Notes On A Scandal

Today I went to see Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett (and the wonderful Bill Nighy) in Notes On A Scandal. (Warning: that link probably opens on a page that will start audio pouring out of your speakers. I wish web browsers had a “mute” button – some blasted advert started blaring as I was trying to Skype with my mother yesterday.) Judi Dench’s character is a delightfully ghastly piece of work, and (unlike some reviewers) I thought Blanchett’s fey ambivalence worked out well.
However the thing that struck me was the gasp.
A few weeks ago I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth with Jon and Laura. (You may remember that an earlier attempt had been fortuitously thwarted.) One of the most striking things about this account of fascist Spain in the 1940s was the juxtaposition of delicate, whimsical fantasy and callous brutality. At one point, the fascist officer performed a sudden and unexpected act of pure violence that was so shocking that the entire audience gasped in horrified disbelief. And in retrospect, it seemed an entirely appropriate reaction.
Today there was another collective gasp from most of the audience, when a 15-year old school boy said that he’d been “dreaming about your hot, sweet c*** all morning.”. [Asterisked to avoid nanny-filters.] The thing that struck me was that this was a peculiarly American reaction; in England, where the film is set, George Carlin’s seven words are so unexceptional that they are routinely printed in newspapers (without asterisks). Yet here in Seattle the “c” word produced the same reaction as a brutal murder. How strange….
Anyway, back to the film. It’s quite good, especially Judi Dench’s performance, and the school scenes are particularly effective. It doesn’t have the magic of, say, Venus or The History Boys, but it’s still well worth seeing. Psychologists and teachers may want to give it a miss, though: it might be something of a busman’s holiday for them.

The nadir of British multiculturalism

I’m all for people celebrating their varieties of cultural heritage, acknowledging their history, and so forth. But for me such things end at the school gates. I’m vehemently opposed to sectarian or religious schools of all stripes. (I’m not particularly enthusiastic about any kind of private schooling, but in practice there are always going to be children whose individual needs and aptitudes cannot be accomodated within the public system. But this should depend on the needs of the child, not the prejudices of the parents.) Once you allow bishops, priests, rabbis, and creationist car-dealers to dictate the curriculum, you’re going to wind up with situations like this:

The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as “apes” and Christians as “pigs” and has refused to withdraw them. Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton. In an interview on BBC2’s Newsnight, Dr Alyusuf was asked by Jeremy Paxman whether she recognised the books. She said: “Yes, I do recognise these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve.”

And what might those objectives be? Well:

[Mr. Cook] also alleges that when he questioned whether the curriculum complied with British laws, he was told: “This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia”.

To Christians and Jews who would argue that such books don’t belong in the classroom: I agree. And the same goes for your own religious texts, which also contain viciously intolerant language.

Butterflies and Wheels

A few weeks ago I stumbled over the syndication site Butterflies and Wheels, and added their RSS feed to NetNewsWire. I’ve gradually realized that I’m spending more time on stories that they promote than almost any other source, including such stalwarts as the BBC, Comment is Free, HuffPo, El Reg, BoingBoing and SlashDot. Recommended.
P.S. On the subject of cool sites, let me mention two of my personal favourites: the Akihabara News (geek heaven), and Flight Level 390. No flame-fests, just stuff to make you smile, and wish you were there….

Faith and contingency

Author Sam Harris and blogger Andrew Sullivan have been conducting an interesting debate of letters on the subject of religious belief. The latest piece by Sam Harris is particularly thought-provoking. Key paragraph:

You also appear to see some strange, epistemological significance in the fact that you cannot remember when or how you acquired your faith. Surely the roots of many of your beliefs are similarly obscure. I don’t happen to remember when or how I came to believe that Pluto is a planet. Should I say that this belief “chose me”? What if, upon hearing that astronomers have changed their opinion about Pluto, I announced that “I have no ability to stop believing…. I know of no ‘proof’ that could dissuade me of [Pluto’s planethood], since no ‘proof’ ever persuaded me of it.” I’m sure you will balk at this analogy, but I’m guessing that your parents told you about God from the moment you appeared in this world. This is generally how people are put in a position to say things like faith “chose me.” The English language chose both of us. That doesn’t mean that we cannot reflect critically on it or recognize that the fact that we both speak it (we might say it is the “air we breathe”) is an utterly non-mysterious consequence of our upbringings. Indeed, you do admit the role that such contingency plays in matters of faith. As you say, if you had been raised Buddhist, you’d almost certainly be a Buddhist. But you refrain from drawing any important conclusions from this. If you had been raised by atheists, might you even be an atheist?

