Clemens Blog: 2007

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Uhm, Oh, Ohhhh

58% of French people are pretty dumb

Can't believe this... (especially the audience).

Saturday, December 29, 2007

The whole navigation bar at the top of a blogger.com blog is bullocks.

The only thing needed is the search form.

Initially I only wanted to get rid of the Next Blog button (guess why). As it turns out that is quite a popular request (oh, surprise), nevertheless Google does not seem to be very interested in making it easy to remove the Next Blog button.

Thought it is easy to remove the top navigation bar. So here I describe briefly how to disable the navbar (as described at many places) and a simple way to add back the search functionality, thought at a different location.

For comparison you can see the result at my other blog, The STOCK BLOCK. This blog you are reading right now should still have the default setup, as I haven't bothered to change it so far.

1. Disable NavBar in Blogger.com:

In blogger.com go to Template, Edit HTML, scroll down to the <body> tag and add beneath it the following code snippet:

<style type='text/css'> #navbar-iframe { visibility: hidden; display: none; } </style>

2. Add search form in Blogger.com:

In blogger editing mode, goto Template, Page Elements, Add a Page Element, and select HTML/JavaScript. Now place the element where you like it and edit it and fill in the following HTML code:

<form id="searchthis" action="http://stockblock.info/search" style="display:inline;" method="get"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td valign="middle"><input id="b-query" name="q" type="text"/></td></tr><tr> <td valign="middle" align="right"><input id="b-searchbtn" alt="Search This Blog" src="http://www.blogger.com/img/navbar/4/btn_search_this.gif" title="Search this blog" type="image"/> </td></tr></table></form>

BTW, you might want to reverse the order of these two steps and add a new search form first before removing the navigation bar, in case something goes wrong:o).

On another note, here is a cool hack to turn the Navigation Bar on and off by the web site visitor of your blog:
show/hide the blogger navbar

A Pain In The Ass

Photo by photographer extraordinaire Yann Arthus-Bertrand:

Sunday, December 16, 2007

The Evil Look

Evil Look

Thanks Dan!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Gavrilov's Hiatus

This article gives a hint why Andrei Gavrilov hasn't been very visible lately.

Hope he is fine, and no matter what will follow - already now he is destined to leave a fantastic legacy.

The pianist who fell to earth

Sunday, December 02, 2007

New Technologies

New Technologies - the book help desk! (not English - don't ask me what; with German sub titles)

Thanks to Stephan for the (late) Sunday morning tip.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Friedrich Gulda

My number one pianist (well, never heard Mozart:).

FRIEDRICH GULDA -So What!?- Pt.1/7

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Tonhalle 2007/8

The 2007/8 saison for classical music at Zurich's Tonhalle has already been started (and Martha Argerich has already gone by).

So all in all, just make sure to order tickets in advance for Sokolov and Chick Corea at:

2007-12-01 and
2008-04-04

If you like to have fun with the orchestra and some piano, try:

2007-12-05, 2007-12-06, and 2007-12-07 and
2008-01-29, 2008-01-30, and 2008-01-31

To reserve tickets call +41 44 206 34 34. If you are a student you can get tickets for CHF 20 starting the week before on Monday. But be aware, for some special concerts (like the Sokolov on 2007-12-01) you can only get student tickets on the same day starting at 18:00 o'clock and then only half the price (which might result to around CHF 30-50).

If you feel I ignored something for my own bad, I am open to being corrected. Otherwise I am looking forward to the rest of the season (with the only regret that Murray Periah isn't appearing yet again).

Here is the rest of what I plan to see or have interest in with some comments for your consideration (if you are in town and are looking for suggestions):

2007-11-15

Itzhak Perlman, violin
Bruno Canino, piano

Schubert, Rondo brilliant D 895
Beethoven, violin sonata no. 5 op. 24 "Spring"
R. Strauss, violin sonata op. 18n

Canino is not that famous, but I think he has a wonderful touch and sound, actually a great pianist. Together with Perlman you can't do much wrong going there.

2007-12-01

Grigory Sokolov

Schubert: piano sonata D. 958

This is the one must see (hear) concerto of the season!
After so many great pianists have died in recent years, one of the few remaining ones.
Don't miss this concerto (if you pick only one concerto, this is it)!!!
Also looking forward to hear him play this big Schubert Sonata.

2007-12-05, 2007-12-06, and 2007-12-07

Marin Alsop, conductor
Kirill Gerstein, piano
Tonhalle Orchestra

Wagner, Tristan and Isolde
Liszt, piano concerto no. 2
Brahms, symphony no. 3

Great program, maybe great conductor, dunno the pianist. Will be fun to be there.

