneself doesn’t preclude rationality and enlightenment, it’s simply another way to seek understanding. It’s not having all the answers, rather the journey to those answers and that sometimes means, if you are wise, recasting the questions. I have an inherent distrust of absolutes and all Mr. Brookeris doing is touting another absolute.
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I’m all for recasting questions, but I’m dead set against woo. Frankly, I’m with Charlie; I don’t see "spirituality" as a good thing when it is equated with woo. How do you define "spirituality"? It’s clearly something other than what I understand by it. I get teary at a good sunset, but I certainly wouldn’t make a religion out of it…
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Meat Paste Sandwiches
Clearly, I’m approaching my sell-by date. I am old enough to recall those little glass pots of meat paste, and I honestly did enjoy levering up the little tongue of metal that released the metal seal around the top, before levering off the lid to expose the full glory of the meat paste waiting to be spread on my sarnies.Not so, Harry Pearson. To him, the glories and subtleties of meat paste remind him of the stuff ‘made from the bits dog food manufacturers reject because it is "a tad too stinky"’.What a fool. Clearly he is a young whippersnapper, unable to appreciate what we went through in our youth.3 responses to “Meat Paste Sandwiches”
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You can still get this stuff here – not sure about the metal tongue, but the little glass jars? sure.
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I’ll have to look out for them the next time I’m in the UK…
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Meat paste sarnies were my staple as a poor student on teaching practice (and not that long ago!)
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Louis CK Learns About Catholicism
If you enjoy the type of humour that infuses Jerry Springer: The Opera, then I think that you will enjoy this. If, however, you have a sensitive skin, then don’t watch it – you’ll be offended. Me? I laughed like a drain, but then I’m a pervert.3 responses to “Louis CK Learns About Catholicism”
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Ouch! Yeah, funny. But also, as with the best comedy – painfully true. Loved the bit where the guy asks him did he ever get fucked by his priest as a boy and he suddenly remembers – and the little tear on his face. Right on.
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The ever-present ability of the human species to screw up its members never fails to fill me with despair. Laughter has to be the only sane response in the face of such madness and evil
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Well I was raised Catholic, and I thought that was just sick, sick, sick, I laughed my cock off.
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Out of Jail
A couple of months back, I blogged about the news that biologist Marc van Roosmalen had been jailed by the Brazilian authorities for 16 years for allegedly failing to apply for a license to keep 28 monkeys at his home. Well, there’s some good news; he’s apparently been freed from jail while awaiting his appeal to come to trial.I still think that there is something odd going on. Van Roosmalen doesn’t deny that he was looking after the 28 monkeys, but he claims that it was the Brazilian authorities themselves who asked him to do so after they had been confiscated from poachers… I also notice that the Dutch authorities are claiming that because van Roosmalen has been naturalised as a Brazilian citizen, they can’t do anything for him. Odd, since van Roosmalen still holds a valid Dutch passport, and a Brazilian living in the Netherlands can hold dual Dutch and Brazilian nationality…3 responses to “Out of Jail”
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Seems monkeys are in the news, well, Marmosets anyway: http://www.nbc6.net/news/13844253/detail.html?rss=ami&psp=news
so much for security – I couldn’t smuggle a bottle of water past my guys. -
The Vienna Convention stipulates that in the case of dual nationals, the nationality of jurisdiction takes precedence. Van Roosmalen isn’t a Dutchman travelling abroad in this case; he’s a Brazilian at home. Thus Dutch Consular Services have no jurisdiction.
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Corboró, ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.
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Perseids Ahead
This weekend sees the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. More information here.Leave a comment
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Copenhagen
Tonight saw the last part of Jim Al-Khalili’s stunning three-part series on BBC Four on atomic physics. It was excellently done. But the main reason for this blog entry is that I happened to watch the film adaptation of Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen beforehand. I’d not seen this before, and I am completely bowled over by it. It is, on the face of it, a simple three-hander; three actors playing the Danish atomic physicist, Niels Bohr, his wife, and the German atomic physicist Werner Heisenberg. It is based on a brief meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in Copenhagen during 1941, and Frayn has used this simple fact to spin a marvelous exploration of human motivation and potential outcomes.The film adaptation is very well done, and the actors are top notch: Stephen Rea, Daniel Craig and Francesca Annis. Absolutely superb, and the implications of what might have happened in the meeting are mind-blowing. If you haven’t seen this film, go forth and do so at the earliest opportunity. Simply amazing.3 responses to “Copenhagen”
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I saw Copenhagen on stage in Washington a few years ago. It was in a small theatre in the Kennedy Center, I think, and the audience not far from the the stage. Such intimacy lent itself to the play, making the sadness and horror that much more immediate. Very powerful. With that cast, though, I’m going to look out for that film.
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I see from Amazon.co.uk that it’s available on DVD, but unfortunately only in crap Region 1/NTSC encoding. I don’t have a multi-regional DVD player…
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You can sometimes get local dealers to encode your player for multizones, depending on the make. Otherwhise, i can get you one….
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Unsettling
Even though I don’t suffer from coulrophobia, I found this picture to be rather unsettling. It brought back memories of the fun Larry Cohen film It’s Alive! back to me, although without the black humour. The reality behind the picture is more akin to the quiet horror brought to our attention by Zuzu…Leave a comment
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Human Stories
Chris Abani perfectly illustrates the power of stories to make us reflect on our humaness.Leave a comment
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