There was an interesting article in the Guardian recently about the current state of face recognition technology. Imagine being able to ask a Google-like service to search through the images on the internet for a face that matches yours, or somewhat more worryingly, a face that matches someone who you are trying to track down. The privacy implications strike me as being of concern. If you want to try this out for yourself, then a Swedish company – Polar Rose – is offering a beta to plug into your browser. I note that Google has also bought a company specialising in image recognition last year, so something similar may be being worked on there.
-
Even Apeldoorn Bellen…
The Sea Launch rocket that blew up on liftoff yesterday was apparently carrying a Dutch telecommunications satellite. Hope they were insured. As the Dutch say: even Apeldoorn bellen (just ring Apeldoorn).Leave a comment
-
Stroke of Insight
The older I get, the more likely it is that I will have a stroke. Apparently, the risk of having a stroke more than doubles each decade after the age of 55. Here’s a link to a fascinating interview with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, who had a stroke and who describes the experience.Leave a comment
-
Browsing Books
I see, via an article in today’s Guardian, that the British Library, in conjuction with Microsoft, has released a new version of the browser application that enables you to read its most glorious books online. This version requires you to have Windows Vista, and a graphics card that is capable of running the Aero interface.I have to say that the results are stunning. Looking at the Luttrell Psalter, for example, is a revelation. As you turn the pages, you can see the sheen on the gold leaf wax and wane. And you can move the book in three dimensions to show how the light catches the pigment on the pages.For those of us without Vista and Aero, there is also a Shockwave version of the application, but this is very dull by comparison. The Psalter, for example, has none of the richness of colour that shines through in the Vista version. This application gives a glimpse of the sort of user interfaces that are likely to be emerging on Vista over the next couple of years. Impressive.Leave a comment
-
The Art of Robert McCall
Robert McCall is an artist who has specialised in scenes of space exploration or views of imaginary worlds. I became aware of his work in 1968 when the posters for 2001 – A Space Odyssey went up; Kubrick commissioned the poster art from him. McCall’s web site is here. I see that the artwork of the 2001 space station and the spaceship Orion is there (and I had an original poster of this, which, alas, has got lost over the course of the years). One, to me, surprising omission from his web site is the artwork he did of the interior of the spaceship Discovery. You can see it here (it’s the third painting down). That poster, at least, I have still got. It hangs in the library.Leave a comment
-
Predatory Mites
The Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics tells us that more than 7 billion predatory mites were released in greenhouses in 2004 to combat thrips and other pests. Pie charts and bar charts are here. Just thought you’d like to know.Leave a comment
-
Goodbye PixVue
I’ve been using PixVue to edit metadata on my digital photos for a couple of years now. It’s been a good piece of software, all the more remarkable in that it was free. It had a few limitations – it didn’t support the emerging metadata standard of IPTC4XMP, and it didn’t run on Windows Vista. But I thought I’d keep an eye on the web site to see whether Eamonn Coleman, the developer, would be bringing out a new version.Alas, when I visited the site today, this is what I found. (Note: at the time, there was a notice to say that the software was no longer being developed. The website has now been taken down completely)Say it isn’t so…2 responses to “Goodbye PixVue”
-
That’s a real shame – over the last few months I have really become used to having Pixvue and now it’s gone 😦
-
Well, you can still use it on Windows XP, but there won’t be a Vista version coming out.
Leave a comment
-
-
The Big Picture
While this is "Art", it’s also a statistical view of society. Running the Numbers. Interesting.Leave a comment
-
Jim Gray is Missing
I hope that this does not turn out to be bad news. Jim Gray has accomplished a lot in his life. I hope he will continue to do so.Leave a comment
-
Our Maddy of the Sorrows
I confess that almost anything that Madeleine Bunting writes usually has me rolling my eyes by the second paragraph. And that’s on a good day. Some of the pieces from Our Maddy of the Sorrows have been known to push me close to apoplexy. It’s really not good for either my sanity or my health. In June 2006, it was announced that she would be leaving the Guardian to take up the post of Director at the Think-Tank, Demos. Pausing only to wonder whether Demos would have to re-christen itself to be a Belief-Tank, I did permit myself a sigh of relief that I’d no longer be reading her rubbish in the Guardian.Alas, a mere six weeks after taking up the post, Demos announced her resignation, and she scuttled back to the Guardian. I wonder whether we’ll ever learn the true story behind that. The Demos press release is intriguing:Since it has emerged that her vision for Demos is incompatible with that of the trustees, she has decided to focus on her interests as a writer and a thinker at this point in her career. She will resume her regular column in the Guardian and her position as Associate Editor…That’s the trouble with incompatible visions, always causing problems for someone or other.Anyway, she’s back, writing the kind of article that we have come to expect. I was going to comment on it, but I see that a far better class of fisking has been delivered by Opehlia Benson, over at ButterfliesAndWheels, and J. Carter Wood at Obscene Desserts. Go and read them and sorrow at our Maddy.Oh, and J. Carter Wood amplifies on something that struck me when reading AC Grayling’s retort to Bunting; that Grayling could be said to have delivered a hostage to fortune with the lax wording of his challenge. Fortunately, J. Carter Wood tightens up the challenge, and demonstrates that the essential point is that the religious have a distressing tendency to insist that their holy books must be right when science points out a discrepancy.Leave a comment
