What's Wrong With This Picture?

Here's an artistic puzzle for you.


One of my favourite videos on the net is this cute one of a Mum showing her very young daughter how to dance - the music is Nouvelle Vague's version of "Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With". Apart from being fun to watch, it's a scene of a parent enjoying life with their child (two children, actually) in the security of their own home.



Now, if you go to that YouTube page, a couple of links will take you to the website of the artist Sophie Collier. (I don't know if she's the Mum in the video).

And there's a painting that's a puzzle. It's called "The Black Swan Problem and Ms Collier describes it as follows:

The Black Swan Problem references a theory put forth by 18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume. In asking "how many swans does one need observe before inferring that all swans are white..." he points to our tendency to create general rules based purely upon what is factually observed, since we cannot easily or immediately see what is happening elsewhere.

At first glance, this painting depicts an imagined, seemingly inviting and safe refuge of a father and daughter watching the box in opulent and comfortable surroundings. But this is misleading: upon closer inspection there is a less predictable view to be teased out.

The painting has now been shortlisted for stage 2 of the John Moores Painting Prize for 2010

Here's a small image of it - for a bigger version click here.



So this is a scene that's superficially similar to that video - parent and daughter in the security of their own home - except we are told there are other things , perhaps more weird , to be found.

I'm trying to work it out - I've spotted a couple of things so far. Can anyone else see anything?

The Guardian's Pledge Tracker

I'm sure I'm not the only Lib Dem blogger still trying to work out whether the coalition is going to be good, bad or ugly.

For now, I have my doubts, but I'm prepared to give it a chance to work. I shudder when I read about the possibility of nature reserves being sold off, but nod in agreement when I see that the Audit Commission is being abolished.

The Guardian has now come up with a little gadget that will aid my thinking on the subject - their "Coalition Election Pledge Tracker" It's worth a look...

First They Attacked Evolution. Now They Are Attacking Physics.

It's alarming how being a "Conservative" in America is starting to mean "Anti-Science". Hence "Conservapedia" which is a kind of right-wing creationist alternative to Wikipedia.

Now it's criticising relativity. Key quote:

The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.

The "Volokh Conspiracy" (which is basically a US intelligent,right-of-centre/ libertarian blog, concentrating on legal issues) has a very readable set of comments on the issue here.

Let's hope this kind of stuff is kept out of UK schools, eh?

You Must See The Dimly-Remembered Flip Side

I just thought I'd mention that one of the very bits of British SF ever is now uploaded onto YouTube.

It's the play "The Flip Side of Dominic Hyde" and part one has had only 2,523 hits - which is absurdly low.

Whether you are a fan of SF and watched ever minute of this season's Dr Who and "Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel", or think you loathe science fiction and prefer Jane Austen, do yourself a favour and watch this.

Dominic lives in a clean, quiet minimalist hit-tech future that's perhaps a little too quiet. The word 'happy' seems to have disappeared from people's vocabularies and been replaced by the word 'complacent'....

2053 Detonations

This thought-provoking and rather eerie animation shows every nuclear explosion from 1945 up to 1998.

It begins slowly, but there's a sort of flash flood of detonations in the 1950s.....

Before you watch it, see if you can answer this question - where did the first nuclear explosion take place in Africa? (that's not including the natural nuclear reactions that took place in what is now Gabon, 2 billion years ago).



Hat-Tip: Andrew Sullivan

Changing the Borders

A slightly sardonic video from the Economist changes Europe's borders.... not to mention coastlines!



Hat-Tip: Hit and Run

Eastern SF

On the foreignpolicy.com website, there's an interesting article about the return of politically charged Chinese SF. As an SF fan who had never even heard of any Chinese SF before reading this, I've been intrigued. The article centres on a new novel that was published last year in Hong Kong but is now circulating widely :

Chen Guanzhong's China 2013 presents a fairly Orwellian view of China's future. Although Chen has said he does not think his novel is like 1984, certain parallels between the two are pretty obvious. Key Orwellian concepts such as a "memory hole," "doublethink," and "newspeak" find echoes in Chen's novel, and the antagonist is a party official reminiscent of O'Brien, a character in 1984.

