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Ascension day
Today, Li-Xia wanted to go biking
and I thought it was a good idea because it is the
tradition to go biking on this day. Some prefer to leave
as early as possible. We left around ten. First we biked
in the direction of Usselo and from there we went to Boekelo.
Then we went to the Labyrinth of the senses, but because the entrance
fee was € 11.50 we decided to continue. We heard
the sound of the steam train traveling between Boekelo and
Haaksbergen. We biked to the railroad crossing where we
arrived just in time. I took a picture of the train on the crossing. We continued,
and not much further I took a picture of the road going through the fields. We crossed
the road from Enschede to Haaksbergen and then we arrived
at point 46 of Fietsroutenetwerk Overijssel (biking routes in
Overijssel).
(The site does not contain information about the routes, but
I found a RAR file with all the data in various formats including
for Google Earth.) I tracked
some route and we left in the direction of point 47 and from
there to point 83. But we got lost and, as I already feared,
we returned at point 46. I studied the map and plotted a route
along the points 83, 76, 54, 77, 84, 79, 78, 81, 80, 41, 42,
and from there home. We continued our route through fields,
heath, peat, forests, and along lakes. Finally, we arrived
at the German border and I made use of the restrooms at
Ter Huurne,
a strang combination of a restaurant, a shop, a gas station
and an amusement park at the border with Germany. When we continued
into Germany, it started to rain. We did have some drops before,
but now it started to rain. When we came close to Haarmühle, I noticed that my back tire was rather soft.
I was very busy at the Haarmühle, with music outside. We
continued, but after 2.2 Km it was too soft to bike any further
and we continued walking. After having walked 1.8 Km we saw
some people standing outside a farm and when we walked closer
we saw that it was a mother with her son. When we asked them
if they had a pump, it appeared that one was standing right
besides the bike of the son and before I could say anything, he
was pumping my tire. We continued biking home and on the left
a large thunderstorm was growing. I took a picture of the cloud. Twice I saw lightning strike down
from the cloud. Near the Ruthbeek, I had to stop again, but luckily
it was not so far anymore. Li-Xia, walked a little further, but as
soon as she knew where we were, I told her to bike home. Just before
I arrived at home, it started to rain. At home, I
entered the route in Google Earth
and measured that we biked somewhere between 45 and 48 Km.
Twice 21
Every week, I fill the Li-Xia's pill box
with her pills and supplements. For two supplements I have to get
21 pills from the bottle. I have noticed that often it happens I
exactly get 21 pills from the bottle before I put them in the box.
This morning, I twice got exactly 21 pills even without trying.
I am surprised about this ability to "counting" the pills when I
pour them from the bottle in my hand without really counting them.
I guess it is one of those wierd abilities that you develop as a
care giver.
Playing Go
This evening, I went (alone) to the university to
play Go. I was the first to arrive. For some days it has been
quite warm and today it is the first official
summer day (with a maximum temperature
of 25.5 in the center of the country). After about 5 minutes
Rudi arrived and we decided to play outside. I was given a nine
stone advance. Taco and Araldo also arrived and started a game.
At last Huub arrived and watch us play. At the end of the middle
game, I started to make some stupid mistakes and lost two groups.
When we counted, it appeared I had lost with 63 points. We analyze
the game a little. Although I announced I was going to leave, I
looked at the game between Taco and Araldo, and then sat down to
watch the rest of the game, just like the others. When I came
home, I checked how much I still could recall about the game
and I came to about 40 moves. Li-Xia suggested that I should have
taken a picture. I guess that if I had taken a picture, I
probably would have been able to recall most of the game. I am
surprised how easy this seems now.
The game of protein folding
This evening, I downloaded foldit,
which is a game for protein folding. But it is also a method
for using human brain power to solve protein folding problems,
which is known to be a very hard problem. It is not so difficult
to calculate the fitness of a certain folding, but a hard problem
to find the folding with the best fitness.
The game gives you a good insight in the factors that play a role
in protein folding, but I had difficulties with solving the last
puzzle which you have to finish before you can join in the
competition. This gives me the impression that it is also a very
hard problem for humans.
The program also has some glitches. For some reason the update
procedure that ran during the start-up of the program would not
complete. I guess that this might be due to a busy server.
The program also crashed one time.
Hot Pentecost
We are having a hot Pentecost here in
the Netherlands. It is a very early Pentecost, but nevertheless it
is the hottest since 1985 with a maximum temperature of 26 degrees
Celsius. We also happen to be the hottest place in Europe.
In Spain the temperatures are much lower and they are having
lots of rain. But sadly in many areas of Spain it has been
so dry that the earth does not absorb the water so easy
anymore.
Square and triangle tiles
In the past weeks, I have been working on solving the
triangle tiles. Yesterday,
I found a bug in the program for analyzing the square tiles. Many
square tiles where marked
as unsolvable due to a "strong component", but appeared
to have a solution. I am still not sure about the
results, but the current version of the program gives the following
results:
- 60480 sets are not minimal in the sense that they are equivalent with another set that has been dealt with earlier.
