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Diary, August 2007



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


Wednesday, August 1, 2007

De Waarbeek

Today, Li-Xia, Andy, and I went to "De Waarbeek". When we arrived around eleven, the parking place was almost full. On the flyer we got it said that the park was completely renewed and old fashioned fun. But once inside, I noticed that not much had changed since we came here for the last time two years ago. The only new attraction, called Nautic Jet, was out of order. Andy did not mind this. He enjoyed taking rides on the ducks, the marry-go-round, the train, and so on. We went home around half past three.


Thursday, August 2, 2007

Power grid

In the past days, I have been investigating the Dutch power grid using Google Earth and information sources like: Electriciteitstransportnet TenneT TSO B.V. (version of 2004) and Netkaart Hoogspanningsleidingen. The cummulation of my findings can be found in the Power grid the Netherlands KML file, which can be opened with Google Earth.

(follow-up)


Saturday, August 4, 2007

Christian Freeling

Today, I read an article about Christian Freeling (60). It's about 25 years ago that I met him for the first time. He designed several abstract games. For more information see MindSports. The article talks about his 3.5 meter long cobra names Kobus. He is also keeping raccoon dogs. I also discovered that he created an interesting web site about the firework disaster. He argues that Marjolein Schreurs, one of the victims, did not desintegrate in the plast, as is the official reading, but that her body was recovered but that her identity was mistaken. He lived within 120 meters from the explosion and his house was destroyed.


Monday, August 6, 2007

A cure for Alzheimer's Disease

Today, I came across the news about Reversing The Signs Of Alzheimer's. Dr Frank Gunn-Moore's team, in collaboration with researchers in the US, have successfully reversed a sign for the progression of the disease and prevented the death of brain cells. Some recent publication by this team is the article Interaction of amyloid binding alcohol dehydrogenase/AB mediates up-regulation of peroxiredoxin II in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients and a transgenic Alzheimer's disease mouse model.


Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Square tilings

In the past weeks, I have been working on a program for analyzing square tilings again. Yesterday evening, I discovered a simpler algorithm for a certain problem while thinking about a more complex problem This morning, I did some internet research and came across the paper Wang Tiles for Image and Texture Generation. It include a Wang tiling with four colours and eight tiles that can be used to create aperiodical tilings, but also periodical tilings. This made me think about a Rule 30 equivalent tiling again. On Sunday, July 29, Nicolas Reimen visited me. He did his PhD research on 2-way cellular automata. The next day, I discovered an interesting overlap between these cellular automata and square tilings.

Mapping cellular automata to tilings

I discovered a simple mapping of one dimensional cellular automata (or Elementary Cellular Automation) to square tiling and Wang tilings. I found that each such cellular automaton can be represented by represented by eight Wang tiles using four states (or colours). These tiles are, given that the Wolfram Code of the cellular automaton is written like abcdefgh, then the eight tiles are:

    +1+  +1+  +0+  +0+  +1+  +1+  +0+  +0+
    3 3  3 2  2 1  2 0  1 3  1 2  0 1  0 0
    +a+  +b+  +c+  +d+  +e+  +f+  +g+  +h+

Each horizontal line (the top and bottoms of the tiles) represents one generation of the one dimensional cellular automaton. The states on the right and left side, are simply the combination of the the states on the top of the tiles on both sides.

Actually, I first discovered a mapping to square tiles. Here also four states are needed, but sixteen tiles are needed. These are:


   3-1  2-1  3-0  2-0  3-1  2-1  3-0  2-0
   | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |
   1-2  1-2  1-3  1-3  0-3  0-3  0-2  0-2

   1-2  1-3  0-3  0-2  1-2  1-3  0-3  0-2
   | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |
   2-a  2-b  3-c  3-d  3-e  3-f  2-g  2-h

Each diagonal (from top-right till bottom-left) consisting of 0 and 1 represents one generation.


Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Jigsaw pieces

Of course, the discoveries reported above made me think about nice collections of jigsaw pieces. This morning, I realized that the mapping to a Wang tiling is in fact equivalent with the jigsaw pieces that I had constructed for Rule 30 before.

Losing from Araldo

This evening, I went to Rudi's place to play Go. I was the first to arrive. Taco and Araldo arrived a little later. Rudi told us about his holiday to Villach where he joined the 51st European Go Congress for two weeks. It was very hot and he felt that because of this he did not play very well.

I played against Araldo with six stones ahead. I lost with about twenty points. As usual I made some strong move, but also some stuppid moves. Several times, Rudi, who was playing against Taco besides us, made some remarks about my moves.


Wednesday, August 9, 2007

Forbidding the Qur'an

Today, the newspaper De Volkskrant published the article "Enough is enough: forbid the Qur'an by Geert Wilders of the Partij voor de vrijheid (the political party for freedom). Last weekend, Ehsan Jami, a 22 year old ex-muslim, was beaten to bleeding by three muslim men, probably because he made certain remarks about Mohammed and some passages of the Qur'an. Ehsan Jami is organize an organisation for ex-muslims. Last weekend it was the third time he was attacked by muslims and he is now given body guards to protect him. Geert Wilders argues that the Qur'an is fascistish and similar to "Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler and should become a forbidden book. (Today, I discovered that "Mein Kampf" became a bestseller in Turkey.) This article caused many reactions. There are even people who want to prosecute Geert Wilders for these statements. Even the government made some clear statements. However, it is clear that there are muslims who practice the calls for violence against non-muslims as found in the Qur'an. I too think that it would not be wise to forbid the Qur'an. But I do think that our government should speak very loudly about anybody bring to pratice the voilent statements in the Qur'an. It seems that our government remained silent when Ehsan Jami was attacked. It seems that even his fellow party members of the Labour Party did not support him. (There are many muslims in the Labour Party and they get many votes from muslims, because there are many muslims among the low payed labours.)

