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Pictures being an insult
Today, the Gemeente
museum Den Haag (Museum of The Hague) announced that they
will not exhibit the pictures and the video by the artist
Sooreh Hera because they
might be an insult to certain parts of the Dutch society. The
exhibition consists of pictures of gay people. One picture is
of a gay couples from Iran that are wearing masks with the
faces of Mohammed and his brother Ali. She herself is from
Iran and has made the pictures because she wants to make a
statement with respect to homosexuality in Muslim countries.
She states that in countries like Iran and Saudi-Arabia gay
people are prosecuted, but that it is rather common for married
man to have homosexual contacts. The pictures are compiled in
the video which besides Muslim symbols also contains Christian
and Jewish symbols.
Last Thursday, the director of the museum, who selected the
works, told that he was not aware that the masks depicted
Mohammed and Ali, but that he as a museum director does not use
political criteria and that he did not think about security
issues. He simple found the pictures exceptional. I guess that
due to the media attention that was given to this exhibition
he changed his mind and decided that the works should not be
displayed. He is probably afraid for the reactions from a small
group of extremist Muslims in the Netherlands. I never remember
a case where a Dutch museum decided not to display a piece of art
because it could be an insult to certain Christians or Jews
(or some other group) in the Dutch society.
In the past weeks, two people have announced that they are
making a short movie which might be offensive to Muslims. The
government has expressed its worries about this as it has
been suggested that one of the movies might display a Qu'ran
being torn to pieces. There was even an interview of a Muslim
leader stating that the Qu'ran may not be touched by people
who are unclean. (I have seen copies of the Qu'ran in Dutch
bookshops, so I wonder how that would be 'legal' in the view
of this man.)
Although Muslims are a minorty in the Netherlands, one must
conclude that they already held a priviledged position in the
Dutch society. By giving in to certain threats, this priviledged
position is established even further. It seems as if a small group
of extreme muslims is given room to keep the whole society
hostage. I wonder how our country will look in thirty years
from now. Will sharia law be implemented in our country or
in some parts of our country?
Chinese Wooden Puzzle
Yesterday, in an attempt to verify the program for
finding solutions for the Chinese Wooden Puzzle I let the program search all the
solutions within a 6 by 7 frame two of each kind of piece
leaving out the T and U pieces. It found 5124 solutions.
When only looking at the colours (matching the types
of pieces) there are 3136 solutions. Further analyzes
showed that these solutions contain exactly the four
orientations of 784 unique solutions. From this one
could conclude that the programs does not contain errors,
but that for some reasons the output file for the 6 by 10
frame (with two copies of all types of pieces) is
incomplete and that the program was terminated before
completion. Today, I wrote a small program to measure
the 'compactness' of the solutions found for the 6 by 7
frame. 'compactness' is defined by adding the smallest
possible rectangles for each type of piece that cover
the occurences of this piece. One of the most 'compact'
solution was:
And the least 'compact' solution was:
Chinese Wooden Puzzle
I ran the program again for finding solutions for the
Chinese Wooden Puzzle
with two pieces of each kind in the 6 by 10 frame. This
time the program produced a 28 Mbyte output file, almost
twice as long as the first time. Analyses showed that
it contained 439840 solutions. When only looking at the
colours, it contained 263904 different solutions. Furthermore,
I found that these solutions contain exactly the four
orientations of 65976 unique solutions. From this I
conclude that the programs do not contain errors.
One of the most 'compact' solution was:
And the least 'compact' solution was:
Party tent
When Annabel went outside,
she was scare stiff for a second. The party tent of
our neighbours had been blown upside down on top
of the hedge separating the gardens. It looked quite
funny.
Chinese Wooden Puzzle
The Chinese Wooden Puzzle
keeps me occupied. I have been
thinking about the solutions for the 6 by 7 frame that
I found earlier this week. I noticed
that in the solutions that were found it often happens
that the pieces with of different colours occur in the
same shape, and that one can swap the pieces, while keeping
the other pieces in place. If solutions where only colours
are swapped are considered as equivalent than there are
620 unique solutions in the 6 by 7 frame. Furthermore,
I discovered that there are solutions that contain a
horizontal division line, meaning that there is a horizontal
line that is not crossed by any piece. It means that one
easily can rearrange the two parts above and below this
horizontal line. This brings down the number of unique
solutions from 784 to 751 and 620 to 602. Today, I wondered
if there there would also by a solution with a vertical
division line. I tried to find it by hand. It was quite
hard, until I started search systematically. Then I found:
I showed it to Annabel saying
that I believed that it was the only possible solution.
While she was trying to find a solution by herself, I
wrote a little program to search the solutions I found
by the program. After a while, she came down saying that
she had found a solution but that she thought it was the
same that I had found. Meanwhile, I already had discovered
that there is only one solution (except with it obvious
permutations) that has a vertical division line.
