Previous Up Next

Diary, July 2004


 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
                   1   2   3
   4   5   6   7   8   9  10
  11  12  13  14  15  16  17
  18  19  20  21  22  23  24
  25  26  27  28  29  30  31


Thursday, July 1, 2004

Notation technique

Yesterday, I went to the Go club again. I tried to record the game using a coordinate based notations system using the handicap points as orientations points because the board did not have numbers on the side. At the beginning this worked fine, but near the end of the game it became harder, because I became tired. Again, I felt that the record taking took a lot of energy. When I came home, and tried to enter the game, I discovered, I had missed a number of moves. So the system is not very reliable, but maybe it is also because I did not write down the color of the stone with the move. But nevertheless, I did learn something from the game I played against Daan. Daan played simultaneously against Martijn and me. At the end of the game, we concluded that the outcome was about equal. I learned a lot from analyzing the game.


Friday, July 2, 2004

Strange day

Yesterday was a strange day. I had taken a day off so that Li-Xia and I, just with the two of us, could look around a little bit for a new car. After next week the summer holidays will start, and we won't have the opportunity anymore. It was out intention to first look around. We were thinking about buying new car, but a little smaller than the Renault 19 we have now. We quickly found out that most compact cars could not carry the special buggy we have for Andy. The weather was rather changing, sun shine alternated with thunderstorms. I took some pictures of some violently moving clouds right before it started raining. We looked at several dealers for Japanese and Korean cars, when we finally arrived at a Toyota dealer. There we looked at a light grey metallic Toyota Corolla of just three years old that drove about 18000 Km. We became rather enthusiastic about it and took it home during lunch for a test drive. Its dimensions are rather similar to those of our current car. In the evening, we decided to buy it.

At four o'clock, I took Annabel to the doctor. She had been complaining about pain in her right food, since last Monday, when a boy from the class kicked against her toes. While waiting, I tried to solve a nonogram, which went very quickly for the first half. The doctor then made some remark about her appearing in my diary. He then told that he had seen the May 4 broadcast. He event suggested that maybe I should publish some parts from them. Then he sent us to the hospital for an X-ray, just to make sure that it was not broken. In the hospital I did make some more progress solving the nonogram while sitting in the waiting room. I am still wondering if it is possible to construct a nonogram that cannot be solved simple by solving rows and columsn in isolation. So far, I haven't come across a nonogram that requires you to do some guessing and back-tracking and that only has a single solution. (follow-up) Two X-ray pictures were taken that did not reveal any fractures. She was advised to just try to use her feet as much as possible, because exercise would improve the condition quicker.

When coming home, Andy was very proud about his school report and the fact that he goes to group 3 next year. He even told his grandmother over the phone that he did.


Thursday, July 8, 2004

Fanaat

Yesterday, Annabel and I went to the Go club. Because the holidays have started at the university we went to a different location, namely "De Belletrie", also the location where the game club Fanaat meets. We sat at the long round table. Before we started playing, I showed everybody the four rubber bands that I had made with numbers, and put them around the four sides of the board to aid me the record keeping. Martijn showed a board with numbers and letters, but I preferred numbers on both sides.

Annabel played against a student who had just learned the game a few weeks ago. They were about the same strength. I played against Arne, who got a 9 stone handicap and 40 point komi. The game lasted about three hours and was the longest of that evening. Arne was determined to win, although he had not played for some time. The opening resulted in some very solid positions for me. But than Martijn, who was sitting beside me, remarked that Arne should making some daring moves, and try to confuse me. Apparently, he succeeded in doing this, because I followed Arne too easy, making mistakes, and not seeing the weak points in his own position. Finally, he won with 38 stones, which according to the starting conditions should be considered as a loss, but looking at how much he gained since the start of the game, I think it pretty good. I took a picture of the final board position. I also recorded the game (PostScript, SGF) but at home I discovered there were some missing moves and errors in it.

Annabel spent a large time of the evening looking at books all around us, and watching the cat that was walking around. On the way home, she asked if she could borrow some of the books. I told her that she should become a student first. We calculated that it would at least take nine years, if she did not skip any class. I also said that she could do faster, if she would only study and never play outside or watch television. I told her that children do not learn so much in school and that you could learn things much faster if you would know how to learn them right. Most comes down to the ability to concentrate. She did have a good school report, even the troubles she had with spelling seems to have improved. I wonder what will happen from here.


Thursday, July 15, 2004

Analyzing a game

Yesterday evening, I went to the Go club. Together with Marcel, I analyzed the game, I played last week. We did not analyze the whole game, but he did give me some good advice. Then we decided to play a gain. He got a nine stone handicap, and had to win with 110 stones according to my rating at the club competition. At the end of the game he had 75 point against 29 of mine, making him win with 46 point, but compared to the 110 he had to win, it was a loss of 64 points. He commented that I played strong, although I gave up one corner that I could saved, and allowed him to steal another corner, which was not really possible. So I did become stronger in the past year, but so did many of others I played against. My real rating might be around 15 now. I borrowed the book Get Strong at the Opening and started reading it.


Friday, July 16, 2004

Mass detonation through shock wave

Some research by students from the Royal Military Academy has shown that a shock wave can make normal consumer fireworks become explosive. This could explain the mass detonation during the fireworks disaster on May 13, 2000. Right before the big explosion there had been a smaller one, which after analysis of the video footage was proven to include a shock wave. The test done by the students showed that the effect is stronger with lighter fire works.


Saturday, July 17, 2004

Weather

This morning, the sky was blue, which was a nice surprise because it had been grey for almost the whole week. When I came outside, it was hot, but it was also obvious that the humidity was rather high. When we went into the city, I already saw some cloud forming in the sky. Around four in the afternoon, there were the first dark clouds, and we heard on the news that some heavy thunderstorms were causing problems in the rest of the country and a warning for strong squalls. It was only around eight that the it started with us, and while I looked outside, I considered the possibility of parking our new car away from the tree it was standing close to. Finally, I just left it there and nothing happened. (Later I heard that the thunderstorm was preceded with an impressive shelfcloud.)


Monday, July 19, 2004

Wedding ring

Yesterday around four in the afternoon, I went outside to check the temperature. It was rather nice. I decide to do something about the pavement in the garden, which had been partly removed because our neighbours are having an extension of their living room. Last week the builder told me that he no longer needed access to our garden with respect to the new wall. I ended up doing everything, and worked till about half past eight (of course, with a break for dinner. It did involve some puzzling to get all the pieces in, but I was rather happy with the result.

In the evening, I suddenly noticed that my wedding ring had some rough edges. Then I noticed that it was damaged because of me banging the stones of the pavement with some other stone. I immediately went to Li-Xia to show it to her. I got the ring from her. She forgave my stupidity. I am afraid that the next time, I will forget to take it off again.


Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Shooting down a wasp

We just had our first wasp entering the room through the open window for this year. One of my colleagues got the idea to shoot it from the ceiling with a rubber band. He fired twice, I four times. My last shot was a hit. He then killed it with his foot.


Thursday, July 22, 2004

The Game

Tonight, I watched the movie The Game on television. I missed the very first minutes, I guess. Quite an interesting movie, a real psychological triller, as you keep doubting whether it really is a game or not. Especially, when at the end he jumps from the building to commit suicide. The only weak point is that this would never be possible to do in reality. Of course, you can do a lot with special effects, but only when everyone is aware of it and cooperating. It would never be possible to do this with a person being unaware of it.


This months interesting links


Home | June 2004 | August 2004