Sun, 13 Apr 2008

Clicker "free-shaping"

1, enforce a spontaneous behaviour by clicking, treating and praising your dog.

2, associate a word with the behaviour, adding it at the moment your dog shows the behaviour; click, treat and praise.

3, use the word as a command, giving the command before the behaviour, in order to prompt your dog to show the behaviour; click, treat and praise.

4, step by step reduce clicking and treating.

Make each session short and end it with lots of motion-based fun. (See "Scaredy Dog" p. 28-29.)

Posted on 13 Apr 2008 at 21:56 in /life. -- Permalink

Sun, 10 Feb 2008

Doing things

I've been reading about "Getting Things Done" once again. My first instinct when I read about such stuff is to look at all kinds of "self-help" and "getting organised" software on the internet and to buy all kinds of stationary which might be useful for making lists, arranging notes according to different systems and filing stuff away. (Why not try accordion folders once more?)

Today, however, I somehow managed to avoid this and instead got down to sorting through a heap of papers which had accumulated over recent weeks and months, looking into some drawers and throwing quite a lot of things (empty cardboard boxes, a broken lamp, old envelopes, clothes which I can't wear anymore) into the garbage. Also, I made a long to-do list (e-mails to write, text messages to send, phone calls to make, websites to visit as part of my ongoing job search plus a few more assorted things). Afterwards I felt gratified.

I found a useful summary of the original book at WikiSummaries.org. The Wikipedia entry, "Getting Things Done", is interesting too.

My next actions: 1, put together my own Hipster PDA; 2, clear out my Tomboy notes.

Posted on 10 Feb 2008 at 15:24 in /life. -- Permalink

Mon, 21 Jan 2008

Leisure

Cleaning out my newsreader this morning, but not in the usual hectic way: I'm actually taking my time to read story after story. Donald, sleeping on my slippers under the breakfast table, thinks that's OK. Only, my feet are getting cold.

Posted on 21 Jan 2008 at 11:27 in /life. -- Permalink

Sun, 20 Jan 2008

Re: Adopt a dog?

We haven't adopted a dog - or maybe we have! Officially, at least, we're fostering one: Donald. Right now, I don't see how I could ever give him to anybody else.

Posted on 20 Jan 2008 at 23:24 in /life. -- Permalink

Fri, 11 Jan 2008

Brought from Germany

"Vita activa", by Hannah Arendt; "Katechismus der katholischen Kirche (Kompendium)". "Vom Wasser", by John von Düffel. A Dumont travel guide to Sicily and a Michelin map. "Schemelli-Gesang-Buch", by Bach, and "Deutsche Arien", by Händel (texts by Brockes). Also, I subscribed (again) to c't, the computer and electronics magazine.

Posted on 11 Jan 2008 at 16:50 in /life. -- Permalink

Adopt a dog?

How about adopting a dog, or maybe fostering one? HKDR and SPCA seem good places to start; both organisations offer plenty of useful information on their websites, as does the relevant department of the HK government. Fostering a dog just might be the perfect thing to do: we could help a dog that needs extra care, and we aren't quite sure about how long we'll stay in HK.

Posted on 11 Jan 2008 at 16:39 in /life. -- Permalink

Sun, 16 Dec 2007

Arrived in Germany

The flight was OK - take-off was about an hour late, but due to favourable wind we landed almost in time. Sitting on a plane for more than 11 hours is never nice, and being surrounded by some rather primitive young men didn't exactly help. The movies were OK, the service was OK, we even found the Twix box before it was empty. By the time of our arrival at Schiphol both of us had migraine. We spent some more time stuck in a traffic jam in the car with my parents, who had picked us up, but that wasn't really bad: we were home, we were together with my parents (and their dog), there was good food and drink ... After arriving in my hometown we had a good night's sleep.