2007-12-10

David Fray, piano

Schubert, impromptu no. 1 and 3
Mozart, piano sonata KV 333
Boulez, douze notations pour piano
Bach, partita no. 4

Dunno the pianist, nice program (but if there is something else...).

2008-01-15

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Bach: 3 suites

Well, it is Yo-Yo Ma and I have never heard him play before. And the Bach solo works for cello are another reason to go there.

2008-01-21

Herbert Schuch, piano

Schumann, Nachtstuecker op. 23
Holliger
Ravel, gaspard de la nuit
Prokofjew, piano sonata no. 8

Dunno the pianist, nice program (but if there is something else...).

2008-01-29, 2008-01-30, and 2008-01-31

Bernard Haiting, conductor
Alfred Brendel, piano

Beethoven, piano concerto no. 3
Schostakowitsch, symphony no. 15

I like Haiting very much, have not heard him for Schostakowitsch, but he should be one of the few "for the job". Highly recommended.

2008-02-18

Veronika Eberle, violin
Martin Helmchen, piano

Mozart, violin sonata KV 454
Beethoven, violin sonata no. 7 op. 30 no. 2
Schubert, violin sonata D 574
Prokofjew, violin sonata no. 2 op. 94b

Dunno the artists, if so will go there just for the Schubert sonata, which is just wonderful!

2008-04-04

Chich Corea, piano
Gary Burton, vibraphone

The other must see concerto! Need to pre order tickets pronto, especially as I have never before heard Chick Corea live.

2008-04-07

Joyce Yang, piano

Bach, chromatic fantasy and fuge BWV 903
Schumann, carnaval
Brahms, four piano pieces op. 119
Brahms, Paganini variations

Dunno the pianist, but great program! Especially looking forward to the four pieces of Brahms (hope she will play it excellent) and the chromatic fantasy I have never heard live before.

2008-04-09, and 2008-04-10

Ivor Bolton, conductor
Valeriy Sokolov, violin
Tonhalle Orchestra

Gluck, ouverture
Mozart, violin concerto no. 4
Beethoven, Prometheus

My favorite Mozart violin concerto. Dunno the artists.

2008-04-23, 2008-04-24, and 2008-04-25

Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor
Lukas Vondracek, piano
Tonhalle Orchestra

Rachmaninov, piano concerto no. 4
Mussorgsky, pictures of an exhibition (for orchestra)

I guess I would prefer the pictures of an exhibition in the original piano version and played by Ashkenazy himself. Still, maybe he picked a good pianist and interesting program to chill out at and to enjoy the orchestra.

2008-05-05

Boris Giltburg, piano

Bach, toccata BWV 565
Beethoven, piano sonata op. 101
Franck
Rachmaninov, preludes op. 23
Prokofjev, piano sonata no. 7

Dunno the pianist, but interesting program. Actually with that program he better be good:o).

2008-05-06, and 2007-05-07

Eliahu Inbal, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Tristan Murail, Ondes Martenot
Tonhalle Orchestra

Olivier Messiaen

???? I really like Thibaudet. But Messiaen? Not sure I want to go.

2008-06-01

Jewgenij Kissin, piano
Kremerata Baltica

Bruckner, intermezzo
Mozart, piano concerto no. 20
Golijov
Mozart, piano concerto no. 27

Two mozart concertos in one session, that is nice. Never heard Kissin live before, not that it has been a great desire of mine, but maybe time to get over with it:o).

2008-07-03

Marek Janowski, conductor
Tonhalle Orchestra

Mahler, symphony no. 10
Webern, six pieces for orchestra op. 6
R. Strauss, Ein Heldenleben op. 40

Hmm, nice program. Enjoy the orchestra. If only Haiting, Roshdestwenski, or Kurt Sanderling could conduct this:o). Or why can't Barenboim get over to Zurich to take over the Orchestra for an evening?!

2008-07-08

Marek Janowski, conductor
Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano
Tonhalle Orchestra

Webern, Im Sommerwind
Busoni, piano concerto

No high expectations, but want to take the chance to hear Hamelin live. Oh, and actually the Busoni is not something can hear any season.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Korean Translation

DalHo Park translated a documentation article of mine about Debian Linux packages into Korean.

I enjoy this not only in general or because I like the language and started to appreciate the written Hangul character set, but because I just happen to be here in Seoul (Insa-Dong) right now:).

Thanks.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Gerhard Fleischmann

In Memory

Thursday, August 30, 2007

STOCKscreener. i n f o

STOCKscreener. i n f o is a new web site which lets you see all the stocks and how much each one of them has moved up or down lately. You can also change the timeframe or restrict the market list to individual currencies or stock exchanges.