Playing Go
This evening, I went alone to the university to
play Go because Annabel did not
want to go with me. When I arrived, Araldo and Taco
already had started playing a game and Rudi was watching
them. Rudi invited me for a game and I was given nine
stones ahead. Although I made a good start, thing quickly
went wrong. I lost several groups and after I made some
more "beginner" mistakes, I decided to resign. I continued
watching the game between Araldo and Taco till the end.
Christmas party
Today, I joined the Christmas party of our company.
We left shortly after four o'clock with the players
coach of F.C. Twente.
It was a nice coach with tables and chair facing
each other. Around six o'clock we arrived in Amersfoort.
The navigations system that the driver followed took
suggested a small road that the coach could not take.
After some wandering around, we finally arrived at
Het Bergpaviljoen.
We first had some drinks. The dinner started around eight.
As a starter we had "Wortel en Koolrabi: Terrine van
zoetzure wortel en koolrabi met een mousse van geitenkaas,
gembergelei en kummelkoekje." For the main dish we
had "Hert: Hertenfilet met sukade en rode kool, spruitjes,
spekaardappelen en wildjus." And as desert we had
some custard covered with caramelized sugar and some
ice cream. Of course, some coffee and tea was served
afterwards. During the dinner, I talked with the partner
of one of my colleagues who was sitting opposite of me,
and my colleague who was sitting besides me. It was
interesting to hear about her travels to Africa and
India and the kind of work she did there. We also talked
about my situation. After the dinner, I had hoped to
sit a little longer at the table, but I was scared away
by the loud music that was being played. I went to the
entrance hall where I found some of my colleagues who
too had run away from the music. There I read in the book Bekentenissen van een Filosoof
(Confessions of a Philosopher) by Bryan Magee. Around one
we left for home and took our Christmas hampers with us.
Around a quarter to three we arrived at our office. I
stayed there a little and then biked home, with my
Christmas box on the back of the rack of my bike. Luckily
it did fit, because it was quite a big box.
Maastricht 148
This afternoon, I went into the city. Of course, I
did go to bookshop "De Slegte".
When I walked into a part of the shop where I do not come
very often, I discovered that they still have a whole
stack of the Maastricht 148
books. I talked a little with a man who was standing by
about our trip. Maybe we should go to Maastricht again during
the spring.
Playing Go
This evening, Annabel and I went
to the University. When we arrived, Araldo and Vincent already
had started playing a game of Go. Not
much later, Taco arrived, and we decided to play. I told him
that I wanted to win and that I wanted to have nine stones
ahead. He thought it was no problem. Annabel started working
on her homework, and she continued doing this the whole
evening. Afterwards she told me that if it would be a little
more quiet she would like to come here every evening, because
there are less distractions than in her room. Although I did
have some good opportunities to win the game, I made some
mistakes and decided to resign after I lost one of my corners.
Although I resigned, I felt better than last week.
Fog snow
This morning there was a thin layer of snow in certain areas of the city. As there have been no
clouds, the snow must have come from fog. Most trees were are
so white, but for that no snow is needed.
Christmas
This morning, Li-Xia, Andy and I went to my mother. Last Saturday, my mother came
to catch Annabel to stay with her for
some time. Yesterday, Annabel asked if she could stay till coming
Sunday. I agreed to this, if she would study some English and
history. We brought some books for her. We arrived just after noon
at my mothers place. Some of my brothers and sisters were already
there and the rest arrived a little later. We were with nine adults,
eight children and a dog. Three of my nephews are already taller
than I. In the afternoon, I taught one of my nephews how to
play Go, and we played about five games on a
13x13 board where he could place five to seven stones on the board
at the start of the game. He liked it a lot. One time Annabel
finished a game against him which I had started. In the evening
we had a cook-it-yourself-at-the-table dinner, a typical Dutch
tradition where you fry your own food in a small dish on an electric
stove standing at the center of the table. We had three such stoves
standing on the table. The one I was sitting close actually was a
stone grill. I cooked some pieces of fish, salmon and tuna, and
som pieces of chicken, together with some unions, mushrooms and
sweat pepers. And besides this, also something from the various
salads and some pieces of baguette (French bread).
My name is Lisa
Today, I came across the short movie
My name is Lisa.
It won the third price in the short movie contest Project: Direct.
Afternoon sky
This afternoon, I went into the city and looked around some
shops. When I came outside a large shop, I was impressed by
the sky and took a
picture. The clouds were slowly drifteng by. At the bottom
they are dark behind the light sky, but at the top they are
white from the sun that still shines on them. Quite impressive.
This months interesting links
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