Germany is chilly and dark. The winter sun is very nice, though. I find my hometown idyllic in an almost Dutch way: distances are short, everything is small and close, there are few people, hardly any traffic in the streets, it's very quiet, no noises at all in the night. The air is fresh. It's a great relief after Hong Kong.

We're now in the middle of preparing everything for A.'s christening, which will take place tomorrow.

Posted on 16 Dec 2007 at 00:18 in /life. -- Permalink

Mon, 10 Dec 2007

Completing a Hong Kong tax return

Completing a tax return is easy to learn and easy to remember:

• Fill in your personal details.
• Fill in your income.
• Fill in how much rent you paid.
• Sign the form and get your spouse to sign it, too.

I still managed to mess up my form completely - after filling in all the fields, I realised that the tax year runs from 1 April to 31 March, not from 1 January to 31 December. Also, it was only when I found it strange that we've managed to survive for 8 months on HK$ 20,000 or so that I realised there's a difference between HK$ and euro ...

The Inland Revenue Department doesn't even want to see your documents, you just have to keep them for 6 years in case they want to check at some point in the future.

Just like escalator safety ...

Posted on 10 Dec 2007 at 11:52 in /life. -- Permalink

Sat, 08 Dec 2007

Third Hong Kong Studienstiftung Round Table

On 7 December, the Round Table met again - this time at a Thai/Indian restaurant in Jordan. Unfortunately Mr. Z. was unable to attend.

The 2 professors treated the audience to stories about life at HK universities. There were fascinating tales of corruption and infiltration, blackmailing and sheer incompetence: people from the mainland, who are step by step taking control of this city, bring with them the customs and traditions of the beloved "motherland", lowering standards all over. Most Hong Kongers seem happy to accomodate them, or maybe they just don't give a shit about anything.

Tales from the architectural front were just as fascinating, even though in a different, less gory way.

On the first day of our holidays, we were just too tired to tell any stories of our own. Listening was just fine.

Posted on 08 Dec 2007 at 11:10 in /life. -- Permalink

Mon, 03 Dec 2007

People don't convert other people ...

In mediaeval typology, the dog can symbolise a new believer, who picks up the Christian faith only to "backslide" after a short time - just as a dog will often eat something and soon spew it out again. I've always liked this association.

On the one hand, "for us there is only the trying" and "the rest is not our business". One the other hand, the trying is something we're most definitely asked to do; we're asked to try our best, but what precisely is "our best"?

Posted on 03 Dec 2007 at 14:02 in /life. -- Permalink

Christmas preparations (1)

We're still working this week - 3 days - and that will be it. Leaving for Germany in 10 days. Christmas preparations have started: a lot of things have to be organised, especially since a christening and a 90th birthday are coming up, too. Above all, presents need to be taken care of. It's not just about buying stuff: somehow, everything has to get to Germany.

Posted on 03 Dec 2007 at 11:45 in /life. -- Permalink

Fri, 30 Nov 2007

An article about copyright

Schneier has linked to an article by University of Utah law professor John Tehranian: "Infringement Nation" (PDF), which I read with gusto. The author tells the story of a law professor named John, who, simply by doing everyday things like checking e-mails and singing a song, commits dozens of copyright infringements and exposes himself to millions of US$ in liabilities in just a single day. The story is hilarious, but of course very important issues are at stake.

Posted on 30 Nov 2007 at 13:38 in /life. -- Permalink

Thu, 29 Nov 2007

Music and software in the evening

I listened to Richard Strauss's "Eine Alpensymphonie" tonight, which is a fairly powerful piece - but not as overwhelming as Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Melisande", which I listened to once more.

Meanwhile, Snort listened to traffic on our network for me. - I've started using lftp and also Nautilus (the file browser) for FTPing stuff to websites.

Posted on 29 Nov 2007 at 21:45 in /life. -- Permalink

Wed, 28 Nov 2007

Lilies that fester

The flowers we were given 10 days ago are past their prime ... Lilies that fester ...

