Phil, over at The Bad Astronomer, reminds us that 40 years ago yesterday, a fire on the Apollo 1 spacecraft took the lives of astronauts White, Chaffee and Grissom in just 17 seconds. Go and read it and remember them, and others like them.
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Which SF Writer Are You?
Another little quiz. My result:
I am: Olaf Stapledon
Standing outside the science fiction "field", he wrote fictional explorations of the futures of whole species and galaxies.
Which science fiction writer are you?
Interesting that it’s Stapledon. I don’t actually have any of his books in my collection, although I’m sure that I have read some of his work when I was growing up. Perhaps that’s a gap that I should seek to fill.2 responses to “Which SF Writer Are You?”
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Arthur C. ClarkeWell known for nonfiction science writing and for early promotion of the effort toward space travel, his fiction was often grand and visionary.
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Oh, well done. Arthur is a good result. You know that he’s also a friend of Dorothy, don’t you?
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OTT Bike
For those who think that the bicycle is passé, may I point you towards the Hyperbike. Somehow, I can’t see myself wanting to cycle through town in this. I’ll take my chances on the old-fashioned bike, thank you very much.(hat tip to Improbable Research)Leave a comment
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The Sound of Woo
Following on from Donnie’s musical offering, Orac treats us to the wilder shores of woo…Leave a comment
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Blasphemy!
If you didn’t catch the discussion (I wouldn’t call it a debate) between Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry at last year’s Hay Festival, then here’s your chance to hear it or capture it for posterity. Posterity will be moderately proud of you.Leave a comment
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Science Imitates Art
Well, that’s if you can stretch the concept of Star Wars into "Art". Tara C. Smith asks: what bacterium was named after a George Lucas invention?Leave a comment
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Smoke and Mirrors
This week’s Improbable Research column in the Guardian has a piece on Barbara Tedlock, distinguished professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Apparently she’s just published a study on a "theory of practice for divination".I got two sentences into the piece before I went: "hang on a minute…".Sentence 1: How do diviners divine? A reasonable question, I think. What is the process that they follow? How do they interpret their data, whether it be twitching of a rod, the pattern of cracks or the state of a dog’s intestines? From aeromancy (divination by wind) to zygomancy (divination by weights), the trappings of diviners are many and various.Sentence 2: How do they achieve such dependable results? Er, excuse me? Did you say dependable? I puzzled over this for a moment, and then realised that what must be meant is that one can depend on the results being governed by the laws of probability, i.e. we know from scientific testing that the results are the same as for random chance. Phew, what a relief, I thought for a moment there that professor Tedlock was implying that divination actually worked. Silly me…Er, but what’s this: These practices are so prevalent we must assume they work, Tedlock says. Er no, that’s about as valid as the old joke: eat shit, nine billion flies can’t be wrong.And this: Given that scientists are now imagining gravity-bent light "and other strange concepts that defy common-sense reality", Tedlock says, "why should we not approach divination with the same conceptual openness?" Careful, professor Tedlock, too much of an open mind can make your brain fall out.Leave a comment
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Submission 2
Interesting interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali here. Some good points, but I couldn’t help but raise the ironical eyebrow at this:Ms Hirsi Ali made a relaxed impression during her visit to Barcelona. She seems more at ease having exchanged the snakepit that is Dutch party politics for the very proper American Enterprise Institute.Methinks that either Hirsi Ali, or rather more likely, the interviewer, has not realised that she has exchanged one snakepit for another. Mark my words: out of the frying pan and into the fire.Still, I do, and sincerely, wish her good luck in the next phase of her life.Leave a comment
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Is It, Or Isn’t It?
…Real, that is. I’m talking about the video: God Hates Fags. I blogged about it here, in an entry called WTF? The video was taken down from YouTube, but now I’m told that it’s still (at least at the time of blogging) available on MySpace. So, if you go now to my WTF? entry, hopefully you’ll be able to see Donnie Davis in all his glory.And, is it real? My money, and my sanity, rides on the proposition that it’s a brilliant parody. Sacha Baron Cohen, you have competition in the room…2 responses to “Is It, Or Isn’t It?”
