As I always seem to be saying: never underestimate the human capacity for self-delusion. Here’s another example, from Dr. J. Carter-Wood, over at Obscene Desserts: the Nuwabians. And it’s a doozy, let me tell you. But don’t take my word for it, let John lay it out for you, and be sure to check out the photographic essay by A. Scott. Words fail me.
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Bizarre
3 responses to “Bizarre”
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Stunning. They got about every culutural and religion borrowing in there except David Ike’s lizard men.
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Gelert, look again – David Icke is in there as well… There’s nothing new under the sun…
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Haha. Oh man. I stand laughing but corrected.
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Mr. Deity
Mr. Deity and the Murder. Larry and Jesus find out it’s just a game between Lucy and Mr. D…Leave a comment
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The Envelope, Please
The Darwin Awards for 2007 have been announced. But don’t worry, there will be plenty more contenders for 2008, I’m certain of it.Leave a comment
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A Land Called Paradise
As something of an antidote to all the "fear and loathing" stories that I seem to read these days in the media, here’s a music video:(hat tip to Rachel)Leave a comment
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Asteroid Near-Miss
Well, I say "near-miss"… In reality, asteroid 2008 AF3 passed by the earth last night at just over the moon’s distance away. While 475,000 kilometres away may sound an awful long way, in astronomical terms that’s pretty damned close. And what I found really worrying about this was the fact that the asteroid was totally unknown until three days ago. Not a lot of time in which to kiss your arse goodbye if a big one really hits the earth…Leave a comment
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Old Wine in New Bottles
Never underestimate the capacity for the human animal to fool itself – or for Marketing to take full advantage of that fact. Mind Hacks reports on a study that shows that people prefer the taste of the same wine when it is higher-priced. The same wine, but a different price tag, is enough to change the experience. The taste is obviously the same, but it’s the interpretation placed on those taste sensations by a different part of the brain that swings it.Leave a comment
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Prepare to be Assimilated
I’ve never much cared for the phenomenon that is Facebook. Tom Hodgkinson, in today’s Guardian, has a powerful piece that dissects not just Facebook, but the people behind it. Not pretty reading.One response to “Prepare to be Assimilated”
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[…] me put my cards on the table; I’ve never been a fan of Facebook. However, it seems that most of our neighbours are avid Facebook fans, so after holding out for […]
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Snuffed Out
Lord, this sort of thing is depressing. Human rights should outweigh cultural rights every time. Obviously something that Maged Thabet Al-Kholidy doesn’t agree with, may Allah damn his soul.Leave a comment
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Donald Knuth
The name probably doesn’t mean anything to those of you who are not computer geeks. And I suspect that even the younger generation of computer geeks won’t know who he is. But Donald Knuth is one of the seminal figures in computer science. I’ve just seen that he was 70 yesterday, so belated birthday greetings, Professor Knuth!Jeff Atwood, over at Coding Horror, has more links to the life, work and humour of Donald Knuth. Worth browsing.Leave a comment
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Rolly
I don’t know whether to be amused or appalled at this. We do seem to be living in the Age of the Feuilleton, with trinkets like this on the market.2 responses to “Rolly”
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I do love your blog, I’ve been on here ages catching up. Beats me why you don’t have a million comments every time
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Gelert, it’s because the Internet is big, really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-boggling big it really is…
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Roe Deer
There are Roe Deer in the woods and fields around where we live. I often catch sight of them in the far distance, or moving like ghosts through the woods, when I’m out walking the dog. Occasionally, I am quite close to them when we spot each other. One time, we suddenly came across each other in the wood, four deer and I, and we regarded each other across a distance of not more than 10 metres for what seemed like a minute before I quietly withdrew. Usually it is the deer that take flight. And almost invariably, I never have my camera with me.But today, for the first time, I had the camera, and there was a group of deer in the middle distance. So here’s a shot. Not a closeup, but at least they are clearly recognisable as deer…
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Whew!