Once a stock got your attention, you can quickly access further information outside on the web.

Enjoy!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Buergenstock

From yesterday's trip to Buergenstock, the chain of hotels on the top of the hill at the Vierwaldstaedter lake nearby Lucerne.

Here is a link to google maps.

Top down.

Two cups of cappuccino and a nice view.

The boat "Luzern".

And finally the always especially looking congress center in Lucerne.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Swarm Behavior

From National Geographic: Swarm Bahvior
(pointer was from Michael Covel's blog)

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.
...
Ants communicate by touch and smell. When one ant bumps into another, it sniffs with its antennae to find out if the other belongs to the same nest and where it has been working. (Ants that work outside the nest smell different from those that stay inside.) Before they leave the nest each day, foragers normally wait for early morning patrollers to return. As patrollers enter the nest, they touch antennae briefly with foragers.

"When a forager has contact with a patroller, it's a stimulus for the forager to go out," Gordon says. "But the forager needs several contacts no more than ten seconds apart before it will go out."
...
"A forager won't come back until it finds something," Gordon says. "The less food there is, the longer it takes the forager to find it and get back. The more food there is, the faster it comes back. So nobody's deciding whether it's a good day to forage. The collective is, but no particular ant is."

That's how swarm intelligence works: simple creatures following simple rules, each one acting on local information. No ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any other ant what to do. Some ant species may go about this with more sophistication than others. (Temnothorax albipennis, for example, can rate the quality of a potential nest site using multiple criteria.) But the bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no leadership is required. "Even complex behavior may be coordinated by relatively simple interactions," he says.
...
The decisive moment didn't take place in the main cluster of bees, but out at the boxes, where scouts were building up. As soon as the number of scouts visible near the entrance to a box reached about 15—a threshold confirmed by other experiments—the bees at that box sensed that a quorum had been reached, and they returned to the swarm with the news.

"It was a race," Seeley says. "Which site was going to build up 15 bees first?"

Scouts from the chosen box then spread through the swarm, signaling that it was time to move. Once all the bees had warmed up, they lifted off for their new home, which, to no one's surprise, turned out to be the best of the five boxes.

The bees' rules for decision-making—seek a diversity of options, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices—so impressed Seeley that he now uses them at Cornell as chairman of his department.
...
IN NATURE, OF COURSE, animals travel in even larger numbers. That's because, as members of a big group, whether it's a flock, school, or herd, individuals increase their chances of detecting predators, finding food, locating a mate, or following a migration route. For these animals, coordinating their movements with one another can be a matter of life or death.

"It's much harder for a predator to avoid being spotted by a thousand fish than it is to avoid being spotted by one," says Daniel Grünbaum, a biologist at the University of Washington. "News that a predator is approaching spreads quickly through a school because fish sense from their neighbors that something's going on."
...
"As soon as the wolf got within a certain distance of the caribou, the herd's alertness just skyrocketed," Karsten says. "Now there was no movement. Every animal just stopped, completely vigilant and watching." A hundred yards (90 meters) closer, and the wolf crossed another threshold. "The nearest caribou turned and ran, and that response moved like a wave through the entire herd until they were all running. Reaction times shifted into another realm. Animals closest to the wolf at the back end of the herd looked like a blanket unraveling and tattering, which, from the wolf's perspective, must have been extremely confusing." The wolf chased one caribou after another, losing ground with each change of target. In the end, the herd escaped over the ridge, and the wolf was left panting and gulping snow.

For each caribou, the stakes couldn't have been higher, yet the herd's evasive maneuvers displayed not panic but precision. (Imagine the chaos if a hungry wolf were released into a crowd of people.) Every caribou knew when it was time to run and in which direction to go, even if it didn't know exactly why. No leader was responsible for coordinating the rest of the herd. Instead each animal was following simple rules evolved over thousands of years of wolf attacks.

That's the wonderful appeal of swarm intelligence. Whether we're talking about ants, bees, pigeons, or caribou, the ingredients of smart group behavior—decentralized control, response to local cues, simple rules of thumb—add up to a shrewd strategy to cope with complexity.
...
Such thoughts underline an important truth about collective intelligence: Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions. A group won't be smart if its members imitate one another, slavishly follow fads, or wait for someone to tell them what to do. When a group is being intelligent, whether it's made up of ants or attorneys, it relies on its members to do their own part.
...
If you're looking for a role model in a world of complexity, you could do worse than to imitate a bee.

The aligators photo by Jarrad Maiers doesn't have much todo with the article, still I like it.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Problems Worthy

Problems worthy
of attack
Show their worth
by hitting back.

-Piet Hein

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Cattle, Lions, and co

Battle at Kruger

Watch the whole 8 minutes...