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You’ve seen this lot I suppose? http://www.godhatesfags.com/main/index.html. This lot are for real. That other video was a screech wasn’t it. That so stiff, concrete, jacket removing move was just so…… well, yeah. It would have me running up the knave in two seconds flat. More research is needed I feel.
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"The knave"? I’m assuming that that was a Freudian slip… 🙂 And yes, I have seen the Phelps clan, though thankfully not in real life.
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Touchscreen Take Two
Some time ago, I blogged about a touchscreen interface that had been developed by Jeff Han. Now there’s an article about him and the interface, together with a very impressive video.A direct link to the video is here (sorry, I can’t directly embed it into this post, and you’ll have to watch an advertisement first).However, as I said in my original post, the mode shifts in the interaction are minimised, and the gestures are emphasised so as to be the whole story. It’s not. We are clearly watching a master manipulate his instrument. How intuitive that will be, without some meta interface rules that span multiple applications, remains, for me, an open question. It looks good though, but then, so does a concert pianist playing a Beethoven piano concerto. Doesn’t mean to say that anyone can do it.Leave a comment
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Twee Vaders – Redux
Oh, I have just learned that Windows Live Spaces has been updated to allow direct embedding of videos within posts. Standby for more YouTube traffic over the internet…Let’s see if this works… Here’s a direct embed of Twee Vaders…Yay!4 responses to “Twee Vaders – Redux”
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Wow. I just linked this video on my blog post – didn’t know I could have done this – how’s it done Geoff?
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Gelert, Microsoft has just upgraded the Windows Live Spaces service, and this was one of the visible features that has been introduced. You’ll now see, in your blog entry editor, an "embed video" button down at the bottom, alongside the "add Photo" button. Click it, and you get a pop-up dialogue, into which you paste the "embed" string that a YouTube video gives you. Close the dialogue, and the video is embedded… Should work with other video services that allow you to embed, but I haven’t tried them out yet.
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It is perhaps the product of a mind like a bat’s arse that this evening, for the first time, and even though I first saw this video ages ago, I came to wonder if Twee Vader is Darth’s gay younger brother.
"Yes, Luke, I am your uncle, isn’t that fabulous?"
Yeah, cheers, now give us a hand, would you?" -
Coboró, you do know that you are twisted, don’t you? Long may it continue…
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Wot War On Terror?
Not Saussure draws our attention to a speech made by Sir Ken MacDonald, the UK’s Director of Public Prosecutions, in which he said:“London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, ’soldiers’. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a ‘war on terror’, just as there can be no such thing as a ‘war on drugs’.Absolutely. Read the rest.Leave a comment
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Blogging the Future
Diamond Geezer has started an interesting series of posts over at his blog. It started a few days ago with this one, which had today’s date on it. The subsequent posts follow the progress of Diamond Geezer as he’s trapped in the Tube. It’s shaping up to be a riveting read…Leave a comment
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Two Fathers
Gelert, over at An Experiment In Normailty, adds his thoughts on the UK adoption row. Worth reading. He mentions the interview on BBC Radio with the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, yesterday. I didn’t hear it, but there’s a telling comment on it in the piece today by the Guardian’s religious affairs correspondent:…it is uncomfortable for the archbishops, as anyone who heard the Ugandan-born Archbishop of York equivocating on the Today programme, as he tried to explain why being "in conscience unwelcoming to gays" was entirely different from in conscience discriminating against black people, will have appreciated.Well, quite. A clear example of cognitive dissonance, I would have thought. The article also clarified for me why I thought that Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor seemed uncomfortable in the interview I saw a couple of days ago with him laying out the party line. It seems as though one of the factors playing out here is politics in the Catholic hierarchy, in particular, who gets to succeed the Cardinal when he retires later this year. I suppose one shouldn’t really be surprised that the Catholic hierarchy is stuffed with venal politics just like every other aspect of human life, but still, the hypocrisy does take my breath away at times.Update: This article is a shortened form of the piece that Stephen Bates wrote for the Guardian’s Comment Is Free section. The full version is here, and is definitely worth a read.There’s also an article in today’s Guardian about the Rev. Martin Reynolds, who, together with his (male) partner, has been fostering a boy for the past 15 years. The boy has two fathers, which brings us neatly full circle to the song in the link that Gelert refers to: Twee Vaders. It’s nice to end on a positive note.Leave a comment
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Following Orders
As you might imagine, the kerfuffle in the UK over Catholic adoption agencies wanting an exemption in the law so that they do not have to consider gay couples as prospective adopters of children does not make me feel kindly disposed towards the Catholic hierarchy. And now, perhaps predictably enough, the Anglicans are closing ranks with the Catholics.