I was working on my photos today, refining some metadata. I use IDimager to do this. It has a nifty feature to search for photos where metadata in the image files themselves is not synchronised with IDimager’s internal catalogue. On using this feaure, I was surprised to find that 435 photos were flagged as being out of sync. Further examination showed that IDimager was also flagging them as being offline – in other words, no longer on the computer.Odd, thought I, they should be in the folders where I keep my photos… That was when I discovered that all the folders holding photos taken in February 2007 had been deleted. I have no one to blame but myself, and I don’t know when this happened, but somewhere along the line I must have accidentally deleted the folder for February 2007, which contained the daily folders holding the photos themselves.Luckily, I have had a Windows Home Server system running on the network since November. I opened up the backup taken in mid-November, and there were the folders. A quick copy and paste, and all the missing photos were restored back to their rightful place. Whew!(Note: IDimager is no longer available. Its successor is Photo Supreme, which I am now using)Leave a comment
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The Lone Server
A video that is a humorous look at the march of computer progress as seen by Windows Server 2003. Raised a smile with me, anyway.Leave a comment
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How To Ruin a Good Idea
BBC Four is currently running a series of programmes on Pop music. There are some gems in there, but also some real clunkers. An example of a gem was Paul Morley’s examination of his obsession with Pop music in his excellent programme: Pop! What Is It Good For? In many ways, it was a TV reworking of his book Words and Music, which I think is the best book ever written on Pop music. Both the programme and the book used Kylie Minogue’s song Can’t Get You Out Of My Head as the starting point for a meaty discourse on the genre.And an example of a clunker? Well, that would have to be last night’s How Pop Songs Work. The basic idea was good: what are the elements that go to make up a memorable pop song. And the central idea was to have Charles Hazlewood, a conductor, examine the music of pop songs. He’s done this before – I remember seeing a TV programme where he dissected the skills of Lennon and McCartney and successfully demonstrated their genius at its best. There, it was just Hazlewood and a piano, and it was shot without fuss, to let the ideas come through.Last night’s programme, though, was completely ruined for me by the director’s insistence of filming Hazlewood at the piano with multiple cameras – all but one at very odd angles and viewpoints – and then constantly cycling between them. The nadir was one camera lurking behind piles of CDs and spying on Hazlewood. It was at that point that I very nearly threw something through the TV screen. This was gratuitous tricksy TV, which completely undercut any argument that Hazlewood was making as far as I am concerned. Awful, awful crap.Leave a comment
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Hacking DNA
We talk quite blithely about computer viruses and hackers. Here’s an absolutely fascinating presentation given by a biologist (Drew Endy) at the recent Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. Here’s a biologist talking to an audience of computer folks (geeks, scientists and hackers) about hacking DNA. The analogy of moving from machine code to higher level abstractions such as programming languages, parts and devices is mind-blowing. It’s also quite scary. As one of the comments says, the idea of script kiddies being able to construct their own ebola virus may not be so very far away…Leave a comment
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The Sixth Sense Candidate
It wouldn’t surprise me if this turns out to be prescient.Update: Back from the grave. Excellent. It’s clearly not over until the fat lady sings.Leave a comment
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The Truth Refreshes
Over at The Quackometer, a new homeopathy site is reviewed: FairDeal Homeopathy. Clearly a refreshing change from the usual claims made by homeopaths. However, something tells me that this is probably a spoof. Genuine homeopaths wouldn’t be so genuine, surely?Oh, and while you’re over at the Quackometer’s review, don’t forget to check out Bovine Descenders. Obviously a service that I need to be aware of around here.Leave a comment
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Hook, Line and Rapture
The ever-dependable Pat Condell aiming some barbs at a well-deserved target.Update: August 2013. I’ve long stopped watching Condell’s videos. It seems to me he has crossed the line into prejudiced argument. Avicenna puts his finger on it.Leave a comment
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