We had a bit of a shock last week. On Thursday evening, we saw that there were two ambulances with flashing lights at the Bennie the baker on the corner. The following morning we learned that his wife, Ineke, had collapsed. She had been rushed to hospital in one of the ambulances, but they failed to resuscitate her, and she died. She was only two years older than me, and she had seemed in perfect health to everyone. Last Saturday evening, Martin joined other neighbours at Bennie's to plan for the funeral. It's tradition here that at the funeral, the ...

Bloody brilliant. One of those "why didn't I think of that?" moments. I hope Min-Kyu Choi makes a fortune. ...

Massimo Pigliucci has a post over at Rationally Speaking that reminds me how easily I get irritated by pseudo-scientific waffle with a metaphysical slant. And I really get irate when it's uttered by people who should know better. Pigliucci quotes the physicist Paul Davies as an example of a generator of metaphysical waffle, and I agree with the assessment. I was watching the BBC's The Sky at Night special on "Life" last week and Davies was being interviewed. It was all I could do to refrain from picking up the TV and hurling it through the window. Templeton prize-winning stuff and ...

Sorry, it's been a while since I've posted a blog entry here. It's partly out of being distracted with other things, and partly because I really have no wish to release a stream of bile on the things that have been happening in the wider world that merely seem to feed my misanthropy. Things and persons such as Geert Wilders, Tony Blair and religious authorities, to name but a few.   Then there are the cries for help over which I don't quite know whether to sympathise or to tell the persons involved to get a grip.   But, life goes ...

And then I made my first big mistake (on this trip). We wanted to go see the area north of Auckland, the Bay of Islands to be more precise. So there were two towns to choose from: Paihia and Russell.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my blog for full links, other content, and more! ]] ...

Another installment of the Symphony of Science. This one proving that, although it's amazing technology, even Auto-tune can't make Professor Dawkins sing...     ...

Ophelia, accurate as always. Is Mooney's prize the 21st Century equivalent of the thirty pieces of silver? ...

The Catholic tradition of Carnival and the Catholic tradition of Mass look to be on collision course in Den Bosch tomorrow: A priest's refusal to grant communion to a gay man has led to uproar in the Catholic south of the Netherlands. A multitude of gay men now look set to descend on Sunday mass in the city of Den Bosch. Can't wait.   ...

Wat 5 uurtjes computeren al niet kan opleveren... Gemaakt met IOGraph, een programma die de bewegingen van je muis omzet in 'moderne kunst'... De lijnen zijn muis bewegingen en bij de stippen staat de muis stil; hoe groter de stip hoe langer de pauze. Ik vind het geweldig! Start IOGraph, doe je ding en whalla: kunst... :-)Op Flickr kan je andere creaties bekijken.blog_tags('http://www.macenzo.nl/files/Muis-kunst.php', 'Muis kunst') ...

My dad always used Old Spice, but I don't recall this ever happening to him. Nicely done special effects - most of them simple mechanics. Only the hand with the diamonds has been superimposed on the single take in this commercial. Mind you, it took three days and dozens of attempts before everything worked.     ...

Quick, you have (as of 21 Feb 2010) six days left to listen to something that you need to hear. ...

A phrase from a piece in Esquire about Roger Ebert, the film critic. Once you get past that amazing, arresting portrait image, the picture it paints of Ebert is wonderful. Worth reading. ...

The BBC has been running a series of programs on the effects of the internet and the World Wide Web on society called The Virtual Revolution. Fronted by Aleks Krotoski, it’s been a relatively good exploration of both the history and the societal effects of the Web. The fourth, and final, programme of the series looked at the societal impact of the web in more detail. It contained the inevitable soundbite from Baroness Greenfield expressing concerns about the negative impact on the brains of our youth, but this was rather nicely called “an extreme position” by Krotoski. ...

Here we go again, another trawl through the depths of technology. My problem is that I never could learn when to leave well enough alone; there are always a few niggles that will bother me, and usually I find that picking at them is like picking at a thread on my pullover, only to find that the pullover is starting to unravel. In this case, the starting point is that I currently have a fairly reasonable home cinema setup – nothing too fancy, such as these – but for the most part it works, and more importantly, the spouse ...

Living with him every day as we do, it is sometimes hard to realise just how quickly our Labrador puppy, Watson, is growing. It’s just over four months since we took him home from the kennel, and then he weighed 3 Kg. Now he’s up to 20 Kg, and giving Kai a run for his money. Puberty looms. God help us. ...

And following from the last post on Chatroulette, how could I resist this wonderful post about vintage sex toys from the Kinsey Institute? Ain't humanity wonderful?     ...

So Chatroulette is the latest fad. I freely admit that I haven't been brazen enough to hit "Play" yet, unlike Jason Kottke.   I note, with a sense of irony, that the Chatroulette start page says: "Chatroulette does not tolerate broadcasting obscene, offending, pornographic material and and we will have to block users who violate these rules from using our service". Somehow, I can't help feeling that that is precisely what is driving the curiousity of most of the evolved apes who are visiting this site... ...

Thanks to Jeff Atwood, over at Coding Horror, I've just learned about Mike Reed's roster of Flame Warriors - a site that describes the various archetypes who populate the internet. I rather suspect that I'm Tiny Yapper - which one are you? ...

I sense that the spirit of Mandy Rice-Davies is with me tonight. My immediate response to the Synod’s passing of the motion that belief in Religion and Science are compatible was to think: “well, they would, wouldn’t they?” I can’t say that I blame them, like Sisyphus, for trying, but really, in this day and age, the mantra of NOMA is wearing a trifle thin. And it doesn’t help when a delegate, Philip Brown of Manchester, says: "Science can only explain how something was created; religion can explain why." Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What I found ...

Richard Wiseman has posted a thought experiment linked to polls for pet owners, one for cat owners and one for dog owners. The thought experiment is this: Imagine walking into a room and finding your beloved dog or cat, and a randomly selected two year old child that you have never seen before.  You are presented with a simple choice.  You have to press one of three buttons.  One button will instantly kill your pet.  The second button will instantly kill the child and the third button will instantly kill you. No-one will ever know which button you pressed and ...