And, as usual, Ophelia, over at ButterfliesAndWheels, casts some light through the gloom.
Frankly, it seems to me that the Catholic adoption agencies are swirling in a cesspit of their own making.* They do not appear to recognise that the overriding factor here is the well-being of the children, instead they prefer to focus on their particular cherries that have been plucked from a set of ancient tales by multiple authors. If they do feel obliged to close their agencies, rather than consider all couples as prospective adopters on their own merits, then so be it. Apparently, they only fulfilled 4% of the 2,900 adoptions in the UK last year anyway, and that gap should be able to be filled.
And I cannot pass without a comment on Ruth Kelly, Minister for Women and Equality. As she is also Roman Catholic, and a member of Opus Dei, one could be forgiven for thinking that the phrase "conflict of interest" might well pass through one’s mind as a particular danger in her case.
I think that she would be well advised to reflect on the political circumstances of Charles E. Wilson in the Truman administration. He was the CEO of General Motors, before he was tapped to enter the Truman Administration as US Secretary of Defense. He was asked if, as Secretary of Defense, he could make a decision (in his role as Secretary) that would be adverse to the interests of General Motors. Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa." It was quite rightly pointed out to him that in his role as US Secretary of Defense, his task was to do what was right for the country, and not for General Motors.
Similarly, Ruth Kelly should take a decision that is right for the children and the country, and not for her particular religion. I await with interest to see the outcome.
I see also that Martin Newland, in a Comment is Free piece in The Guardian, argues that "in opposing the new law on gay rights and adoption, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor is simply doing his job".
That’s as may be, but I will run the risk of invoking Godwin’s law by saying that in a very real sense he could also be said to be following orders. I watched an interview on BBC yesterday wherein the Cardinal was clearly uncomfortable about what he had to say, but nevertheless stated the party line.
When it boils down, then what the Catholic agencies are doing is wanting to turn their backs on people who could help rebuild children’s lives. They can claim conscience all they like, but their conscience, in my view is wanting. Steve Bell points out what, in all honesty, I think lies at its heart.
*With acknowledgements for that lovely phrase to Sir James Anderton, the former Chief Constable of Manchester.
Update: Oh-ho! Is Cherie the real Eminence Grise here? Can’t say I’d be surprised.
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Home Projects
I’ve recently come across MAKE magazine, which certainly seems to have an eclectic range of hobbies covered, with some interesting projects. Take this one, for example. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be attempting it. Step 3 might be a tad problematical for me.Leave a comment
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A Woodland Home
This puts me in mind of a Hobbit house. It looks quite cozy, and is probably well suited to a country that is likely to have an increasing chance of gales. I’m writing this while there’s a couple of workmen up on the roof of the farmhouse checking for any loose or damaged tiles as a result of last week’s storm. The woodland house won’t have that problem…Leave a comment
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RNA or LSD?
The Cornell Mushroom Blog draws our attention to a short film made in 1971 that attempts to visualise the actions of ribosomal RNA in a cell. Bizarre, truly bizarre, but such a product of the time. These days, we use computer animation, and forego the funky music… Perhaps we’ve lost our innocence as well…Leave a comment
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WTF?
Er, this has to be a joke, right? This person cannot be serious, surely? If it is straight up (as it were), then there are some seriously deluded people out there… There’s a web site, which has left me scratching my head. Is this a parody, or what?Update: The video has been pulled from YouTube, but interestingly it has also gone from the LoveGodsWay web site, leaving a "Removed Due To Abuse" message in its place. Ironic, really, the video itself was the abuse… Oh, but you can still read the lyrics over at Blast Off!Update 2: I’m told the video has now appeared on MySpace… Let’s see if we can get linked to it…Enjoy! – If that’s the right term…Update 3: You’re too late – it’s now been pulled from MySpace as well…8 responses to “WTF?”
