The driver who a) has a truck this size and b) invests in a set of these is clearly beyond the pale. Equivalent to carrying a large sign saying "I am a stupid prick".
Avoid at all cost.
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Happy Coincidences
Data Point 1: This week marks the 36th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York – generally considered as a spark for the gay rights movement that gathered pace in the 1970s, both in the US and elsewhere.Data Point 2: The Canadian parliament yesterday approved the bill to legalise same-sex marriage. Canada therefore joins The Netherlands and Belgium as the third country to do so, with Spain expected later this year.Leave a comment
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Freedom From Torture – Bush’s Empty Rhetoric
Data point 2: An FBI agent report on the conditions in Guatanamo Bay prison quoted by Senator Durbin in the US Senate:"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold….On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."Pot – Kettle – Black.Bush is beyond contempt.Leave a comment
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UK Proposal For ID Cards
Great fun in the UK at the moment over the government’s attempts to introduce ID cards. Particularly with the LSE (London School of Economics) having published a report that warns on the first page:"There was an overwhelming view expressed by stakeholders involved in this Report that the proposals are too complex, technically unsafe, overly prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust and confidence."Pretty damning stuff – and it gets worse from there on. It will be interesting to see if these proposals turn out to be Blair’s equivalent of Thatcher’s Poll Tax.I particularly liked Steve Bell’s cartoon commenting on the proposals…Leave a comment
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What Is It About North America?
Following on from the recent survey of Americans that demonstrated the triumph of Faith over Reason, we now appear to have a similar phenomenon emerging in Canada.
A recent survey reveals that 32% of Canadians who have read the Da Vinci code believe that the theories outlined in the novel are true – particularly that a holy bloodline exists and that this secret has been protected through the ages by a dedicated secret society.
Perhaps it’s time to put on the tin foil hat – there are obviously aliens beaming this stuff down to the western world and softening our brains…
P.S. I’m proud to note that I still haven’t succumbed to reading the Da Vinci code…
2 responses to “What Is It About North America?”
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That book was not as bad as it’s predecessor, "Angels and Demons" which informed the reader that an electron was anti-matter and that copernicus was murdered by the Church.
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Ha! Dan clearly knows his stuff. Still, his financial future is clearly secure. Just goes to show that talent isn’t everything – being in the right place at the right time when the fickle finger of fate points to you has a lot to do with things.
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A New Interface For Calculators
New Scientist this week has a story about a novel interface for calculators. The demonstration movie is particularly striking. I assume that it will work out-of-the-box on Tablet PCs.
I think that indeed this interface is more "natural" for those of us who do not use calculators all day and every day. Practitioners have presumably already made the necessary learning to adapt to the calculator interface. For more infrequent users (e.g. me), this new interface would really help – and it ties right back into how I learned mathematics with pen and paper.
A good interface should disappear when you’re using it – it should never, ever, get in the way. That’s one of the reasons why I hated with a passion the old Reverse Polish interfaces on the original HP calculators, and why I still end up with wrong answers on today’s calculators – the interface is fighting with what I learned with pen and paper.
I’ve downloaded the software, and am trying it out on my PC, which has a graphics tablet. If this works, then I’ll be able to consign the Windows Calculator application to the dustbin of history…
P.S. I simply adore the title of the web page at the University of Swansea.
2 responses to “A New Interface For Calculators”
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This is fascinating. I can’t believe they’re going to adapt the calculator interface like that.
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Well, it’s really only a research project at this point, but I would hope that it is picked up and implemented in products. There is already a product for the Tablet PC – see http://www.xthink.com – but that does not have the key innovation – that of rendering the numbers on the fly. Instead, you write out the equation fully and then select the "calculate" button – onyl then do you see if your input has been recognised correctly. With the University of Swansea interface you see the recognition happening as you input the equation – I think this is a much better approach.
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Myst V On The Way
I’ve never understood the attraction of "shoot-em-up" games such as Doom or Halo. I much prefer the more cerebral attractions of puzzle-solving games. And the one that really caught my attention when it first came on the scene in 1993 was Myst.
Its success (over 12 million copies sold) has spawned a number of sequels, and I’m delighted that later this year Myst V: End of Ages is expected to be released.
The sequels have been a bit of a mixed bunch, both technically and conceptually. The biggest deviation came with Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. It introduced the first use of a 3D gaming engine – Plasma – (in place of the pre-rendered still shots of the earlier games), as well as a physics engine – Havok – for interacting with "physical" objects in the game. For me, this led to a high degree of frustration, because physical dexterity with a mouse is not my forte. I mean, trying to nudge baskets in a waterfall pool using the mouse or the keyboard is just no fun at all – damn those bloody fireflies – why couldn’t I just feel my way through the caves???
But secondly, the biggest downside of Uru for me was the introduction of a new character, Yeesha, the daughter of Atrus.
