Status-Q

Michael Dales has found a new way to make your grubby old keyboard all clean and shiny. As long as you’re not in a hurry.

The YouTube player that appears in a web page has a button in the bottom right hand corner that I hadn’t previously tried:

It switches the little in-window player into something approaching full-screen mode. Now, most videos on YouTube are short enough and of low-enough quality that there’s not much point in doing this. But those who have a ‘director’ account can upload videos of greater length; things for which you may prefer to retire to a comfy chair and watch from a distance.

And so it was that I spent an hour and three quarters this morning watching YouTube because somebody has uploaded the talk that Richard Dawkins gave at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia in October.

There are two parts to the video. The first is Dawkins reading extracts from The God Delusion. The second, longer clip is the Q&A from the audience afterwards, which is, as he predicts, generally more interesting. What adds a certain frisson to some of the discussions is the fact that the other academic institution in Lynchburg is the contraversial Baptist college, Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell.

If you’re interested in the subject from either side of the fence, or are sitting on it, this is worth watching.

• The readings
• The questions

Follow-up: Dave Hill points out that you can get the whole thing as a Quicktime download here. Similar quality, but you can right-click on the link and save the file to your machine if you want to keep a copy.

My friend Martin pointed me at a rather unusual and rather delightful web page.
Take a look…

Davina Bristow has a few nice optical illusions in this Telegraph article.

Here’s one.

The faces of this cube are, in fact, the same colour. Davina suggests a way to confirm this by cutting holes in a bit of paper which hides the surroundings – on my Mac I used the Digital Color Meter utility which shows the top actually to be slightly lighter in this rendition. It’s the edges of the faces, and the appearance of a shadow, which causes us to deduce that the top is grey and the bottom white.

Thanks to Claes-Frederik for the link.

John quotes from Joel Stein’s lovely rant in the LA Times. Here’s another bit:

Huge portions of my e-mails come from people who haven’t even read my article. They’re just assuming, based on a headline or an excerpt on a blog, that I’m unpatriotic or irreligious or lecherous. Sure, they happen to be right, but it would have been nice if they had clicked on my column and moved me up on that “most-read articles” list.

A lot of e-mail screeds argue that, in return for the privilege of broadcasting my opinion, I have the responsibility to listen to you. I don’t. No more than you have a responsibility to read me. I’m not an elected servant. I’m an arrogant, solipsistic, attention-needy freak who pretends to have an opinion about everything. I don’t have time to listen to you. I barely have time to listen to me.

Part of the problem is that no etiquette has yet been established for the hyper-interactive world. And I, born before MySpace and e-mail, don’t feel comfortable getting a letter and not answering it. And then, if I do, suddenly, we’re pen pals, with all those pen pal responsibilities.

Full piece here. (Free registration needed)