Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

  • Eurovision Roundup

    Eurovision looms, and I can do no better than to point you to this roundup in the Guardian of some of the sillier entries. Included in them is the Dutch contender: Shine, performed by the Toppers. Alas, the Guardian’s scathing comments are fully justified. Sample:
    Of the punters who pay to watch this band, one can only assume they are high on life, and other substances. Men about to turn 50 should know better than to sing about how "Love will make us glow in the dark".
    Very true.
     
    Mind you, I have to hand it to Gordon, one of the members of the Toppers for taking a stand against Russia’s anti-gay attitudes. He says he will withdraw from the final if violence is used against a pro-gay protest in Moscow planned for the 16th May. Although, I somehow doubt whether Shine will make it to the final, so he’s probably on safe ground…
     
    Update: I have just watched and listened to the Dutch entry for the very first time in its awesome entirety. Omifeckinggawd – that is cringeworthy stuff. I felt the enamel being stripped from my teeth as I beheld it.
     
    Update II: Jaysus – Ukraine’s entry is mainlining if you’re a chocoholic with a taste for erotica… I must go and lie down for a while…
     

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  • Windows 7 RC

    Well, it’s now a week since I downloaded the Release Candidate of Windows 7, so how is it shaping up for me? For the most part, I’m very impressed.

    I’ve installed it on both my Tablet PC and (gulp) my desktop PC – my main workhorse. Yes, I know that Microsoft issue dire warnings against using it on your main systems, but this is my way of living dangerously, since I have no interest in extreme sports. Anyway, I have a complete image backup of my previous Vista installation stored on my Windows Home Server, so if the worst comes to the worst, I can roll back my desktop to exactly as it was on the 4th May. New documents and mail being created in the Windows 7 installation are also being backed up onto Windows Home Server every night, so I can add these into a restored Vista installation if I ever need to go back to it. But at the moment, I don’t think I will need to go back to Vista ever again.

    What do I like so far about Windows 7? Well, I suppose the main thing is how snappy it is in comparison with Vista. There’s been a noticeable increase in speed on both my systems. Applications open and close faster, and are more responsive, while the performance of the GUI is definitely better. The second thing that I am liking a lot is the redesigned Taskbar. There are lots of subtle touches that improve the usability of the system. For example, while an operation is going on, such as Copy, Move, or Download, the progress bar window is also reflected in the degree of green shading on the application icon on the Taskbar, so even if the progress bar window is obscured, you can see at a glance how far the operation has got to. See this example of a file copy operation in the Windows Explorer icon:

    W7 5

    The Taskbar indicates active applications by surrounding them with a highlighted window – applications with multiple active windows (e.g. Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Messenger in the example above) have a double window around them. Mousing over the icons of active applications instantly throws up miniature copies of the actual windows:

    W7 6

    Mousing over any of these miniature copies will instantly highlight that copy while simultaneously revealing that window on your desktop – all the other active windows become just outlines:

    W7 7

    Clicking on the copy will confirm the operation of making that the active window and bring it to the front:

    W7 8

    What issues have I come across? Well, none on the Tablet PC so far, but I have had some problems with the Desktop. It has two SATA disks installed, and I found that the D: drive seemed to vanish if I put the PC into sleep mode. Worse still, I got the dreaded BSOD occasionally. I had used the system BIOS to set the SATA drives into AHCI mode before doing a clean install of Windows 7. Even though Windows 7 has an AHCI driver, it seems as though this was the cause of the problems. After scouting around on the Windows 7 forums, I found advice that suggested that I should install software from Intel to replace the Microsoft AHCI driver. Since my desktop is a Dell system, I found an elderly copy of the Intel software (my Dell is equally elderly) on the Dell site and installed it. Touch wood, it seems to have done the trick. Interestingly, even though the Intel software was designed for Windows XP and earlier systems, Windows 7 was able to handle it perfectly in compatibility mode, and it installed without problem.