Yeesha specialised in spouting pretentious new age crap: full of sickly sentiment and third-rate moralising. Yes, the game itself is very pretty (a couple of moments – like the thunderstorm in the Garden Age, and the sunrise in the Desert Age are worth the price of admission), and the puzzles (apart from the dreadful interface) are relatively straightforward – but I found it tough going to have to listen to Yeesha’s interminable drivel while retrieving the four pillars, let me tell you… Aaaarghh!!!!
So, the bad news about Myst V is: sheee’s baaack!!! Yep, Yeesha’s going to be in it, along with a new character, Esher, an elderly male archivist. The good news is that the game designer, Rand Miller, has alluded to the possibility of having to choose between them at the end – and the player’s decision affects the outcome of the game. Oh, jolly good, because my choice is going to be for the elderly male archivist – there is no way I would want to spend any more time in the tiresome company of that damned Yeesha. In fact, I might almost wish for a big gun to blast her away with…
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Weight Watcher’s Recipe Cards
Mining the same vein as the Gallery of Regrettable Food is Wendy McClure’s site devoted to her collection of Weight Watcher’s Recipe Cards. They are said to date from 1974, but I suspect, like apparently much of the food illustrated in them, they have been recycled from a much earlier incarnation…
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The Time Machine
Well, the hubby’s away tonight, so I thought I would again indulge in a film on the trusty DVD player. This time, my choice was The Time Machine. No, not the George Pal version from 1960, but the version from 2002, by Simon Wells – the grandson of H. G. Wells.
Ooh, but I did enjoy it!
Not that I wish to deprecate the George Pal version. I have very fond memories of it. For my 11th birthday, my parents treated me – and all the children who were invited to my 11th birthday party – to a showing of the film in the Regal Cinema in Douglas. Gosh, it was magical – the curtain gradually rising, before the blackout, to reveal worlds that we could never have imagined – that was so, so extraordinary! It honestly does still bring tears to my eyes. A slight pause, while I blow my nose and wipe away the tears for my parents to whom I owe so much. And I don’t mean that in any facetious sense. I truly do thank the universe for their presence in my life. They did their best, and I’m truly grateful for it.
Anyway.
Sorry – again a pause to wipe the tears.
Simon Wells’ version of "The Time Machine". Well, actually, I enjoyed this as well. I confess that I have never read H. G. Wells’ original version, so perhaps it was not "true to the original". Having said that, I think that Simon Wells turned in a very credible rendering.
The whole drive of the need to invent a time machine, being powered by the loss of the love of the hero’s life, Emma, was very good.
And, perhaps it was just me, but the realisation of the world of the Eloi in this version was as though the world of Riven had come to life. OK – shallow, I know, but that’s how it seemed to me.
And I just adored Orlando Jones’ camp rendering of a know-it-all piece of database software. "Live long and prosper", indeed!
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Conscious Torment
Ophelia, over at the ButterfliesAndWheels blog, confesses that she doesn’t understand why people willingly sign up to elements contained in the statement of faith published by Patrick Henry College, a Christian university in the US. It’s probably because they don’t even think about what is being said.
Actually, the web page of the university setting out its mission and values makes fairly scary reading as a whole. I love the flip-flop when it comes to studying biology at PHC:
Creation. Any biology, Bible or other courses at PHC dealing with creation will teach creation from the understanding of Scripture that God’s creative work, as described in Genesis 1:1-31, was completed in six twenty-four hour days. All faculty for such courses will be chosen on the basis of their personal adherence to this view. PHC expects its faculty in these courses, as in all courses, to expose students to alternate theories and the data, if any, which support those theories. In this context, PHC in particular expects its biology faculty to provide a full exposition of the claims of the theory of Darwinian evolution, intelligent design and other major theories while, in the end, teach creation as both biblically true and as the best fit to observed data.
And then there’s:
Government systems such as communism and socialism, which give the government primary control over property, are a violation of God’s creation order.
And finally, we have:
Equality. We hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. All human beings are created in God’s image, and all are precious and equal in His sight. Bigotry is a sin against God and man.
Perhaps the authors could ponder the extent of their own bigotry while reading Matthew 7:3. Clearly, some men are created more equal than others.
Oh well, for light relief, perhaps we should attend the PHC’s drama club’s production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband.
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“Backup Trauma” Wins Award
Back in March, I mentioned "The Institute for Backup Trauma", a commercial starring John Cleese as Dr. Twain Weck. It’s apparently won a "Telly Award". Not surprising really, it’s a very well done spoof.
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A Bank with Ethics
The Co-op Bank in the UK has asked an evangelical Christian group to close its account at the bank because of the group’s anti-homosexual views. The bank stated that the opinions of Christian Voice were incompatible with the bank’ stance on diversity and human rights.
