Category: observation

  • Translations

    紅樓夢 or The Dream of the Red Chamber is one of China’s four classics. It is said to be a masterpiece that clarifies much of China’s cultural foundation. Looking for that clarification, I tried to read it in David Hawkes’ acclaimed English translation, but couldn’t get through. A month or so ago a Dutch translation,…

  • 4 Selected Images

    If happiness is the experience of being an active part of an ecological equilibrium, I thought on September 27, then the images you collect provide the data on which that experience rests. So that the happiness experience of those who walk outside will differ from those who live in silico. Below are four of the…

  • Arnoud Waller

    My mother, Wendela, who was a daughter of Arnoud, lived from 1912 to 1994, my grandfather from 1873 to 1953. Nescio (no relation) from 1882 to 1961. Nescio’s biography contains a lot of information about the times and the worlds where my parents and grandparents had to go through. Had to because ‘politionele acties‘ and…

  • Nescio Revisited

    Nienke gave me Nescio’s biography. It is incredibly well written, so I reread his first stories. Reluctantly at first because I had read them when I was 15, on the advice of my older brother, and I didn’t like them. After De Uitvreter and Titaantjes I hadn’t gotten past the opening dialogues of Dichtertje. Much…

  • Differences and Climate: the USA

    Again: an ABCM pattern I’ve been maniacally busy with an impossible assignment for the last few weeks. An hour-long lecture to young scientists dedicated to machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) and big data (BD) about complexity. I zoom in on five different forces that together form a social climate (veracity, loyalty, money, coercion and…

  • Differences and Climate: China

    I’ve been maniacally busy with an impossible assignment the last few weeks. An hour-long lecture to young scientists dedicated to machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) and big data (BD) about complexity. I zoom in on five different forces that together form a social climate (veracity, loyalty, money, coercion and fitness) and try to show…

  • ABCM Simulation

    When science distinguishes itself by being able to know and manipulate processes at the micro- and the nano scales, and also at the macro- and galaxy scales, something exceptional occurs in between. There, it seems, science has to accept the unpredictability of the future — on individual, institutional, and ecological levels. Here knowledge is about…

  • Mao’s Groove

    If I can use Beatrice de Graaf’s redemption motto when building toy radicals, I can also use it to recreate Mao’s communists in 1942 China. They were radical, in the wake of Mao’s groove. His talks are about our struggle for the liberation of the Chinese people, where we must also have a cultural army.…

  • What I do not wish to see (India etc.)

    What I don’t want to see is how things are getting out of hand in India now. But they do happen. I will give three images of it, dated 8, 15 and 21 April 2021. A span of 13 days. Only in the middle are the death rates per million inhabitants. The number of deaths…

  • Back to the Future?

    Today the way back has been taken. The curfew ends, terraces open again. The general feeling is that the Dutch government no longer feels itself in a position to bring the necessity of the COVID measures convincingly to the fore. I show a few numbers in fig. 1. The black line indicates (again) the number…