Geoff Coupe's Blog

All in the Mind

An interesting episode of the Australian radio series on science: All in the Mind, which deals with out-of-the-body experiences. I’ve only ever had one of those in my life, and it was both interesting initially and somewhat scary once I realised what I was experiencing.

(hat tip to Mind Hacks for the link)

July 10, 2008

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Magnetic Movie

Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy, draws our attention to this mesmerising visualisation of the magnetic fields that surround us all the time. Nicely done.

http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1166968&server=www.vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

July 10, 2008

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Turning The Tables

I never seem to get these gentlemen on the doorstep – it’s always the other kind…

July 9, 2008

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The Annotated Turing

Jeff Atwood, over at Coding Horror, draws my attention to The Annotated Turing, by Charles Petzold. Sounds interesting. Alongside Andrew Hodges’ magisterial biography of Turing, this looks to be a worthwhile exploration of the man’s work. It is just somewhat depressing that, judging from the comments on Atwood’s post, even now the fact that Turing was gay brings the bigots out of the woodwork.

July 8, 2008

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Finger On The Pulse

Well, you know me – I have no time for religion. Away with all that mind-numbing idiocy. Having said that, I do want to say that I thought that Rowan Williams got it spot-on when he said during the General Synod’s debate that:

"I am deeply unhappy with any scheme or any solution to this which ends up, as it were, structurally humiliating women who might be nominated to the episcopate."

Amen to that. What staggers me is that there are clearly people – some of them women – who believe the exact opposite. It almost beggars belief – but then I realise, yup, it’s simply religion, wending its merry way through the human psyche. Just keep out of my head, thank you very much.

July 8, 2008

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Erm, What Error?

For the life of me, I can’t understand what is misleading about this description of Berlusconi. Spot on, it seems to me. Even more astounding is that the White House, under this administration, got it right for once and told the truth. No wonder they felt the need to apologise.

July 8, 2008

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If Scientists Were Tabloid Fodder

This segue into a parallel universe is not just perverse, but has the whiff of greatness about it. Away with Britney Spears – give me Stephen Hawking in compromising situations! But I have to concede that the finishing touch is the rebranding of Michio Kaku as Mucho Kaka. I’ve often thought the same, myself. Simply brilliant.

(hat tip to PZ Myers)

July 8, 2008

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The Standards Office

Related to the last post (about the description by Pat Helland of the two camps in IT: Controllers and Doers), Stephen Walli has his own thought-provoking post about setting up a Standards Office within Google. Such a place is usually seen by the Doer camp as being staffed only by Controllers (and mostly in a highly negative sense), but it need not be this way.

Stephe brings his long experience in the Standards game to bear on laying out the case for why Google should have a Standards Office. I found it very compelling, but I couldn’t help wondering that if Google has not already got such an office and associated processes in place, then are they not too late to be thinking about it now? If, indeed, Google is driven primarily by the Doer camp, then I can’t help feeling that it’s more likely to end in tears sooner rather than later. Stability comes from the tension and interaction between the two camps. Both sides of the coin are necessary for the coin to continue to exist…

July 8, 2008

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Controllers and Doers

Pat Helland has a few wise words about the two broad categories of people who work in IT: the Controllers and the Doers. I recognise the types very well. Indeed, I started off in the Doer category, but for most of the latter part of my career (if such a grand word could be used about my working life) I was quite clearly in the Controllers’ camp.

July 8, 2008

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Horses and Carriages

This weekend saw another gathering of horsey people and their animals around here. It was rather pleasant.

July 6, 2008

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Just Desserts

I see that Stephen Green is claiming that he is facing bankruptcy following his failed bid to bring blasphemy charges against the BBC for daring to show Jerry Springer – The Opera. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving case. Mind you, he’s set up an online petition to beg that the BBC waive the costs that were awarded against him by the High Court. Look Stephen, it’s clearly God’s will that you lost, so just pay up.

I also note that a counter-petition has been set up to suggest that he abide by the law. I’ve signed that petition instead. Let him reap the whirlwind.

July 5, 2008

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Mischief

I don’t know about you, but if I were to set up a Public Relations firm, I think that last thing I would call it is Mischief PR. It sounds such a hostage to fortune to me. Anyway, someone’s gone and done it, and guess what, they’re refusing to come clean on the data behind a story they’ve apparently concocted for one of their clients. Why am I not surprised?

July 5, 2008

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The Margarets

My interest is piqued by this review of Sheri Tepper’s The Margarets. And not just because I was totally surprised and astonished by the twist in Tepper’s The Family Tree that is referred to here. The Margarets sounds like a book to add to the wishlist.