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The video has been removed apparently it violated something?
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Katherine, thanks for letting me know. It’s even gone from the LoveGodsWay web site, which now has a message "Removed due to abuse" in its place.
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I managed to see it before it was pulled. I can’t decide if it was a tongue deeply buried in cheek send up or if this guy’s for real. If the latter, it was so heinously awful it would be enough to turn anyone away from his so-called ministry. Self-delusion on a monumental scale and the hypocrisy! How can anyone who claims to have found the love of God attribute hate to him? It’s like extolling the virtues of a car you want to sell when it’s up on blocks in your front yard. I can understand the anthropomorphism of the Almighty, but to ascribe the basest of human behaviour to him rather defeats the purpose of being God, don’t you think? Next they’ll be telling us God voted for Bush. Twice!!!
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I managed to see it before it was pulled. I can’t decide if it was a tongue deeply buried in cheek send up or if this guy’s for real. If the latter, it was so heinously awful it would be enough to turn anyone away from his so-called ministry. Self-delusion on a monumental scale and the hypocrisy! How can anyone who claims to have found the love of God attribute hate to him? It’s like extolling the virtues of a car you want to sell when it’s up on blocks in your front yard. I can understand the anthropomorphism of the Almighty, but to ascribe the basest of human behaviour to him rather defeats the purpose of being God, don’t you think? Next they’ll be telling us God voted for Bush. Twice!!!
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sorry for the echo!
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Coboró, for the sake of my sanity, I really hope that it was a leg-pull… If so, Borat needs to look to his laurels.
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You can still find the video on MySpace. Parody or not, it’s still a riot.
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Sinfonian, thanks! I’ll update the entry with this. We’ll see how long it lasts…
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Metadata Woes
As some of you might be aware, I’ve been on a search to find the ideal way of managing my library of digital photos for quite some time. Alas, nothing seems to quite fit the bill.
Well, recently, I tried out, and subsequently bought, a copy of IDimager Personal. I thought it was pretty good, even though it is an application in its own right (for me, the ideal library should be built into the operating system and file system, rather like PixVue [Note: PixVue is no longer available, I’m afraid]). In its current incarnation, IDimager supports both IPTC IIM version 4 and IPTC Core, which means that it covers both legacy and emerging metadata standards. Having both was a factor in the decision to buy it, rather than continue to stick with PixVue, which really only supports the IPTC IIM metadata elements with a little nod towards XMP.
However, the 600lb gorilla has now entered the fray, with Photo Info. Like PixVue, Microsoft’s Photo Info extends the operating system and the file system to add support for image metadata. And like PixVue, it really only implements the IPTC IIM version 4 legacy metadata elements, although, like PixVue, it does also copy them across to XMP equivalents. And while it does (unlike PixVue) support the “Location” metadata element, it does not (like PixVue) support the Creator Contact Info metadata fields of IPTC Core.
So, to summarise the story so far… Photo Info is a step ahead of PixVue, but it is not as complete a metadata editor as IDimager. Still, it is free, and it simply extends the operating system and file system rather than being a separate application like IDimager. So, I thought, perhaps it’s worth looking into.
Alas, after a few minutes of trying it out, Photo Info started throwing up error messages. When I tried to open certain image files, I’d get
“A file system I/O error occurred. Please check that files are not locked and that you have appropriate permissions in the folder”I also noticed that even though I would select a single file, when this error occurred, then Photo Info would report that I have “1,414 of 2,304 files selected”, which is clearly nonsense.
A bit of further investigation revealed that the files that were causing the errors were files that had been edited using IDimager. Other files that had had their metadata edited with other applications (e.g. PixVue) could be handled by Photo Info without problems. So, I thought, it looks fairly clearcut to me, there is some interaction going on between Photo Info and IDimager.
Ah, but who’s at fault? I’m already getting the usual finger-pointing going on (IDimager’s developer says it must be a problem with Photo Info). I await further developments with interest.