    The issue that I discovered back in February with the “Play to” feature in Window 7’s Media Player is still there, unfortunately. I don’t know whether the blame should be laid at the door of Microsoft or whether it’s a shortcoming in the DLNA specification. Either way, the result is that I can’t use the “Play to” feature to push music from my Windows Media servers to my Denon amplifier. Negotiation of setting up the correct streaming format for the player device (the Denon) isn’t being handled correctly when there are three devices in the playing chain (the server, the player and the controller). I have got a workaround though. I’ve installed the (free) Asset UPnP media server software onto my Windows Home Server. The Asset server can be set to automatically transcode the Windows Media Audio Lossless format (which the Denon can’t handle) into PCM (which the Denon is happy with). Then, when the Asset server is instructed to push an audio stream to the Denon by the “Play to” media controller of Windows 7, it will stream PCM by default. Result: music and bliss.

    I notice that the “Play to” media controller seems to have taken a step backwards from where it was in the Beta of Windows 7. Here’s screenshots of the “Play to” media controller window; on the left is a screenshot taken from the Beta, and on the right is a screenshot taken from the Release Candidate.

    WMP12 - Play To 1  W7 9

    Notice how the track indicator (the blue line) is operational in the Beta, but is not working in the Release Candidate? What is not obvious from the screenshots is that the track timing is also broken in the RC. In the Beta, the track timing display of the playing track counts down to zero as the track plays. In the RC, the track time remains unchanging. As usual in software development: fix a bug, introduce another one…

    However, overall, I’m pretty pleased with the Windows 7 RC. I think it will remain on both of my systems, only to be replaced by the final product when it comes out at the end of this year.

    Update: I have found that the track indicator and track timing work when the “Play to” control is being used against a library held as part of the main library hierarchy of Windows Media Player, but not when it it being used to control the content of a library held on a server and accessed via the “other libraries” hierarchy of Windows Media Player. Take a look at the following screenshots. The first shows albums in a library held on a separate server, but added into the main library of WMP running on my laptop:

    WMP 12 1

    The small window is the “Play to”media controller window – and it is showing a correctly working track indicator and track timing for the currently playing track. The track is being pulled from a remote server that is being accessed via “Library – Music – Album”.

    Now, this next shot is of exactly the same audio file, held on the same server, but this time it’s being accessed via the “Other libraries” section. And this time, the track indicator and track timing are not working…

    WMP 12 2

    The choice of using either the main Library tree or the “Other Libraries” tree in WMP also seems to have an influence on the “Play to” negotiation of formats. I found that when I navigate in the main Library tree and push audio files to my Denon they will play, but pushing the very same audio files to the Denon via navigation of the “Other Libraries” tree will fail. I surmise that in the first case, the negotiation and selection of the audio format to be pushed to the Denon works correctly, but not in the second case.

    Update: I’ve explored various “Play to” scenarios and documented the results in Fun with Technology – Part IV.

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  • Windows 7 RC

    Today’s the day that the Release Candidate of Microsoft’s Windows 7 becomes available. Being a nerd, it’s downloading as I write this. But one thing already strikes me as being curious. Recently, on the Engineering Windows 7 blog, the Windows 7 team wrote that they wanted people to test the scenario of upgrading a Vista installation to a Windows 7 installation. Yet, the installation instructions make no mention of this scenario, the only option being recommended is a clean install (i.e. wiping out of the previous operating system and replacing it with a fresh installation of Windows 7).
     
    What gives?

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  • RIP, Marilyn

    Marilyn French has died. I read "The Women’s Room" back in 1979, and it was clear that the quote on the front cover of the Sphere paperback: "This novel changes lives" was not simply hyperbole. I still have the book. I should re-read it and see whether things have changed much in the intervening years.

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  • Condoleeza Rice

    The mask slips. I hope I live to see her in court.

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  • The Politics of Torture

    Ophelia highlights a perceptive comment made on her blog, which paints a very persuasive case for the nature of the political game being played out by Obama in relation to the use of torture under the Bush administration. The game is simultaneously saddening – in that it exists as the alternative to actively pursuing war crime prosecutions – and probably the only way in which progress can be made to the point where such prosecutions are demanded by a substantial proportion of US citizens.
     
    Softly, softly, catchee monkey.

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  • Damn

    This has probably put paid to the relaxed atmosphere that we all used to enjoy during Queen Beatrix’s walkabouts on Koninginnedag. And I don’t think there was anything "apparent", as the Guardian puts it, about Maxima’s look of horror. Damn, damn, damn.

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  • Is Gay Marriage a Religious Issue?