-
Hobbit Redux
Along with a passion for parasites, Carl Zimmer also has a fondness for Homo floresiensis (hobbits). He summarises the current state of play in the scientific controversy that’s currently underway. Let’s hope that now the cave is open for business once more, we will see evidence emerging that will tip the scales one way or the other.Leave a comment
-
Bruckner on Hirsi Ali et al…
Via the blog of the editor of the New Humanist, I’ve come across a defence of Ayaan Hirsi Ali by Pascal Bruckner against the "attacks" on her by Timothy Garton Ash and Ian Buruma. I must admit I found Bruckner’s piece somewhat shrill.While I haven’t got the writings of Garton Ash to hand that Bruckner quotes, I do have a copy of "Murder in Amsterdam" by Buruma that Bruckner uses as evidence of the attack on Hirsi Ali. And I have to say that I don’t recognise the portrait of Buruma that Bruckner paints from it. I thought that Buruma portrayed Hirsi Ali very sympathetically, even when he mentions what he sees as her shortcomings. His writing about the events and the participants are rounded and humane. I don’t think the same could be said of Bruckner:It is her wilful, short-fused, enthusiastic, impervious side to which Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash object, in the spirit of the inquisitors who saw devil-possessed witches in every woman too flamboyant for their tastes.Er, I’m sorry? As I said, Bruckner’s piece strikes me as being shrill and makes it difficult to be receptive to his argument. I felt as though I was being hectored by someone shouting in my ear and waving his arms about wildly…Leave a comment
-
Cold Turkey
I’ve been fortunate enough never to have had to take anti-depressants in my life. The real kicker appears to be when people stop taking them, as Holly Finch has found out.2 responses to “Cold Turkey”
-
I was put on a drug one time, and it was only an hour or so after I took it that I started to feel bad. I woke in the night convinced I was, literally, on fire, and my heart was going like a hamster’s on speed. I binned it. Later on, it was implicated in increased suicide bids in young people. Coming off a drug can be worse than what it was meant to save you from.
-
I see that tonight’s Panorama is devoted to the topic. Worrying stuff.
Leave a comment
-
-
Maths Equation
And now, courtesy of xkcd.com, the Romantic Drama Equation. Seems pretty logical to me.Leave a comment
-
A Date for your Diary?
Somehow, Las Vegas feels like the perfect choice of location for this: an International Alchemy Conference. A place (built by profits transmuted from the hopeless dreams of people who fail to acknowledge that the house always wins) hosting a conference for the hopeless dreams of people who fail to acknowledge that alchemy is nonsense. I foresee more profits for the house.(hat tip to Les over at Stupid Evil Bastard)Leave a comment
-
Mission Impossible
On the day before Microsoft has a collective orgasm over the introduction of Windows Vista, how could I resist this old promotional video for Windows 386…?Leave a comment
-
Lost In Translation
At least, I hope it was. Surely the Japanese Health Minister didn’t really refer to women as "birth-giving machines"?Leave a comment
-
No-Body
I know that self-awareness makes us to be a very strange species, but sometimes I come across something that I find extremely difficult to understand. Here’s an example: a healthy woman who sees herself as incomplete – because she has too many legs.Update: Vaughan, over at Mind Hacks, has some more information about this.One response to “No-Body”
-
Well hey, maybe she was a snake in a former life? or a mermaid? Personally I think reincarnation has a lot to answer for! I can distinctly remember once being an intelligent human being for instance….. long ago it must have been……
Leave a comment
-
-
Black Sheep
New Zealand, the country where men are men, but now the sheep are apparently no longer nervous… The trailer looks good, I hope the film stands up. Shear terror, perhaps?3 responses to “Black Sheep”
-
Please tell me this is a joke??? Sheep? Insane murderous sheep? Heck, I’ve spent too long on the Welsh Hills wooing these wooly cuties to be able to take this seriously. What next? Night of the killer chicks? (Hmm, I’m sure that one’s already been done, just without feathers).
-
I can’t wait!! Violence of the Lambs! There’s Something About Mary’s Little Lamb! Night of the Living Chop!! Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the paddock…Hooves!! Shorn of the Dead!!! Oh my, I’ll be chucking popcorn at the screen and screaming like a girl!!
-
Tee-Hee. Puns galore! Gelert, wake up man, the Welsh sheep have been biding their time…
Leave a comment
-
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
Leave a comment