Posted on 28 Nov 2007 at 22:36 in /life. -- Permalink

Mon, 26 Nov 2007

My old laptop

That's an ancient Toshiba Satellite 1800, running SuSE 10. It served me well during our Gütersloh years (when we were proud owners of a 56k modem), and especially when we were teachers at Tai An (the Windows XP part of my dual boot system - with Knoppix - crashed on our very first day in China; I went for Linux only: Xandros, later Kanotix, finally SuSE). In Tai An we had our first broadband connection and our computers were our windows to the world. Skype was new in those days.

I went back briefly to Windoze XP because it was preinstalled on the ThinkPad I've used for a year now. Then that too crashed - good riddance. Ubuntu was what I could install on the machine without any hassles, so that's what I went for. Have been 99% happy with it ever since. Wireless internet became a problem at some point, that's the only drawback. Except for the lack of something like Quicksilver, of course. But Windows? On my own computer? Only over my dead body. It's bad enough I have to put up with it at work.

I don't actually use my old laptop anymore - well, yes, occasionally, just for fun. I do, however, keep SuSE updated. It doesn't seem right to stop feeding the old workhorse. After all these years.

Posted on 26 Nov 2007 at 12:23 in /life. -- Permalink

Wed, 21 Nov 2007

Writing my "Minutes" radio broadcast

I'm working on the "Minutes that Matter" broadcast, which I'm supposed to record in a few days. Rather unexpectedly, I'm actually getting somewhere. My text is slowly taking shape and if my inspiration stays with me for another couple of hours, I just might finish it today. It helps that the song I chose for the broadcast (Johnny Cash's "What on earth will you do") is short: just above 2 minutes. So I have enough time to say something which sort of makes sense.

Posted on 21 Nov 2007 at 13:44 in /life. -- Permalink

Tue, 20 Nov 2007

Keats for every-day use

My head aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense ...

Posted on 20 Nov 2007 at 10:45 in /life. -- Permalink

Mon, 19 Nov 2007

Picked up my guitar

I picked up my guitar again today and spent some time practising, after a break of 10 days or so. I like the sound of my Aparicio guitar very much. My fingertips don't hurt as much as they used to. The problem is (always) my left wrist, which just doesn't seem strong enough to take the strain of pressing and stretching. Anyhow - progress is slow but there is some.

Posted on 19 Nov 2007 at 20:18 in /life/music. -- Permalink

Finished watching The West Wing

We watched the last episode of the last season last night. What now?

Posted on 19 Nov 2007 at 16:46 in /life. -- Permalink

Impressed by Amazon (2)

A minute ago, I received the complete 2-volume set of the "Intermediate Reader of Modern Chinese" (Princeton University Press 1992). Amazon had sent me only volume 1 by mistake; they corrected this without any fuss or delay.

I've already worked through several lessons in the 1st volume: good stuff! The only problem is, how do I transfer all the material in the 2 volumes to my brain?

Posted on 19 Nov 2007 at 12:36 in /life. -- Permalink

Sun, 18 Nov 2007

Advent music rehearsal

We attended the German Protestant church service this morning. B., U. and a school principal whose acquaintance we made took care of the music. We had an interesting talk with that principal and her husband. After the service, we had a drawn-out rehearsal for our concert-cum-sing-along, which will take place on 9 December. We realised we're still rather far from being ready to perform our stuff in front of an audience - this came as quite a nasty surprise. But we'll sort it out ...

Posted on 18 Nov 2007 at 20:25 in /life. -- Permalink

An afternoon of playing games with friends

Yesterday afternoon, we had 3 pastors and a child over for an afternoon of playing games, eating cake and chatting. We had a great time together. Also, this occasion gave us the opportunity - or rather forced us - to clean up our flat, which was in quite a mess. B. did almost all the cleaning while I did the shopping.