As the novel's plot unfolds, on the day that marks the beginning of an unprecedented world-wide economic crisis, the U.S. dollar falls by one-third. The same day, China officially enters what its leaders call "the prosperous time." Every Chinese person accepts this happy coincidence, except for two men and a woman. The three remember events differently: They believe that a month, somehow been lost from public memory, separates these two events. And they set out to recover memories of that lost month.

I don't know if it's translated into English yet...

More Evil-Looking Than Anything On Doctor Who

If you are looking for a website about animals that's a bit out of the ordinary, try Ugly Overload. Their strapline is:

"Giving ugly animals their day in the sun. We avoid the simply tragic, diseased, or maimed." That's where I found the above picture of a Kitefin Shark.

As the authors so ably put it:

Its creepy skin and having its eyes where its nostrils should be might be impressively ugly enough, if that weren't overshadowed by the fact that its eyes are totally the wrong size and in fact seem to come from some other animal entirely.

Ah well, ugliness is only skin deep.

The Tide Is Turning

By the way, if you haven't heard it... this is "The Tide is Turning".



A sublime song about Live Aid.

We Don't Need No Thought Control

Pink Floyd were one of my favourite groups when I was younger. I thought "Dark Side Of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here" were wonderful. And the Tide is Turning" is sublime. But I never liked "Another Brick In the Wall", especially the title track. Not even for one second.

"We don't need no education!"? Of course you do, you pillocks. If that track discouraged even one person from getting a good education and career , well that's one person too many. And teachers and schools seemed such an easy target. Writing a song that encouraged kids to study would have been a bit trickier, eh?

But as explained on Harry's Place , this version - with Roger Waters blessing - is rather more appropriate. It's fronted by two brothers of Iranian origin living in Canada.....

Sometimes Anger Is the Right Emotion To Display

Sometimes the best thing to do in a poltical arena is to show your anger and contempt.... this is Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner.

The Guardian tries to explain here.

Say Something Nice About The Coalition? Our Tories Vote Against

On Rochford District Council we have a pretty oppressive form of the cabinet system - if you aren't one of the eight Tory cabinet members, you can never ever speak at a cabinet meeting , even if it affects your ward.

So the Lib Dems were pleased to see that the coalition are going to give councils the chance to go back to a committee system, and two of us put forward the following motion:

‘That this Council welcomes the statement by the Liberal Conservative Coalition Government that they will allow Councils to return to the committee system, should they wish to.’

This was treated by horror by the Conservative leadership. Clearly any hint from us that the cabinet system isn't perfect hit a extremely raw nerve. As a result they voted as a block against a motion praising their own national party.

I'm Chuffed To Bits About This Chinwag

I don't know if Cameron and Obama got on as well as this - but here's an entertaining game between High Lawrie and Ellen Degeneres as they try to guess the meaning of English and American slang.....

Third Place.....

Wheatley Ward on Rochford District Council is a real Conservative stronghold - when the seat was contested in May, only the Tories and English Democrats actually stood.

Following the sad death of Conservative ward councillor John Pullen, we've just had a by-election, in which the Lib Dems and Labour dipped their toe into the electoral waters here. However the result was, as expected , a Conservative hold:

Aron Priest Conservative 417 61.0% (down 7.8% since previous election)
John Hayter English Democrats 142 20.7% (down 10.4%)
Sid Cumberland Liberal Democrats 78 11.4% (up 11.4%)
David Bodimeade Labour 47 6.9% (up 6.9%)

Turn out this time was 21.3 %

All Hail The All Whites!

Not a bad world cup for me personally , as I had Holland in the office sweepstake...

But the gane that riveted me most was New Zealand 1 Italy 1 - a defiant performace by the All Whites.

And am I the first person to point out that New Zealand were the only team to leave the World Cup Finals unbeaten?