    I see that the Guardian is running a series of opinion pieces this week centred around the question: “Is gay marriage a religious issue?”

    So far, we’ve had four different people take four different stances. First, we had Candace Chellew-Hodge, an American gay Christian and associate pastor, arguing that marriage existed long before Christianity got its sticky fingers on it. Next up was Martin Prendergast, a British gay Catholic, arguing that the Catholic sacramental view of marriage could be applied to same-sex unions. While his heart is clearly in the right place, I can’t help feeling that he’s flogging a dead horse while the current Pope and his coterie are in power. Still, as he points out, the Catholic Church has itself recognised same-sex unions in the past, so it’s possible that once Benedict bites the bullet, reason, equality and doing the right thing might once again prevail.

    Then we got Theo Hobson, arguing that marriage should be opened up to gay people. Fine, except that, being Theo Hobson, his arguments are a pile of old codswallop. He gets off to an abysmal start in his opening two sentences:

    Is gay marriage a religious issue? Yes, in the sense that we can only really understand marriage with reference to religion.

    Er, sorry? The evidence for that assertion is, what, exactly? Theo attempts to explain:

    The event has a religious dimension, even if the couple are atheists, for they are affirming a tradition moulded by religious values.

    Ah, the “sticky fingers” argument. Well, sorry, Theo, but my civil marriage ceremony had no religious dimension to it whatsoever – God didn’t get an invite (how could she, when she doesn’t exist?).

    The ideal of total communion between two souls is religiously rooted.

    There you go again, Theo, I don’t have a soul either – that’s a concept that indeed is religiously rooted, but is total nonsense. However, two people can want to get married because of their love and commitment to each other – no souls required.

    And so is the discipline that this entails: confining sexuality to one relationship, for the sake of nurturing a new social entity, the family, involves an idea of social duty that has long been seen in religious terms.

    It may have “long been seen in religious terms”, but that doesn’t mean that that is the only way of seeing it. Discipline and the family are not the sole prerogatives of religion, no matter how much Hobson seems to need to believe it. He should try taking off his blinkers once in a while. But what really irritates me about Hobson’s piece is his final paragraph:

    Yes, this makes marriage a wider concept, but it doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter that many of us will still feel that there is something more real about heterosexual marriage, because of its union of gender opposites, and because of its reproductive potential.

    “More real”? Patronising, or what? Excuse me while I catch my breath.

    Today, Mark Simpson weighed in with his take on the subject, arguing that marriage is outdated, and that the existing civil partnership laws are all that is needed in 21st. Century Britain, and should be open to heterosexuals, not limited just to gays and lesbians. While there’s something to be said for this point of view, the fact of the matter is that in Britain, at present, straight people, religious or not, can get married, while gay people can only enter into a civil partnership. There’s the discrepancy and the discrimination right there.

    Britain is stuck in a halfway house at the moment. Perhaps the way out is indeed, as Simpson suggests, to open up civil partnerships to all.

    It’s interesting to reflect on the situation here in the Netherlands. We’ve got both civil marriage (open to all) and civil partnerships – known as registered partnerships (again, open to all). The point is that “marriage” is completely secular: two people must get married in a townhall for their marriage to be recognised as such. If they are religious, then they usually walk across the market square into the church to perform a church marriage, but that is a purely religious ceremonial, it has no standing in the eyes of the State. When Prince Willem-Alexander and his Maxima got married a few years back, that was the pattern they followed: civil marriage in the Townhall, followed by the religious marriage in the church.

    There are few real differences between civil marriage and civil partnerships here. If you want the nitty-gritty detail, then this paper by Kees Waaldijk will tell you all you need to know.

    I’m probably biased, but the Dutch model seems to be eminently pragmatic, sensible, and treats people equally. I wish more countries would adopt the model.

    2 responses to “Is Gay Marriage a Religious Issue?”

    1. Bal Avatar
      Bal

      Hey Geoff, I absolutely agree with you! For goodness sake ‘live and let live I say.’ If two gay people are as happy as ‘Mr & Mrs’ conventional’s relationship and feel as committed and secure as them, then what the heck is wrong a gay marriage???????? I just went out to quote on a job where the customer confesses to being in a civil partnership and I have no problem with that at all – they are an extremely loving and lovely couple and who am I to judge! xxx

      Reply
    2. Geoff Avatar
      Geoff

      Hi Bal Maiden. Thanks for your comment. I cannot understand those people who claim that marriage will be damaged by opening it up to gay people. They seem to think that love is a non-renewable resource – that there’s only a limitied amount to go round, and if you allow gay people to love, then there will be less for straight people. Totally bizarre.

