Someone is thinking… I just hope that, indeed, 2000 years from now someone will be making fun of us… Then it will have been all worth while…
(hat tip to Pharyngula)
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali
There’s an interview with Hirsi Ali in today’s Observer. It’s worth reading.Leave a comment
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Clutter
Another quiz. I seem to have absorbed more than is strictly relevant. Well, let me rephrase that. I treat it as having as much relevance as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Interesting as folklore, but unlikely to be strictly accurate.You know the Bible 92%!Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses – you know it all! You are fantastic!
4 responses to “Clutter”
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That’s too easy you should try:
http://www.gotoquiz.com/the_bible_quiz_of_greater_ultimacy
which is almost totally impossible – even I only managed 50%!
(why can’t you comment with firefox here – well I know why but it annoys!) -
Hi, Robert. I confess that I did think that the quiz was a tad simple. I’ll try your suggestion, but don’t hold out much hope for my chances. And as for the comment gotcha – I have my Space set to only allow comments from folks with a vaild Windows Live ID (aka Microsoft Passport) in order to restrict Spam.
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Yes it works now – didn’t when I tried this morning (when logged in) – it just wouldn’t let me type in the comment box, very strange
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Yes it was significantly more difficult. I got only 18%, and that was with more than a few guesses…
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What’s Sauce For The Goose…
Justin, over at Chicken Yoghurt, points out that New Labour only gets steamed up about dawn raids in certain cases… But somehow, unlike Justin, I don’t think that it will teach the people concerned to have a little humility – not when Tony clearly doesn’t understand it himself.Leave a comment
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The Exponential Function
And in a related post to the maths underlying the report on global warming, here’s Dr. Albert Bartlett talking about Arithmetic, Population and Energy. As he says: I hope to be able to convince you that the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.Leave a comment
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To Hell In A Handcart
So, the first volume of the fourth IPCC assessment report has been published. And it doesn’t make for comfortable reading. As Oliver Burkeman nicely puts it:This is how the world ends: not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with a PowerPoint presentation.It’s also sobering to learn that bribes of up to $10,000 each were offered to scientists to undermine the findings of the report. Frankly, I’m not confident that sufficient political action will be taken to head off even the worst case scenario of the report. Already, the US Administration is pulling back. In a way, I’m rather grateful that I won’t live to see the changes beyond the initial stages, but I do fear for what succeeding generations are going to have to face.2 responses to “To Hell In A Handcart”
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In a speech in Toronto in May of 2001, Dick Cheney opined that, "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." He went on to say that the American way of life was not negotiable. In light of your posting and the approach of his sixth grandchild (who shoulders the awesome responsibility of blowing a hole in his grandfather’s political ship below the waterline), I wonder how he faces his personal virtue in the shaving mirror each morning as he lets the hot water run.
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Cognitive dissonance at work again is perhaps how he does it. But of course, he’s not the only one – the report on the news here last night was about the attempts by the EU to bring in statutary regulations to reduce carbon emissions on cars to 120 gm/km. Naturally it was scuppered by ministers (riding around in the BMWs that produce 270 gm/km) representing the interests of the car industry… Well, there’s a surprise then.
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The Race Is On
There’s been a project called the Knowledge Web going on for some time now. It’s a project driven by the James Burke Institute. All very worthy, but I can’t help feeling it’s doomed to fail. It seems to me that it is trying to put in place a semantic web of connections between knowledge facts. And it is doing this by starting from ground zero, and building up.This may turn out to be its failure.There is already a large collection of knowledge facts. It’s called Wikipedia. And what if there were a way of placing a semantic web over this that would be easily navigable? Is that not the same as what the Knowledge Web claims to be trying to do? If it is, then the Wikipedia Explorer may be something that has just overtaken the Knowledge Web with one bound. Standing on the shoulders of giants is usually more efficient than building everything from scratch.Leave a comment
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A Deep Respect
Once again, Tony Blair displays why it is that he deserves no respect. In an interview today he stated:He had "a deep respect for the British people and it’s been an honour and privilege to lead them".Er, Tony, a true man of the people would have said "it’s been an honour and privilege to serve them". That’s what my father, a member of the Manx parliament, would have said. You have merely confirmed how wrong I was to put my trust in you.Leave a comment
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Pomposity Pricked
I mentioned a few days ago that I had read an attack by Pascal Bruckner on Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash, whom he accused in turn of attacking Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I said at the time that I found Bruckner’s piece shrill and over the top.Well, via the editor of the New Humanist’s blog, I learn that Buruma and Garton Ash have both replied. And frankly, their replies confirm my original impression that Bruckner is a bit of a wanker. Well, quelle surprise…Leave a comment
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Plus Ca Change
In 1995, I bought a book called Prayers For Bobby. It is the true story of a mother’s coming to terms with the suicide of her gay son. I thought of that book today when I read Terrance’s post about another gay son. Go and read it. Plus ça change…Leave a comment
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Total Immersion
I mentioned the software company Total Immersion and their D’FUSION product some time ago. They’re still around, and apparently doing well in certain markets. Here’s a presentation that they gave at the DEMO conference this week. Very impressive.BTW, if you’re an elderly Brit, like me, you may remember Michael Bentine’s It’s A Square World on BBC TV. Do you remember his wall graph that came to life? I think I’ve just seen the 3D version in Total Immersion’s tabletop town…Leave a comment
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Indoctrination
Dear lord, this is depressing. I have news for the young man who thinks he’s going to win a Nobel prize. Not in this universe, sunshine.2 responses to “Indoctrination”
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I know somewhere Jesus said "suffer little children" but ye gods, I didn’t think they took it "that" seriously…….
