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Playing Go
This evening, I went to the house of Rudi to
play Go. (Due to the
holidays, the university is closed.) I was the
first to arrive, but not much later Taco and
Araldo also arrived. Taco played against Rudi,
and I challenged Araldo again with five stones
ahead. Right in the middle game, I made some
studip move, reducing the size of one of my
groups. Then there was another "running" group
that I thought was safe, and when Araldo made
a few moves, I was ready to resign. But Rudi
encouraged me by stating that the situation was
not hopeless. He said I should create a Ko.
That is what I did, and somehow it same me some
breathing space, but again I felt hopeless, and
Rudi made some remarks about what I could do.
Although I did follow perfectly, Araldo made
some small mistakes, and after some more moves
and trying to trick me, he finally resigned.
Books
After the church service, someone approached
me and gave me the book Can man live
without God by Ravi Zacharias. I talked some time with
him about how things were going.
Because the shops are open, Li-Xia and I went into the city. We
parked our bikes outside the bookshop "De Slegte", but we first went
into bookshop
Broekhuis on the other side of the street.
We looked around between the books and items
that were on sale. At 13:10:57 I bought the
book "De X-Files van de literatuur" by Arie Storm
(80% off) and Li-Xia bought some pencil cases
one filled with pencils. I also looked at
the complete works of Gerard Reve for just € 20. Gerard
Reve is considered as one of the big Dutch
writers of the 20th century, but
also a somewhat controversional personality.
I never read any of his works.
We went to the third floor where there was an art
exhibition with the name "Omslag"
presenting the work of the six young artists:
Gertie Bornebroek,
Karlijn Koster,
Jasmijn Miltenburg,
Susan Pinkster,
Lydia van de Streek,
and Christiaan Wikkerink.
We looked at the installation of Christiaan Wikkerink
which consisted of a monitor displaying
the image of a SR-71 Blackbird. Besides it
was a stick of credit-card sized CD-ROMS and
a stack of notes explaining that it is possible
to hide information inside a picture as this,
a technique called steganography. The note
said that it was possible to hide another
image inside the images whithout it being
directly visible. The funny thing was that
he used Tipp-Ex to cover the word "direct".
Next we visited "De Slegte" bookshop where
I bought five books (actually sixteen) for
one Euro each. These are
the books:
We walked around the city. It was quite busy
because a multi-cultural manifestation was
being held in the city center. Li-Xia wanted
to eat something and we decided to get a
Happy Meal. After this we returned to
bookshop Broekhuis, because I was still
doubting about where I should by the
complete works Gerard Reve. I also came
across a book Greatest hits - volume 1.
with the collected poems from 1954 to 2004 of
Bart Chabot.
In the end I decided not to buy these books.
Utrecht
Li-Xia and I are staying with my mother
for some days. Today we went to Utrecht. We parked our car near
the houde of a cousin. From there we took the bus into the center
of the city. We first walked to bookshop "De Slegte". There I found the Oxford Essential
Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English for just one Euro and I
decided to buy it. We looked around the wholo shop. The floor
plan remains interesting.
In the Asian section, I found a book in Chinese. On the back it
said "Two Tone set-Bells of Marquis Yi". I showed it to Li-Xia
and she found it quite interesting. When I told her that it was
only 5 Euro, she wanted to buy it. We paid the books at 12:42:38.
Next we had a quick look at Radio Centrum Electronica a shop that I used to visit more
than 30 years ago to buy electronic components.
Next we walked to Interglobe
travel bookshop. There I found a map of Xinjiang, which even did have a little streetmap of
Urumqi on it. At 12:56, we bought it for € 12.50.
Next we went to bookshop Broese.
Li-Xia sat down and I had a look at the computer science section.
I looked at the book Beautiful Code. It looked interesting, but I did not buy it.
We walked over to the Dom Tower and had a look at the church. We also took
some pictures of eachother
in the church garden. Li-Xia was not in the mood to
climb the tower, so we decided to walk back to the bus station.
On the way back, we looked in another bookshop and we bought some
flowers.
Around three o'clock we arrived at the house of my cousin and we
stayed there till about nine o'clock. His parent, my uncle and
aunt, also paid a visit and we talked some time with them and
showed them some of the pictures of our children.
Beeld & Geluid
Today, my mother,
Li-Xia, and I went to Hilversum and went to
the Beeld & Geluid
(Image and sound) museum (picture). My mother and Li-Xia went to Experience,
while I went downstairs to the customer center to do some research
in old radio and television guides to find out some information on
when Star Trek was first shown on Dutch television. I started with
my search in the guides of 1968. After some time, some man asked
me what I was researching, and when he told me, he phoned a friend,
who, just by heart knew that the first episode was broadcasted on
October 7, 1971, but that the show was cancelled after complains.
He also remembered that two years later, on October 7, the broadcast was
continued. It appeared that he was correct, except that the second
broadcast was on September 30, 1973. The rest of the day, I collected
a lot of interesting data, such as the television programs around
the flight of Apollo 11.
Today, I finished reading the book
Can man live without God
by Ravi Zacharias,
which I started reading ten days ago on the day
I got it from someone at my church. To be honest, I am not
very impressed by this book. I think that the review
An Emotional Tirade Against Atheism by Jeffery Jay Lowder
is quite good.
Amsterdam
Today, Li-Xia and I took the train from
Amersfoort to Amsterdam. On the station we met with Meindert, an old friend of mine. He first took us to the
"La Place" restaurant at the top of the public library of Amsterdam. We had some coffee and tea and
sat outside. I also took some pictures of the panorama
(combined picture).