Damn, but I hate software when it doesn’t work…
Update: Another user reports that Photo Info apparently does odd things with EXIF metadata:
“the MS Photo Info Tool appears to do some questionable things with the EXIF data when it writes it. After changing the EXIF date on a test picture, I compared the updated EXIF data with the original EXIF data using exiftool. The file that the MS Tool updated was missing a bunch of fields, and exiftool said that the maker notes were not where they should be. So, if it can’t write the data correctly, it wouldn’t surprise me if it can’t read it correctly either. My recollection is that idImager moves the maker notes and updates the offset to point to the new location … If the MS Tool is not following the spec’s, it probably isn’t looking for the offset pointer to tell it where the maker notes are. That would make the file look corrupted even though it’s not.So, bottom line: I’d bet the bug is in MS Photo Info Tool, not idImager”.Update 2: I’ve been in contact with Mike Tedesco, who is a Technical Evangelist with Microsoft for the Pro Photo Community. Apparently he’s working with the Photo Info development team to investigate the issues. I’ve sent him my error report and sample files. We’ll see what happens.
Update 3 (13 September 2007): I’ve been in touch with Robert Wlodarczyk of Microsoft, and he identified an issue with the way IDimager writes XMP metadata. The developer of IDimager agrees that this is the problem, and it will be fixed. Microsoft’s Windows Imaging Component (used by Photo Info and Vista) is much stricter that other metadata tools in common use, and it picked up the error.
8 responses to “Metadata Woes”
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This is interesting.
I d/l’d Microsoft’s Photo Info the other day and I also get the error message that a file I/O error occurred, and that I should check to see that the file is not locked and that I have permission. The download page doesn’t have any support links, so I’m about to deep six this program. It would have been nice if it worked, but there are other ways to get the ixif data. -
BTW I also see that same note that 1,414 of 2,304 files have been selected.
Please let Mike Tedesco know that you are not the only one getting these same errors. -
Thanks, lilewis. I’ve emailed Mike Tedesco with your comment.
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Same situation for me (1,414,of 2,304, Vista, Nikon RAW codec, etc), Am using it on Nikon NEFs. The camera and nikon transfer software both write to the exif/iptc feilds so I guess photo info doesn’t understand it.
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So I go to the microsoft photo info faqs and find these two gems:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/photoinfofaq.mspx
Q. After installing Nikon’s NEF codec and changing metadata, I can no longer open NEF images in Adobe Photoshop. Why?
A. Important note to users of the Nikon RAW Codec for Windows: Microsoft has received reports of compatibility issues with Nikon NEF files after installing version 1.0 of Nikon’s RAW codec posted in January 2007. Tagging the RAW files through Windows Vista or the Microsoft Photo Info tool after the codec is installed appears to cause these files to become unreadable in other applications, such as Adobe Photoshop. We have confirmed that these files can still be opened with Nikon Capture.
Nikon and Microsoft are investigating the issue, and we will post an update when we have more information. In the meantime, Microsoft suggests that you exercise caution with your Nikon RAW files. If you plan on tagging them using Nikon’s codec, make a backup of the file first, and verify that the tagged file continues to work with your other applications before proceeding.
Tagging the file using Photo Info without the Nikon NEF codec installed appears to be safe.
and
Q. Does Photo Info delete "Maker Notes" from my images?
A.
No. The "Maker Note" tag is not deleted, but it may be relocated in the image stream. In the past, this would cause the "Maker Note" to become irretrievably damaged. WIC, however, keeps track of the number of bytes the "Maker Note" has been moved, and writes this information to a public offset tag. Applications that are aware of this tag will be able to recover most "Maker Note" information. Microsoft is working to inform hardware and software developers of this new feature and encourage them to update their tools.
"This new FEATURE"!!! Typical microsoft bloody arrogance. Not an error, not a bug, but by design.
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[…] – in particular, some of the ways in which trying to use it to manage a library of photos can be frustrated by incompatibilities in tools used to manipulate it. If you’re interested in this sort of thing, then the IPTC has […]
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Geoff Coupe's Blog 
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