- 2284 sets have pieces that are unused by just looking at a line or column.
- 656 sets have pieces that are unused in all possible 2x2 combinations.
- 70 sets have pieces that are unused in all possible 3x3 combinations.
- 20 sets can be partitions in subsets that can only occur in isolation.
- 12 sets can be divide in overlapping subsets that can only occur in isolation.
- For 81 sets a forced solution was found not using all tiles
- 10 sets have been manually proven impossible.
- For 1592 sets a cyclic rectangle has been found.
- For 300 sets a cyclic pattern of lines has been found.
- For 15 sets a solution was found using all tiles
- For 12 sets a manual solution was found
- 3 sets are still unsolved
Of the 3 unsolved sets, it seems that two have a solution
and that one has no solution.
Major fire
Today, it is eight years ago that
Enschede was hit by the fireworks disaster. And again there were
dark clouds visible in the sky as the result of a large fire at
Rodepa Plastics. The fire spread to some other buildings around.
Luckily the fire was consealed before noon. A salient detail is
that the owner of the company had a depot just besides the fireworks
factory that exploded.
Today, I discovered that some algorithm for determining
"strong components" in my program for analyzing
square tiles is not reliable.
This leads to the following results:
- 60480 sets are not minimal in the sense that they are equivalent with another set that has been dealt with earlier.
- 2284 sets have pieces that are unused by just looking at a line or column.
- 656 sets have pieces that are unused in all possible 2x2 combinations.
- 70 sets have pieces that are unused in all possible 3x3 combinations.
- 20 sets can be partitions in subsets that can only occur in isolation.
- 12 sets can be divide in overlapping subsets that can only occur in isolation.
- For 30 sets a forced solution was found not using all tiles
- 10 sets have been manually proven impossible.
- For 1592 sets a cyclic rectangle has been found.
- For 301 sets a cyclic pattern of lines has been found.
- For 15 sets a solution was found using all tiles
- For 12 sets a manual solution was found
- 53 sets are still unsolved
This is a serious setback which might not be easy to fix
as there are now 53 unsolved sets.
Feeding Andy
This morning, I have been feeding Andy
a slice of bread with Duo Penotti.
At first he did not want to eat it, but then it went quite smooth
and he finished two thirds. Because we heard lots of stories about
him eating together with the other children, we decided to also
give it a try at home and to make him eat more "normal" things.
This evening, I went alone to the university to play Go. I found Rudi and Taco outside. We talked for some
time and then Rudi and Taco started their game, while I was looking
and making remarks and asking some questions. At start of the middle
game, Huub arrived and he asked me for a game. We decided to start
equal. We played quite fast and in the end I he resigned. We continued
a little further and when we counted the difference was about ninthy
points. Then we went over to Rudi and Taco and saw how Rudi resigned.
As some surprising things had happened on the board, he explained
what had happened. Then we talked some while longer about all kinds
of other Go related subjects, among the fact that rating in the
Netherlands are getting lower.
First Knight
Today, the movie First Knight was shown on BBC. The following scene from the
movie occurs short after King Arthur has found Lancelot and Guinevere
passionately kiss each other goodbey:
King Arthur: I ask you not to lie to me, even if you think
you'll hurt me. Have you given yourself to him?
Guinevere: No, My Lord.
King Arthur: Do you love him?
Guinevere: Yes.
King Arthur: How did I fail you?
Guinevere: You've never failed me, My Lord.
King Arthur: I saw your face as you kissed him.
Guinevere: Love has many faces. I look on you differently,
but not with less love.
King Arthur: When a woman loves two men, she must choose
between them.
Guinevere: I choose you.
King Arthur: Your will chooses me. Your heart chooses him.
Guinevere: My will is stronger than my heart.
King Arthur: Do you think I put so high a price on my feelings?
They'll pass.
Guinevere: My will holds me to my course through life.
King Arthur: As mine does me, and yet, all I have to do is
look at you and everything I ever believed in fades to nothing.
All I want is your love.
Guinevere: You have it.
King Arthur: Do I? Then look on me as you looked on him.
Guinevere: I gave one moment to Lancelot.
King Arthur: Yes, you're innocent. But you love him! Any
more of this innocence and I'll go mad.
Guinevere: I'll do whatever you tell me to.
King Arthur: I don't know what to think. I no longer see my
way ahead. Only fools dream of the one thing they can't have.
Guinevere: Forgive me.
King Arthur: What's to forgive? I dreamed the dream of you.
It was a sweet dream...... while it lasted.
Watching Go
This evening, I went alone to the university to play Go. When I arrived, Araldo and Taco already were
playing. They both had brought a set, just as I did, because Rudi
had mailed us that he would come later. I too had brought a set,
but I did not use it, because nobody else showed up. I just watched
the game between them. I was just one big fight, which I found hard
to follow. There were a lot of people in the bar, also a lot of
German speaking people.
Bookshop
This morning, I went to city and I went to bookshop "De Slegte". In the past weeks, I had been looking at some
books that I wanted to buy, but every time I hesitated. Today, I bought
at 11:57:
This months interesting links
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008