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As the saying goes, "a mind is a terrible thing to waste". But to see adults deliberately wasting these young minds takes it to a whole new level. Very, very sad.
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Nothing Can Go Wrong…
Good to see that robots can still be defeated by stairs… I love the folding screens bit. Do you think that is standard equipment? Buy Asimo, and get your free folding screen…Leave a comment
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Do Gorillas Believe in Gods?
An interesting article that is an interview with anthropologist Barbara J. King. Some good stuff, but I don’t buy the last bit. I’m surprised that she doesn’t appear to understand that a virus does not have an independent life – it relies on the host to do the work of replication.Leave a comment
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A Challenge
Explain String Theory in two minutes or less. Good luck, you’ll need it.Leave a comment
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Turbine Placements
Pruned has an intriguing post about a proposal by Mark Oberholzer to install Darrieus wind turbines into motorway barriers. The idea is that the wind from passing cars will drive the turbines and generate electricity. I can’t help feeling that you would have to choose the motorway carefully. Any traffic jams, and it’s not only the cars that would come to a stop, but also the possibility of power generation.Leave a comment
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You Are What You Read
Here’s a bit of computer fun. A photomosaic of myself composed of bookcovers of books that I have in my library…
Click on the image above, and then by clicking on the "All Sizes" icon, you can see the full-size original.(image created by AndreaMosaic, from book images catalogued for my library by Librarything)Leave a comment
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Do I Need Windows Vista?
Just over a year ago, I wrote a post entitled: Why Do I Need Windows Vista? In it, I predicted that when Windows Vista was released, I would find that some of my PC hardware would not be supported, because the manufacturers would not be releasing Vista drivers. I reported problems with my soundcard, webcam, and video capture device, as well as with application software such as Steinberg’s Cubase SX2.
So, now that Vista is released, what’s the current state of play?
Well, the soundcard still doesn’t work. Actually, I have two soundcards on my machine – and neither of them work. One is the E-MU 1820M, which together with the E-MU Emulator X software, forms a major component of my music workstation. The other is a Creative Technology Audigy 2 soundcard. And, what a surprise (he said ironically), neither card has a set of working drivers for Vista. The E-MU card has neither a Vista driver, nor a Vista version of the Emulator X software as yet. The company is supposedly working on them, but, come on guys, Vista’s here, and you’ve yet to release even beta versions of your software… Creative Technology has at least got beta drivers out for Vista. The trouble is, they are very poor quality. The customer discussion forum for Windows Vista of Creative Technology is currently glowing white-hot with angry reactions from CT’s customers, and I can understand why. CT has long had a certain reputation for having good hardware with terrible software. For myself, I can certainly say that I never intend to purchase another CT product if I can possibly avoid it.
The webcam is a Logitech product, and good news on that front, Logitech have released drivers for Vista, and the webcam works.
The video capture device is an Adaptec VideOh! DVD Media Center USB 2.0 Edition (who dreams up these terrible names?), and guess what? Adaptec won’t be supporting this under Vista, not now and not never. It is a dead product.
And what about Steinberg? Ah, Steinberg, another company that customers love to hate, and not without good reason. As predicted, Steinberg is not going to support Cubase SX2 on Vista – or SX3, for that matter, apparently. Nope, only their newest product, Cubase 4, will be supported on Vista. Oh, and Cubase 4 users seem to be up to their necks wrestling with bugs. As well as software from Steinberg, I also have a Steinberg Midex 8 MIDI interface as part of my music workstation. Another bad move on my part – Steinberg won’t be supporting this under Vista, not now and not never. It is a dead product. They can’t even release the hardware specs for Open Source folks to take a crack at developing drivers, because of contractual reasons.
Oh, and I also have a Wacom ArtPad pen tablet. Guess what? Yup, Wacom won’t be supporting this under Vista, not now and not never. It is a dead product.
So, out of five pieces of hardware, only one is currently supported under Vista, and a further two might be, if I’m lucky. And for the two major pieces of music software that I own (neither of which were what I would call cheap), one of them (Cubase SX2) is not going to be supported (and an upgrade to the supported Cubase 4 is €220), while the other one (Emulator X) may be supported in the future. More likely, though, is that I will need to upgrade to the latest version, Emulator X2, at a cost of €80.
As I said a year ago, I suspect I’m going to be soldiering on with Windows XP for quite some time.
2 responses to “Do I Need Windows Vista?”
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This is exactly why I will stay dual booted with XP. Right from the word go I suspected that Steinberg wouldn’t support various versions of Cubase on Vista so dual booting was really the only way to go.
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Sigh, yes, dual-booting might be a way forward, but it’s very disruptive… Inevitably, I always find myself in the wrong environment when something comes up that I need to check out…
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