Guus Bosman

A strange story today on MSNBC: clocks in Venezuela are ticking slower than in other parts of the world.

This is because many (simple) clocks take the power-line AC frequency to calculate the current time. Due to the power-crises in Venezuela the power suppliers are not able to garantuee a perfect 60 Hz frequency anymore...

About an hour ago I went home briefly. When I was almost there I heard screaming: "Turn around! On your knees!".

Fortunately it wasn't meant for me but for the guy that had some sort of an axe and was breaking the windows of the police station. I guess he was really angry, when I walked back to Chess I saw that at least 8 windows had been broken...

While looking for a nice picture of the police station I came across this (slightly sarcastic) article about the renovation of the Nieuwe Gracht, where Chess (my employer) is located. Translated: "It's always nice if big companies like Chess are able to see how people were living in the Middle Ages and how they transported their stuff over sandroads, with holes in the road. That must have given those smart guys a lot of inspiration".

The renovation this website talks about finished about a year ago but did indeed take much longer than expected.

Today and yesterday I've been working on Chapter 4, where some Computational Models are introduced. I incorporated more examples now, to make them more understandable and the text more readable.

I spent more time on the homework assignment than I first estimated so I have to catch up now with the proofreading of my supervisors. I'm working at home -- it's quiet and all my papers are here. In these months I've collected almost 1,5 meter of papers! This afternoon I went to Chess to print a new version a the paper, but also to sign my contract. I had to fill in some forms too. I still know my social-security number (sofi) by hard because of the umpteen times we had to fill it in when working on the farm.

The first assignment of the course I started took more time than I thought it would. The good news is that it's also a lot more useful than I thought it would be.

I've been working on the first assignment from around 12:00 o'clock till now. Sasha has also been writing a paper so we spent the day quite useful.

It will be another hour or two: two small Java programs and some documentation and then I'm done.