Posted on 18 Nov 2007 at 20:25 in /life. -- Permalink

Sat, 17 Nov 2007

Second Hong Kong Studienstiftung Round Table

On 16 November 2007, the 2nd Hong Kong Studienstiftung Round Table meeting was held on the rooftop terrace of the Fringe Club in the (actually not so) beautiful city of Hong Kong. Mr. Z., top manager of a big chemicals corporation, Professor A., who teaches law at one of Hong Kong's illustrious universities, Professor T., an architect, and Dr. E., a stray historian, were present at the meeting. All of them are alumni of Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes - except myself, who never made it into that club of bright minds. P., a photographer specialising in architecture, attended the Round Table as a guest. He presented his impressions of using a view camera in Hong Kong's fair city, where everybody takes pictures with tiny digital cameras or mobile phones, to the members.

In other words, we had another very enjoyable and interesting evening with these pleasant guys. B. started this Stammtisch ("Round Table") not long ago and it's been a resounding success. By the way, it's not formal in the least. I just needed a way of getting over the pathetic formality of the articles I'm translating day in, day out. Parodying their style seems a good way.

Posted on 17 Nov 2007 at 11:22 in /life. -- Permalink

Fri, 16 Nov 2007

Reading The Economist

Reading The Economist at leisure, which I haven't done in quite some time. In the Oct 27 issue, I read that Microsoft bought a (hugely overpriced) part of Facebook. I'm glad I disabled my account!

Posted on 16 Nov 2007 at 10:46 in /life. -- Permalink

Thu, 15 Nov 2007

That time, part 2

Coming back to my text after a decent interval, I find I'm even less inspired, and things make even less sense, than when I left. Well ... Time for lunch!

Posted on 15 Nov 2007 at 13:20 in /life. -- Permalink

Twittering on my phone

When I first tried to get twitter to work with my mobile phone several months ago, I got nowhere. That was disappointing as well as surprising because I may have a Hong Kong number, but my provider is British-based just like twitter. Yesterday, I went through the set-up steps again - and now it works! It's still so new to me, every time I get a message on my phone, I catch myself thinking: "Oh, a message! Who could be the sender?"

Posted on 15 Nov 2007 at 11:49 in /life. -- Permalink

It's that time of the year again

With the advent of Advent just around the corner, it's time for us poor Amity Hong Kong guys to help with "Minutes that Matter" once again, a series of devotional radio broadcasts which is produced by the Hong Kong Christian Council and broadcast on Radio 4, one of the channels of RTHK.

I've got some ideas for my thing - have had them for quite a while, in fact, so they were allowed to mature inside of me before I sat down this morning and started to write them down. I spent the whole morning writing (after having breakfast and, admittedly, solving a few - just a few! - jigsaw puzzles on the web ...) but now I'm stuck! What I've written so far doesn't seem to have any point! What am I actually trying to say?

I have to choose a piece of music for my "Minutes", too. Here I find it difficult to make a choice between two songs, one by Johnny Cash, the other by Kris Kristofferson. The song should somehow relate to the text I'm writing. Right now, this doesn't help at all.

Better to surf the web a bit - just a bit! - before I press on, I guess ...

Posted on 15 Nov 2007 at 11:34 in /life. -- Permalink

The same old questions

Ich saz ûf eime steine
und dahte bein mit beine.
dar ûf satzt ich den ellenbogen.
ich hete in mîne hant gesmogen
daz kinne und ein mîn wange.
dô dahte ich mir vil ange,
wie man zer welte solte leben.
deheinen rât kond ich gegeben,
wie man driu dinc erwurbe,
der keinez niht verdurbe.
diu zwei sint êre und varnde guot,
daz dicke ein ander schaden tuot:
daz dritte ist gotes hulde,
der zweier übergulde.
diu wolte ich gerne in einen schrîn:
jâ leider desn mac niht gesîn,
daz guot und weltlich êre
und gotes hulde mêre
zesamene in ein herze komen.
stîg unde wege sint in benomen:
untriuwe ist in der sâze,
gewalt vert ûf der strâze,
fride unde reht sint sêre wunt.
diu driu enhabent geleites niht,
diu zwei enwerden ê gesunt.

