Rutte III gaat actief leefstijl bijbuigenIk ben benieuwd wiens leefstijl dat zal zijn; dat van Rutte zelf, dat van Rutte III of dat van ons? Ga ik zo maar even lezen.
Friday, October 19, 2018
Leefstijl
De Volkskrant ligt op de keukentafel. Wierp daar zojuist even een blik op en daar las ik de kop:
Thursday, October 18, 2018
Friday, September 7, 2018
Les chiffres
23 nachtjes van huis en in Frankrijk geweest. 3435 km op de teller. In 9 dagen 30 uur op de mat gestaan, gezeten, gestoeid en gerold. De weegschaal gaf gisteren ruim 2 kg meer aan dan vorige maand; het effect van La Douce France?
Monday, August 13, 2018
Happy number?
Wow ... 68,
another year passing by and
it sounds like it is gradually getting later.
Apart from the obvious that it is a natural and an even number following 67 and preceding 69 Wikipedia tells me that 68 is a Perrin number.
It also happens to be the largest known number to be the sum of two primes in exactly two different ways, though it seems we can't be quitte so sure of that because of the Goldbach conjecture.
Furthermore it seems to be the case that a 68-sided regular polygon may be constructed with compass and straightedge, that is because of the factorization as you probably would have guessed.
If that doesn't fill your cup you might want to dive into 10-bit binary numbers of which there are exactly 68 in which each bit has an adjacent bit with the same value.
But then we would have to talk about combinatorially distinct triangulations and intervals in the Tamari lattice to describe the ways of parenthesizing five items. As I am not a mathimatician, I had never before heard of Størmer's theorem and I haven't the slightest idea what I wrote down here just now, I'd rather not talk about it and I had better not argue with any of the above.
Still it is true what they say: time flies!
Maybe I just might want to add/mention/quote that the largest graceful graph on 13 nodes has exactly 68 edges. But that is because I think 13 is also a very nice number, Wouldn't you agree and that today I completed exactly 68 years on this planet Earth.
I am a fan of Wikipedia though on some scores it may be a bit too informative for me. Anyway I was glad to read that 68 is a so-called Happy number and hope this next year will turn out to be a happy one. Cheers!
another year passing by and
it sounds like it is gradually getting later.
Apart from the obvious that it is a natural and an even number following 67 and preceding 69 Wikipedia tells me that 68 is a Perrin number.
It also happens to be the largest known number to be the sum of two primes in exactly two different ways, though it seems we can't be quitte so sure of that because of the Goldbach conjecture.
Furthermore it seems to be the case that a 68-sided regular polygon may be constructed with compass and straightedge, that is because of the factorization as you probably would have guessed.
If that doesn't fill your cup you might want to dive into 10-bit binary numbers of which there are exactly 68 in which each bit has an adjacent bit with the same value.
But then we would have to talk about combinatorially distinct triangulations and intervals in the Tamari lattice to describe the ways of parenthesizing five items. As I am not a mathimatician, I had never before heard of Størmer's theorem and I haven't the slightest idea what I wrote down here just now, I'd rather not talk about it and I had better not argue with any of the above.
Still it is true what they say: time flies!
Maybe I just might want to add/mention/quote that the largest graceful graph on 13 nodes has exactly 68 edges. But that is because I think 13 is also a very nice number, Wouldn't you agree and that today I completed exactly 68 years on this planet Earth.
I am a fan of Wikipedia though on some scores it may be a bit too informative for me. Anyway I was glad to read that 68 is a so-called Happy number and hope this next year will turn out to be a happy one. Cheers!
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Coming to a brave and startling truth?
A poem by Maya Angelou.
Angelou composed the poem for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in 1995.
A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
Angelou composed the poem for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in 1995.
A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil
When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze
When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse
When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets
Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world
When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear
When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Mei
Dan is het weer mei.
Waarvan in dit land wordt gezegd: dan leggen alle vogels een ei.
De maand van het nieuwe leven dus.
Maar wederom in dit land ook de maand van het herdenken; eerst de doden die daarvoor vielen en dan de vrijheid die we daardoor genieten.
Vandaag, 1 mei wordt er overigens ook het nodige herdacht en gevierd. In de rest van de wereld dan maar niet in dit land, wij zijn meer van, zeg maar, het oranjegevoel.
Hoewel de 1 mei-viering buiten ons land nog volop in de belangstelling lijkt te staan heeft dat volgens Canadese medeblogger WD Fyfe nog maar bar weinig om het lijf, en wel omdat diegenen die er nog iets aan doen steeds meer op figuranten in een bekende roman van George Orwell beginnen te lijken.
Dat is toch jammer, vind ik. Want zou het niet mooi zijn wanneer allerlei mensen van over de hele wereld 1 dag zouden hebben (tussen al die speciale dagen, weken en maanden die telkens maar voor van alles en nog wat in het leven roepen) om die idealen voor een betere wereld waar we bijna allemaal achter kunnen staan weer eens in gedachte te roepen en te overdenken. 1 mei zou daar toch een mooie dag voor zijn. Maar ja, welke idealen of waarden, met het goede leven op het oog, komen daar vandaag de dag nog voor in aanmerking?
Waarvan in dit land wordt gezegd: dan leggen alle vogels een ei.
De maand van het nieuwe leven dus.
Maar wederom in dit land ook de maand van het herdenken; eerst de doden die daarvoor vielen en dan de vrijheid die we daardoor genieten.
Vandaag, 1 mei wordt er overigens ook het nodige herdacht en gevierd. In de rest van de wereld dan maar niet in dit land, wij zijn meer van, zeg maar, het oranjegevoel.
Hoewel de 1 mei-viering buiten ons land nog volop in de belangstelling lijkt te staan heeft dat volgens Canadese medeblogger WD Fyfe nog maar bar weinig om het lijf, en wel omdat diegenen die er nog iets aan doen steeds meer op figuranten in een bekende roman van George Orwell beginnen te lijken.
Dat is toch jammer, vind ik. Want zou het niet mooi zijn wanneer allerlei mensen van over de hele wereld 1 dag zouden hebben (tussen al die speciale dagen, weken en maanden die telkens maar voor van alles en nog wat in het leven roepen) om die idealen voor een betere wereld waar we bijna allemaal achter kunnen staan weer eens in gedachte te roepen en te overdenken. 1 mei zou daar toch een mooie dag voor zijn. Maar ja, welke idealen of waarden, met het goede leven op het oog, komen daar vandaag de dag nog voor in aanmerking?
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Een halve eeuw geleden
Ook 50 jaar geleden werd Martin Luther King vermoord.
Hij werd, zoals hij reeds vermoedde, slachtoffer van een politieke moord met racistische motieven. Geweldloos verzet werd zijn handelsmerk. Hij vocht voor en droomde van, zoals hij zei, 'a promised land' voor zijn kinderen en kleinkinderen waarin mensen niet op hun huidskleur maar op de kenmerken van hun karakter beoordeeld zouden worden.
De huidige werkelijkheid en de noodzaak van een beweging als Black lives matter doen helaas vermoeden dat de verwezenlijking van die droom nog ver weg is. De strijd is bij lange na nog niet gestreden, de boodschap van Martin Luther King nog hoogst actueel en zijn woorden kunnen nog steeds als inspiratie dienen.
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