Posts in English
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The Avalon remains our favourite theatre, not only because it is just a five minutes walk from our place, but also because of its grand interior. Tonight we went there again to watch Kak Emma’s new film, Beauty and the Beast. The film remains largely the same as the original, made 26 years ago. Some
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My favorite scene in (one of) my favorite movie, Cinema Paradiso, goes on as follows: After leaving his hometown of Giancaldo in Sicily for 30 years, Salvatore di Vita returned home and went to his old home. Her mother was knitting and she heard the doorbell, she said, “that’s Toto. I know it.” She immediately
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Can a psychic claims his/her self-fulfilling prophecy as true, i.e. your knowledge of the prophecy makes you behave in a way that makes the prophecy comes true? An example: Your lover ask a fortuneteller about the future of your relationship. After consulting his/her tarot card (and probably conjuring a spell), the fortuneteller told your lover
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Some days ago I was invited to the wedding reception of my friend, who is married to a local politician from the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) (a centre-right Dutch political party). After wishing the pair well, I get some drinks and stand in a table next to an old couple. They started to chat with
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It happens very often to those who claim to study astronomy: newly acquinted people came up to you and ask for their fortune told, revealing that their zodiacal sign is so-and-so. Most are just jesting to annoy the astronomer, but sometimes there are serious ones, thinking that astronomy is a field of study to understand
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Captain Jean-Luc Picard is French, he has french-sounding name and claims to be born in Labarre, France. So why does he drink Earl Grey, read Shakespeare in his quarter, and speaks in perfect thespian English. Why doesn’t he drink un verre du Beaujolais or Côtes-du-rhône off hours in Ten Forward while having Foie Gras, reading
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Whenever Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69“ is played on the airwave or some drunken girls on the pub sing the tune, I always ask people nearby: Does the song refers to the year or the position? Many people that I asked replied flatly that it was about the year, for obvious reasons: There’s an apostrophe
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Weeks ago I was thinking that “Quantum of Solace” is not a gramatically correct sentence. Now I stand corrected. My argument was because “quantum” is an adjective and you can not put a preposition after it. It would feel like writing “nice of dress” instead of just “nice dress.” In this sense, “quantum” means something
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Today I just gave my student colloquium, which is part of the compulsory things we have to do as Leiden Observatory‘s MSc student in astronomy. You can look at the presentation slides here (I hope the 17 Megs size don’t put you off from looking!). The talk was about the result of my research project
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“A bad workman always blames his tools” means somebody always blames something for his own incompetence. This is an equivalent proverb for this wise word: “Buruk muka cermin dibelah,” (Ugly face and the mirror is shattered) There are several examples I’ve encountered: “A bad programmer always blames his programming tools,” said Ebonk one time when
Tri L. Astraatmadja 