      Reply

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  • The Merchants of Light

    The Science Network has a series of videos up on the web that were made of the recent Origins Symposium held at Arizona State University earlier this month. Worth watching.

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  • The British Museum

    I visited the British Museum last Sunday. It was the first time that I had seen the remodelled Courtyard. Very impressive. I took lots of shots, and here is the resulting Photosynth.
     
    (tip: when viewing the Photosynth, switch to Grid View to select another set of photos shot from a different point in the Courtyard)

    Addendum: And of course Microsoft has now scrapped the Photosynth product and technology, so none of these links work anymore. It’s dead, Jim.

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  • London Bound

    I’m off to London for the weekend, hopefully to meet up with a couple of friends that I haven’t seen for many years. It’ll be my first visit to London in nearly five years. I expect that I will find some changes. Back next week.

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  • Plus Ça Change…

    Since the recent success of the writings of the Four Horsemen, there’s been something of a backlash from people such as Our Maddy of the Sorrows and (surprisingly) Julian Baggini who claim that atheists are becoming, well, too noisy.
     
    There’s nothing new under the sun – John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1863) pointed out in his writings on Liberty:
    Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.
     
    Hat tips to both Ophelia and Russell. Read both of them for why Mill further argues that "intemperance" is a false charge from those who have too much invested in not rocking the boat.
     
    And I am probably not the only gay man who sees parallels in this backlash from religionists (and their appeasers) with earlier examples of those in power claiming that those who spoke against them were getting too noisy (or "uppity" as one particular group would have said). I remember well the homophobes from the 1970s and the 1980s who said "the love that dare not speak its name has become the love that will not shut up". Different minority, same old shit.
     

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  • Decision Making and the Brain

    Nice video showing some of the work going on in neuroscience to research our decision-making processes.
     
     
     
    Note for John: video opens with man taking a brain out of a bucket…

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  • Stage Magic and Neuroscience

    Stage magic relies a lot on the fact that human perception is not foolproof. Here’s a great article from Wired on the subject, and if you want to really go into depth, here’s a peer-reviewed paper from Nature on the topic.

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  • Suffer Little Children

    Here’s the story of Nate Phelps, growing up as the son of Fred Phelps in the Westboro Baptist Church. Do go and read it, and then take a deep breath afterwards. 

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  • The Church of Body Modification

    I never cease to be amazed at my species. And eternally grateful that I do not share in the majority of my fellow humans’ beliefs.
     
    (hat tip to Pharyngula)

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  • Squirrel Nutkin

    One of the things I like about my daily walk in the woods is the chance of observing some indigenous wildlife. Yesterday, for example, I managed to photograph a Red Squirrel going about its business. Usually by the time I’ve registered that there’s a squirrel nearby, it moves round a tree trunk to hide itself from view. This one was a bit more obliging – well for a minute or two, before the flight response kicked in…

    20090420-1004-08

    20090420-1004-37

    20090420-1004-48

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  • R.I.P., Jim

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  • It’s A Cultural Thing…

    NonStampCollector imagines how the meeting between God and his angels went when they discussed the Jesus project… Brilliant.
     
     
     
    I must admit, I didn’t realise that God and his angels were Australian. Well, you live and learn, don’t you?
     
    (hat tip: Pharyngula)

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  • Category Error

    There’s an old saying in Computer Science: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
     
    Amazon has just provided me with a perfect example. Because I’d bought a book on cosmology, I received an email recommendation from Amazon today:  

    As someone who has purchased or rated Bang! The Complete History of the Universe by Brian May, you might like to know that Parker’s Encyclopedia of Astrology is now available. 

    Er, no, I really don’t think I would like to know that, or have the slightest interest in purchasing the said item, thank you very much. Obviously, there’s a muppet somewhere in Amazon who thinks that Astronomy is the same as Astrology. Well, one is science and the other is bollocks, sunshine.

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