Good for them! Christian Voice is a very extreme organisation. Its director, Stephen Green, was interviewed on Radio 4 this morning.
As Justin McKeating wrote on the Chicken Yoghurt blog today: "As cheering as it was to hear Stephen Green exposed as a whinnying fool yet again, I think it’s a little unfair that such a small unrepresentative group of yahoos are given all this airtime". True, but Green was given ample opportunity to show himself up as a bigot and an idiot, and he did not disappoint one iota. A link to the radio interview is on the Chicken Yoghurt blog.
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Sappho Speaks
Sappho had a great reputation as a poetess in the time of the ancient Greeks, yet only three complete poems, plus fragments of verse, have survived to our day. So there’s great excitement over the fact that another complete poem (of 12 lines) has now been identified and published. The full story, by Martin West, emeritus fellow of All Souls, Oford, is published in this week’s Times Literary Supplement.
The poem itself is a tiny masterpiece, describing the poetess’ feeling of growing old, while being surrounded by young women. She accepts her fate:
This state I oft bemoan; but what’s to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there’s no way.I know what she means…
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Phew, What a Scorcher!
We’re having something of a heatwave in The Netherlands at the moment. I think it was something like 30 degrees Centigrade today. Instead of going to the gym, I decided to take the camera and go for a cycle ride in the country instead. You can see some of the results here in the photos called "Summer Day in Reeuwijk". If you want to see better quality versions of the photos, then go to my Flickr space and browse the Nature set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcoupe/sets/436835/
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Happy Birthday, Alan!
And I almost missed it…
Today marks the birth of Alan Turing, mathematician, logician and one of the founders of computer science. He worked at Bletchley Park during World War II and was instrumental in cracking the Enigma code.
He was homosexual, and, according to the laws at the time, was prosecuted for "gross indecency and sexual perversion". As a result it seems likely that he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide.
His life became the subject of a play written by Hugh Whitemore: Breaking the Code. While a dramatisation, it still conveys something of the life and pressures that Turing must have been under. The title role was played by Derek Jacobi, who was perfect. As Jacobi himself has said, "the play really does put across the story of Alan Turing as a man who saved the State and who was then destroyed by the State".
The play is available on video with Jacobi in the role. Try and track it down if you can. At all costs avoid Enigma – a crass film based on Robert Harris’ novel of the same name. The film overlays many of Turing’s thoughts and ideas onto its fictional heterosexual hero. Yet another example of the ways in which gays are edited out of history.
Turing was born in a house that is now the Colonnade Hotel, in Maida Vale, London. The fact is marked by a blue plaque (see the photograph). I spent a number of happy years living just around the corner, in Bristol Gardens, and was pleased to discover the Turing connection. Another connection was that in the days of the Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s, I met with Andrew Hodges, who became Turing’s biographer, and who maintains a web site devoted to the life and work of Turing.
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News From Iraq
Steeph, over at his blog, has a truly disturbing entry: News about Iraq the mainstream media won’t give you. The third link in particular is simply mind-numbing. I want it not to be true, but it probably is. Either way, this is powerful propaganda – and one that pushes towards an even worse situation. A story in today’s Guardian about a CIA report seems only to confirm that.
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The Pavement Art of Julian Beever
I’ve always been fascinated by Trompe l’oeil. Now, Julian Beever takes it to new pastures with his 3D pavement art.
(hat tip to Mind Hacks)
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Jack Kilby: 1923 – 2005
Damn, there’s a run of obituaries in today’s Guardian that I feel the need to mention. The last one is of Jack Kilby, "the acknowledged inventor of the microchip, foundation of the modern electronics industry".
He came up with the idea of the integrated circuit in 1958. The timing meant that while I spent a few years at University doing electronic engineering and circuit design based on discrete components, by the time I got into Industry, much of that was being swept aside by integrated circuits. It was amazing to watch the change that occurred in the electronics industry firsthand.
2 responses to “Jack Kilby: 1923 – 2005”
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I was watching NewsHour yesterday and they were nonplussed as to why Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce weren’t houshold names while Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were.
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’tis the cult of celebrity at work. I’ve never understood it. Particularly when most celebrities are the most godawful people – mainly because they believe they are better than the rest of us. Feet of clay, feet of clay…
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Charles Keeling: 1928 – 2005
At also in today’s Guardian, the obituary of Charles Keeling, the scientist credited with being the first man to accurately measure the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One of his four sons is a leading climate scientist, carrying the torch of science on from the father.
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Disley Jones: 1926 – 2005
The Guardian today carries the obituary of Disley Jones, who has died at the age of 79. The obituary is sub-headlined: Theatrical polymath, film production designer, restauranteur, bon vivant and handful. He certainly seems to have been that. A man who was not afraid to take life by the scruff of the neck and shake it. A bit of colour has ebbed out of the world.
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