Today, the Embassy of The Islamic Republic of Iran - The Hague condemd the statements made by Geert Wilders, stating that Dutch society should oppose forces that divide society and that the world on this moment needs people who call for a dialog and understanding. How dare they make such statements, when people in their own country are prosecuted for their believes. According to pinknews.co.uk: "More than 140 people have been executed in Iran so far this year, many of them convicted of 'hooliganism,' which some reports say includes consensual gay sex."

Ehsan Jami received several death threats this morning. This was after the muslim website contained his address and telephone number became widely known.

China threatens to trigger US dollar crash

According to The Telegraph, China threatens to trigger US dollar crash. In the past decade the United States has substanial harmed it financial position by the trade imbalance with China. It seems as if the Unites States have remained wealthy due to money that other countries have invested in it economy. Now they have to pay the price for this wealth. It also seems that China is becoming an economical power that no longer can be ignored and that it soon might take over the United States leading role in the world.


Monday, August 13, 2007

Dutch Guantánamo

Yesterday evening, I was shocked to learn that Muslims convicted for terror related crimes (often only preparing for terrorist activities) are treated in a very strict manner in two detention centers in Vucht (for men) and Rotterdam (for women). I learned this through the television program Reporter (Dutch). This program was first broadcasted on April 29, 2007. Although the Minister of Justice claims that the law has not been violated, I still find like the convicts are receiving a double punishment of their crimes, in the sense that their treatment in prison is an additional punishment on top of the punishment given by the judge. Several experts have pointed out that placing all terror related convicts in a single unit, probably is not the most effective means for treating extremist elements in our society. This was done for the fear that these convicts could spread their radical ideas among fellow convicts.


Friday, August 17, 2007

Saying goodbey

This morning, one of my colleagues came to tell us that he and his girlfriend were shown on the Dutch newssite Nu.nl. He then pointed out the image shown above here, declaring that he was the man with the red cap and that his girlfriend was the short girl standing on the ship. The picture was taken when he said goodbey to her.


Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Cold

When Li-Xia went outside this morning, she remarked that it was cold. I decided to check for the temperature according to the KNMI, and discovered that we were in the coldest part of the country with a temperature of 9.2 degrees Celsius.


Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Playing Go

Today, Annabel came home after she had been away for more than five weeks staying with family. Before I arrived at home she went to play with her friend Kelly and she only came back shortly before we were going to leave for the University to play Go. Kelly also came with us. We were the first to arrive and I asked Annabel for a game. I took some time before the others arrived. I played against Taco and Annabel played with Kelly. After some games of Go, they played checkers on the squares. I played against Taco with eight stones ahead. From the middle game I was convinced that I was going to lose. After I made some big mistake in the end-game, I resigned. Taco said that my position was not so weak as I thought. I did not count, but he guessed that I was less than 20 points behind. We then spend some time analyzing the game. He showed me, how I could have killed one of his groups.


Friday, August 24, 2007

Square tilings

In the past weeks I developed a program for analyzing which set of tiles can tile an infinite grid of squares, where the set of tiles is a subset of all tiles with zeros and ones on the corners. The results are as follows:

Of course, I cannot exclude the possibilit that the program contains errors and that these results are incorrect. (Indeed, later I found some bugs) The first set of tiles for which the program cannot decided if there is a solution for tiling the infinite grid is the set consisting of:

 10 11 10 01 11 00 01 00
 00 00 10 10 10 01 01 11

However, after a little puzzling I found the a solution, which can easily we extended in all directions. It is given below, where I have marked occurances of the seven tiles with bold. Each group of four numbers matches one of the seven tiles. The solution is:

    111110010010
    100000100100
    101111001001
    101000010010
    101011100100
    101010001001
    101010110010
    101010100100
    101010101001
    101010101010

Or to make it a little more graphic, using '*' and ' ':

    *****  *  *
    *     *  *
    * ****  *  *
    * *    *  *
    * * ***  *
    * * *   *  *
    * * * **  *
    * * * *  *
    * * * * *  *
    * * * * * *


Saturday, August 25, 2007

Square tilings program

The program that I presented yesterday, contained some bugs. This program does solve the set I discussed yesterday, but some sets that were considered as solved, are no longer regarded as such. The program now reports:

The first set of tiles for which the program cannot decided if there is a solution for tiling the infinite grid now is the set consisting of:

 10 11 10 01 00 01 00
 00 00 10 10 01 01 11

I cannot easily find a solution for this set.


Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Playing Go

This evening, Annabel and I went to the University to play Go. When we arrived only Marcel was waiting there. He for a moment had thought that he had arrived at the wrong time or day. Shortly after we had decided that he would play against us, Araldo arrived, and it was decided that I would play against him. A little later Rudi and Taco arrived. Marcel played three games against Annabel on a 13x13 board giving three stones ahead. One of the games she won with 39 points. I played with 8 stones ahead against Araldo, and I lost with seven points. According to him, I lost the game during the end game.


This months interesting links


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