Review: Philips HN060/37 Noise-Canceling Earbuds

[I just posted this review at Amazon.com.]
For the last couple of years I’ve carried around a pair of Bose QC2 noise cancelling headphones. They’ve gone all over the world with me, and have made long-haul air travel a much less stressful experience. The only flaw in the design is that if you turn off the noise cancelling system, the headphones don’t work. No battery, no audio. That’s dumb – and most of the competition figured that out.
Last Sunday, while on a trip to Silicon Valley, I started to get an annoying buzz in the right earpiece. I changed batteries, but it got steadily worse. Out of warranty. Time to replace.
I mostly use my headphones for two purposes: to listen to my iPod while walking or travelling in a bus or plane, and to listen to channel 9 on United flights. No jogging or energetic exercising.
I picked up a pair of these Philips earbuds at Fry’s in Palo Alto (and paid much more than Amazon – sigh!). They worked flawlessly in my hotel room, listening to a movie on my laptop, and on the flight back from SFO to SEA. Ignore the negative reviews above: the noise cancelling circuitry does an excellent job at attenuating aircraft noise, especially the lower frequencies. With noise cancellation turned off, the in-ear design certainly reduces the high frequencies but does nothing for the roar of an aircraft engine just outside the window. It feels like a nicely balanced design.
As for audio quality, I’m no audiophile, but it sounded about the same as my iPod’s factory-supplied earbuds. Not outstanding, but perfectly acceptable.

Trip complete

I’ve just arrived back in Seattle after my trip to the San Francisco area. Although I don’t generally blog about the who, what and where of all my business meetings (different company, different culture), I can mention that today I visited the A9 team in Palo Alto. They asked me to speak at their weekly all-hands, and so I took the opportunity to go over some strategic material from a recent presentation in Seattle. I’m not sure if they’d had an opportunity to see the video of the earlier talk, but as we all know a video is a poor substitute for a live presenter who can be questioned “in real time”. I think it was useful and (hopefully) provocative.
While I was at A9, I ran into my former Sun colleague Claire Giordano. It was the first time we’d talked since just before I joined Amazon, when I was quizzing her about the difference between the Sun and Amazon cultures. But there wasn’t much time to chat; the schedule was full, and it was only fear of the inevitable traffic jam on 101 between Palo Alto and SFO that brought proceedings to a close. We got to the airport, went through the ritual – turn in the car, check in, check through, eat, wait and board – and I fell asleep until I heard ATC on channel 9 directing our flight to “turn right to one three oh and join the localizer for runway one six centre; caution wake turbulence, you’re following a Boeing 757”.
And rather than waiting for the bus, I got a lift from my colleague Colin (thanks!), so that I was home by 11:40pm.

Diablo, steam, and tapas

It’s been a long, but delightful day. After breakfast (at which I met my former colleague, Hal Jespersen, who’s just launching a new startup), I headed over to Berkeley to meet up with Chris and Celeste. We drove up to Mount Diablo, from which we hoped to get a great view of the San Francisco bay. It was misty, but we felt sure it would burn off.
I’d only been to Mt. Diablo once before, about 10 years ago. My daughter Kate was at Mills College in Oakland, and I was visiting her during one of my business trips. On that occasion we drove part way up the mountain, but because time was short we turned off and drove out through Walnut Creek. This time Chris took us to a car park about 850 feet below the summit, and we climbed the Jasmine Trail up to the Lower Summit area. It wasn’t all that far, but the path was steep with loose, friable stuff underfoot, so we got a good work-out. Unfortunately when we reached the top of the trail we found that the mist hadn’t really burned off. Although it was brilliant sunshine atop the mountain, all we could see were ghostly hills looming out of the white. After a break to rehydrate we walked back down the road to the car. (My shoes weren’t well suited to hiking, and I was worried about turning an ankle.)
By now it was after 2, so we drove down to Walnut Creek and grabbed some lunch in the first likely restaurant. From here Chris took us back along Route 24, but before we reached the Caldecott Tunnel he swung up to the north, intending to drive through the Tilden Regional Park. After traversing a maze of twisty lanes, all different, we emerged on the main road through the park, right next to the Redwood Valley Railway. Last summer Chris volunteered at the railway, and wrote an entertaining blog about his experiences. We were about to drive by, but I insisted that we check out this narrow-gauge railway. So we did. One of the enginess was in steam, pulling a passenger train for visitors, and eventually we were able to enjoy the 12 minute ride through the redwoods. (There were lots of visitors, especially children, and each train was full.) After that we walked across to the engine shop, where one of the locomotives was undergoing maintenance, and talked to some of the volunteer staff. After a look around the roundhouse, we took our leave. (I’m going to be back, though.)
From Tilden Park we descended through the redwoods and eucalyptus towards the UCB campus. We parked on Euclid, and Chris took the opportunity to get a (startling!) haircut, while I browsed in the bookshop next door. Then it was time to head over to Oakland; we’d arranged to meet Steve and Wendy for tapas in Piedmont. And so we did, and it was good. Eventually we returned to Berkeley, and I said goodnight and took the long drive back down 880 and across the Dumbarton Bridge to Menlo Park.
I took a bunch of pictures which you can find here. By the time you read this, they will hopefully have finished uploading; however I won’t get around to adding captions for a few days. Enjoy, anyway – especially if you like narrow-gauge steam trains.