A poem by Walther von der Vogelweide, written around the year 1200.

I sat on a stone and put one leg on the other, rested my elbow on it, with my chin and one of my cheeks in my hand. Sitting like this, I thought a lot about how to live in this world. I couldn't figure out how to get three things without destroying any of them. Two of them are reputation and wealth, which often negatively affect each other; the third one is God's grace, way more valuable than the other two. I wanted to put all of them in one place, but unfortunately it is impossible that wealth and reputation and also God's grace are in one heart at the same time. There are no paths or tracks where they could travel: betrayal lies in ambush, rude force rules the streets, peace and justice are badly injured. Those three things have no protection unless these two get healthy first.

Posted on 15 Nov 2007 at 03:00 in /life. -- Permalink

Wed, 14 Nov 2007

Cursive vs. keyboard

A lovely article in the Christian Science Monitor about the relative merits of handwriting and typing in the education of schoolchildren. While some say that those who write well by hand get better school results, others point out that how people write is really not the point: students should be encouraged to write, and typing is both faster and easier for children (and, of course, for adults too).

Printing, traditional cursive, italic cursive, the Palmer Method and a magic bunny ... Who would have thought that there's so much to be said about this issue! With the decline of penmanship, it seems a whole world is disappearing.

Posted on 14 Nov 2007 at 14:10 in /life. -- Permalink

Mon, 12 Nov 2007

A book about the Camorra

Interesting reading, apparently - though not all that well written and translated, according to a Christian Science Monitor review.

Gomorrah: A Personal Journey Into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System. By Robert Saviano. US$25.

Posted on 12 Nov 2007 at 17:11 in /life. -- Permalink

Almost completely cleaning out my newsreader

I've now reached an all-time low - only 7 unread stories!

Posted on 12 Nov 2007 at 13:17 in /life. -- Permalink

Today's Watchword

Ihr sollt in Freuden ausziehen und im Frieden geleitet werden. Jesaja 55,12
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12

This reading we used for the church service at Neuendettelsau in 2004, just before all of us left for their "mission fields" in Africa and Asia. Also, we sang it during an Amity conference a few years ago. Greg leading our motley crew in song and playing the guitar ...

Posted on 12 Nov 2007 at 11:00 in /life. -- Permalink

Sun, 11 Nov 2007

Pelleas and Melisande

I've started listening to Schoenberg's symphonic poem, "Pelleas und Melisande". Karajan's 1974 recording with the Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra is superb!

... rarement on aura entendu ces œuvres parées d'une telle splendeur instrumentale et traduites avec un lyrisme et un dramatisme aussi intensément nuancé. (La Revue des Disques, 1975)

I found a synopsis of the drama by Maurice Maeterlinck, upon which Schoenberg's symphonic poem is based, but obviously knowledge of the action gets you only so far in understanding the music, which is enormously dense and complex.

I found reading Glenn Gould's article on "The prospects of recording" (published 1966 in "High Fidelity" magazine) very illuminating - a real "ear-opening" experience for me. Karajan's Schoenberg recording is a brilliant example of what can be achieved in a recording studio - a presence, immediacy and clarity of sound impossible to produce in a concert hall. So much closer to the composer's intention than what you will ever hear live.

Informed by Gould, I think I understand more fully recordings of works which are far more "canonical", far less "advanced", indeed far less complex than "Pelleas und Melisande" - for example Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. In Georg Solti's 1984 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, even the last movement makes sense to me while the 1st movement has proved to be addictive! Not a single tone gets lost in the muddle, not even in fortissimo passages. Everything is extremely transparent - and yet so powerful!