Next we walked to the Chess and
Go shop "Het Paard". The section about Go
was smaller than I had expected. After some considerations and advice,
I bought the following books:
- Invincible: The games of Shusaku. Compiled, edited & translated by John Power.
- L'âme du go: Les formes et leur esthétique by Fan Hui.
- Get Strong at Tesuji. Compiled by Richard Bozulich.
- Life and Death by James Davies.
Meindert bought a transparent dodecahedron dice. (Later that day, when
I played with, I had to think about the problem of the best way to
put numbers 1 to 12 on the dice.) Just when we wanted
to leave, I noticed a 13x13 magnetic Go set for just € 7.50.
I could not resist to buy it, also because it makes a nice gift.
From the shop we walked to his home, but first bought some loaf of
bread from a local baker. At his place we ate some bread, we talked,
and we listened to some music, especially at some different performances
of the 10th Symphony No. 10 of Shostakovich. He thinks the
best are from Yevgeny Mravinsky and Kiril Kondrashin.
Around half past six, we left and took tram number 10 to the
Leidseplein. From there we walked back to the central railway
station while looking at some bookshops.
The first bookshop we encountered was the New English Bookstore. I bought the
book Plato from The Collectors Library of Essential Thinkers
for just € 5. Next we to selexyz scheltema. In discount section, I found the book
Why the Jews Rejected Jesus by
David Klinghoffer
for just € 7.95 and I decided to buy it. In the science and
mathematics department Li-Xia dropped in a chair while I looked
around. Many interesting books, but none that I considered
interesting enough to buy. Next we looked around in the
bookshop Athenaeum.
I did not pick-up any book, but we just walked through it.
Again a bookshop "created" in some old building, not very
large, but still interesting. And the last bookshop that
we looked around was The American
Book Center, which gives you the impression that you are
in the states. When we came outside, it started to rain, and
we decided to go home. At the last McDonalds that we passed
we bought two hamburgers.
In Amersfoort, I took a picture of the sundail, which is an arrow pointing towards
the sun and showing both the solar time (in yellow) and the
official time (in red).
Why the Jews Rejected Jesus
Today, I finished reading the book
Why the Jews Rejected Jesus by David Klinghoffer, which
I started reading on July 17, the day that
I bought the book for € 7.95. The book gives some
interesting views about Jesus from a Jewish viewpoint, but
I find the main argument why Jesus was rejected a little weak.
The author argues that the Jewish law consisted of a written
and oral tradition (Oral Torah, as Klinghoffer calls it) and
that Jesus was rejected because he did not agree with the
oral tradition. From the New Testament we also know that Jesus
rejected the oral traditions and described them as laws made by
men. (I see some similarities with the opposition between the
Roman Catholic church, which say that their traditions extended
from the writings of the New Testament, and the Protestant Reformation,
which is based on the Sola Scriptura principle.) The author argues that the law
was too extensive that it could not be written down in full detail,
and even says that the five books of Mozes are a cryptic text.
But if you know the books of Mozes, you also know that
the first two are mainly stories and not really laws. And then
the rest of the books of the Jewish writings, also do not deal
about laws primarily. I find this kind of reasoning, how logical it might
sound to an orthodox Jew, not very convincing for someone from
the outside. But, nevertheless, I found it a very interesting
book and giving some interesting insights.
Living Enlightenment
This morning, I woke up early and could not fall asleep.
I decided to go downstairs and open the doors as to let
fresh air enter our house to resist the heat that will
come later. I sat outside and I finished reading
the Dutch translation of the book Living Enlightenment by
Andrew Cohen, a rather controversional "spirtual teacher".
Cohen looks like the typical charismatic leader of a
religious sect that exercises a strong control over
his followers. I bought the book on July 6 for one Euro.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting read. In a sense it
reminded me of the call in the bible to die to self, like
it is found in Mark 8:34-38.
While siting outside, I also took some pictures
(one of them) of
the morning sky and I watched the birds fly through the
sky and wondering where they were going.
New Alzheimer medications
Lately there are several exciting news reports
about medicines that might have a positive effect
on the development of Alzheimer's Disease.
Medications that are being mentioned are:
Bapineuzumab, PBT2, Dimebon,
Etanercept and Methylene blue.
Today,
the BCC reported and interesting trial where it
was shown that a dosis of 60 mg of Methylene blue had
a positive effect on the decline for many of the
people involved. Methylene blue is a dye that has
been known for a long time. It does give you green
urine and blue eyes if you use it, but if that also
happens with a dosis of 60 mg per day, I don't known.
How encouraging these reports sound, for many of
these medications it will still take many years
before the become available on the market for the
treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
Spam headlines
Below some headlines that I found in spam messages to
make people follow a certain link.
- US Soldiers kill villagers
- Steve Jobs is not cancer-free
- Wildfires make hundreds homeless in Yosemite
- McCain criticizes Obama for lack of empathy
- Swedish princess slaps town florist
- Man refuses to help girl, gets killed
- Guy Ritchie to split with Madonna
- Boy blinded after perfume bottle explodes
- Girl spears brother to death
- Bear attack kills 3 in Atlanta zoo
- Obama admits extra-marital affair
- New space plane unveiled
- Beijing to ban traffic to reduce pollution
- McCain diagnosed with skin cancer, surgery done
- China withdraws support for McCain after hearing of the meeting
between the Republican and the Dalai Lama
- Californian fire rages across popular Hollywood landmarks
- A-Rod to wed Madonna in September
- US Government to subsidize gas prices in the US
This months interesting links
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