July 4, 2008

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RIP Charles

Charles Wheeler has died. Journalism takes another punch to the vitals.

July 4, 2008

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Woodpeckers

From where I sit behind the computer, I can look out onto our front garden. It is often visited by green or spotted woodpeckers. Yesterday, there was a thump on the window – a juvenile green woodpecker had flown into it. It staggered about for a moment or two, and then flew off before I could grab the camera. Here’s a couple of shots of other woodpeckers investigating the pear tree in the garden.

Update: that juvenile woodpecker was obviously destined to be unlucky. This morning I found it dead by the side of the road. I’m pretty sure it would be the same individual, and it had probably flown into the path of a passing car…

July 4, 2008

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Live Search Sucks

Why is Microsoft’s Live Search so bad at searching? It’s a question I often ask myself. Take today, for example, I wanted to check my blog for entries about the woodpeckers that visit our garden. You may have noticed that on my Live Spaces homepage, there’s a Live Search gadget that enables you to search my blog entries directly.

So I go ahead and type in "woodpecker" and click the "Search" button. Result? Zilch, nada, nothing, zero result. That’s odd, think I, because I know that I have a blog entry on the woodpeckers in the garden. So I go to Google’s blog search and do the same thing. Result? A hit on the correct page.

As I say, why is Microsoft’s Live Search so bad? It’s embarrassing.

Update: you may note that now the results are more or less correct. That’s because months have gone by and Live Search’s spider has finally got around to visiting the relevant web pages. Well, whoop-de-doo. It still doesn’t excuse the miserable performance of the service as a whole.

Update II: I’ve now removed the gadget entirely since it recently stopped working at all, and always returned zero hits. The reason is that bloody Microsoft went and changed the search query syntax of its search engine, so any code out there that uses the old syntax is now well and truly screwed.

Update III: …and has Microsoft removed the gadget from the Windows Live Gallery? Nope, of course not. It’s still there, and in a prominent position. People – don’t you care that you’re increasing the noise to signal ratio? Clearly not. There’s a lesson for us all here… humankind will be Easter Island writ large…

July 4, 2008

2 responses to “Live Search Sucks”

Unknown

December 6, 2008

Livesearch is the plague of online retailers – Don’t fall for their bs – Microsoft just wants a piece of every pie, just like all evil money hording big businesses – Hey- pricks up in redmond, go sit on a tack ya bastards – I wish the search engines would stop screwing with online retail and let us make money, ebay and amazon are bad enough but now you guys want a percentage given to you for doing nothing but raising the price for the consumer and lower profits for retailersGoogle Yahoo and MSN can all die in a fire – I say we don’t pay anymore, directories SHOULD be freeSadly Advertising products in Search Engines is almost as bad as tossing your money in the trash

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Geoff

December 6, 2008

"like all evil money hording [sic] big businesses" – sigh, that’s rather a simplistic view of the world I think. I have no problem with businesses trying to make money as long as they do it ethically, and what they produce serves their customers. Directories should be free? Nice idea, but in the real world TANSTAAFL…

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Re-visualising Da Vinci

And on a lighter note, rather than dwelling on waterboarding, here’s news of Peter Greenaway’s attempt to cast Da Vinci’s The Last Supper in a new light – literally. The video is quite intriguing, although I can’t say I was taken by the music. I note that "Some of Greenaway’s more controversial plans had to be shelved, such as to depict Christ’s genitalia and show the apostles’ cups overflowing with blood". Well, there’s a surprise, then.

July 2, 2008

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Waterboarding Hitchens

Earlier this year, Christopher Hitchens agreed to undergo waterboarding in order to answer for himself the question of whether the process constitutes torture or not. His answer, in this month’s Vanity Fair is non-equivocal: Believe me, it’s torture.

Even more harrowing was watching the video of him getting waterboarded, despite the strains of Enigma playing in the background. What astounded me was seeing for myself how little time is required before the victim believes himself or herself to be simultaneously smothered and drowning. Tellingly, Hitchens says that since the experience, he’s had nightmares about it.

July 2, 2008

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Head-Wall-Head-Wall

It’s not often that I feel sympathy for Inayat Bunglawala, but I do in this exchange he has had with Harun Yahya. The latter is a typically depressing denialist of the fact of evolution. It’s enough to make the brain cells shrivel reading his utter bollocks.

July 1, 2008

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Rodeo Fun

And you thought Goat-dressing was bizarre? Meet Whiplash. I’m still trying to digest the semiotics.

July 1, 2008

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2 responses to “Live Search Sucks”

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