Posted on 11 Nov 2007 at 19:53 in /life/music. -- Permalink

Some readings for Remembrance Day

The armistice agreement which ended the 1st World War was signed on 11 November 1918 - 89 years ago. Here are some readings for the day:

• Zechariah 4:6 (Moravian Watchword for today - Old Testament)
• Matthew 5:9 (Moravian Watchword for today - New Testament)
• Job 19:25-27 (Old Testament reading for today)
• 2 Thessalonians 2 (Epistle reading for today)
• Luke 20:27-38 (Gospel reading for today)
• John Donne's Holy Sonnet "Death, be not proud ..."
• W. H. Auden's "Stop all the clocks ..."
• Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night ..."

Posted on 11 Nov 2007 at 14:48 in /life. -- Permalink

Junk outing on St. Martin's Day

Or rather, on the day before St. Martin's, and our boat wasn't precisely a junk either but a veritable yacht, all white and very posh. We went from Aberdeen to the east coast of Lantau Island, enjoyed a short devotion at a Trappist monastery, which included a performance of the story of St. Martin by a few children. Then went on a comfortable hike (about half an hour) to Discovery Bay, which is an expats' heaven or nightmare, depending on your perspective. A kind of artificial village full of luxury chain stores and restaurants.

They do have a nice beach there, however, where we had a picnic - all of us sharing their food with each other, so we had evidently learned a lesson from the children's performance (cf. The Legend of the Cloak). Went back on the yacht (which was provided free to the German Protestant church community by Bayer, the chemicals company) after sunset. B and I had a beer or two at the pastors' place before returning home; we fell into our beds dead tired.

I hope to post a few photos soon.

Posted on 11 Nov 2007 at 13:06 in /life. -- Permalink

Sat, 10 Nov 2007

E-mail encryption; afternoon plans

Setting up e-mail encryption for my account will be the next step.

Unexpectedly, I found photos of a fireworks display which I thought had been lost.

Leaving in a few minutes for a junk trip and picnic. The weather is almost perfect. Sunny, just a bit of "haze" (=HK slang for poison in the air).

Posted on 10 Nov 2007 at 12:14 in /life. -- Permalink

And now for something quite different ...

That went quite unexpectedly. We couldn't find the lady's hotel so we were late, on eventually arriving there were told she was waiting for us in front of the building, where in fact she wasn't; after some 40 minutes, she gave us a call from the reception and said she had returned to her room ... We went to a restaurant together, had Hong Kong food instead of Thai food, somehow still coped with the menu and enjoyed our dinner, missed the light show because we were so late, invited our guest home, somehow got stuck in the nightmarket on our way to the tube, arrived at home around 10. Had wine. Got an unpublished China-related article by a university teacher from her, disregarding everything we know about intellectual property. Weird ... It was a nice evening!

Posted on 10 Nov 2007 at 00:15 in /life. -- Permalink

Fri, 09 Nov 2007

Finished one e-mail ...

... which had long been overdue, to a good friend. I'm hacking away at my backlog. Now, however, we're off for a meeting with a visitor from Germany - dinner and the light show at Victoria Harbour.

Posted on 09 Nov 2007 at 16:55 in /life. -- Permalink

Cleaning out my newsreader

I've been going through all the stories in my news aggregator this morning - more than 1000, which I have by now reduced to 140. I haven't found the time to look at my news feeds in several weeks, so now it's taking hours. Seufz ...

Posted on 09 Nov 2007 at 14:19 in /life. -- Permalink

Impressed by amazon.com

Yesterday, I sent an e-mail to Amazon, asking why I received only the first volume of the 2-volume "Intermediate Reader of Modern Chinese". Their customer service replied promptly - they're sending me the complete set by extra-fast mail, I needn't pay a penny extra, I needn't even return the volume I've already got. Moreoever, they offer me a full refund in case I don't find this satisfactory.

I have to say, their customer service is excellent!

Posted on 09 Nov 2007 at 10:50 in /life. -- Permalink