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Japanese Inventions

Japanese shirt fold

(pointer via schulze & webb via spurgeonblog)

Inventions from our Japanese friends:

Here are a few more ideas (pointer is from Marginal Revolution).

In book form: 99 More Unuseless Japanese Inventions

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Baby Sloth

What a life: Costa Rica Sloth Mother and Baby Hugging In Tree
Sloth babies
And more Sloth Babies.
Pure efficiency: Sloth

And other creatures...

baby panda sneeze

The Most Pathetic Baby Panda Ever

A human specialist, watch this: Babyfurz

Last not least: Otters holding hands

And finally an unusual friend: Man domesticates a crocodile

Saturday, March 31, 2007

The Pursuit of Happyness

Before actually seeing the movie The Pursuit of Happyness (or having any interest in it besides the title) I added a snap shot of this movie poster to the blog entry Meditation and Happiness:

Then recently I was looking up details about a book, that, as it turns out, gets featured in the movie. Here are the details, including the trailer and some footage on the real person the story is base upon: Security Analysis

Actually I think the movie is quite special, or as a friend put it: "the movie hits you"

BTW, the gist of the movie is in this recut version (do not watch it if you would like to see the whole movie): the pursuit of hYppies

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Pasticceria

We are lucky to have an Italian Pasticceria around the corner, which creates nice sweet stuff for breakfast. I like especially the filo dough with chocolate cream inside.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Calmy-Rey

Saw this funny post at the Swiss Siebensachen blog: Fashion Fédéral

It is about Swiss politician Calmy-Rey. I have no idea what she stands for :), but obviously her trade mark seems to be her haircut. Now, if you search for her at google images, the photo with this cat

will appear pretty high up on the list (spot number 4 as of today).

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Text

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Got it!?

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Clang Clang

Today got a tip from Tom that on YouTube there is a piano lession that Daniel Barenboim gives to Lang Lang. I would have loved to see that. Unfortunately it has been pulled down:-/. Well, I guess we will have to wait a bit longer till broadcasters move with the times and put their treasures online.

For now here is some related info from an interview on culturekiosque (INTERVIEW: LANG LANG):

"and one of my great idols is Daniel Barenboim* who has been like a second father to me since we met several years ago. He's not only my mentor, but my great friend. He's got a rare combination of emotion and intellectualism, and his acuteness and intelligence is beyond words. His playing is an inspiration to me. He's so incredibly clear, and working with him was an amazing experience."

But watch this, Jackie Lang playing Kong Fu Prokofiev. I like it: Lang Lang Gone Mad.

But seriously, just as Russian pianists have given a new dimension of passion and temper to German and French/Polish music, it is playful- and lightness that China is going to blend into Western music.

For Balakirev's Islamey there is Gavrilov, but this is also a contender, maybe my favorite Lang Lang interpretation so far: Lang Lang - "Islamey"
Or put in googooeugene's words:

although i'm not a clang clang fan, either, his interpretation of islamey is better than most of his other recordings.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Meditation and Happiness

Two Tibetian monks on their way to Winterthur... happily posing for a photo (sometime in 2004).

An interesting and motivating article by Katherine Ellison about meditation:
Mastering Your Own Mind
Ups, the list of quotes got a bit overboard, but I can't help it...:)

In contrast, practiced Buddhist meditators deploy their brains with exceptional skill. Drawing on 2,500 years of mental technology—techniques for paying careful attention to the workings of their own minds—they develop expertise in controlling the flow of their mental life, avoiding the emotional squalls that often compel us to take personal feelings oh, so personally, and clearing new channels for awareness, calm, compassion and joy. Their example holds the possibility that we can all choose to modulate our moods, regulate our emotions and increase cognitive capacity—that we can all become high-performance users of our own brains.
...
Meditation alters what we tend to think of as stable mental traits—anxiety, for example, or anger. Practitioners discover that feelings are events that rise in the psyche like bubbles off the bottom of a pot of boiling water. "They learn to de-identify with their emotions, making it easier to let them go," says neuroscientist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
...
The Buddha framed things differently. He taught that our default mode may be to suffer, but only because of ignorance. We can transcend our lot by learning to quiet the mind in meditation—not merely to relax and cope with stress, as the popular notion of Buddhism holds, but to rigorously train oneself to relinquish bad mental habits. Rather than being an end in itself, meditation becomes a tool to investigate your mind and change your worldview. You're not tuning out so much as tuning up your brain, improving your self-monitoring skills.

"You stop being always projected outside. You start looking in and seeing how your mind works, and you change your mind, thought by thought," explains Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, scientist and French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. "The French intellectuals don't like this. They say, 'Let's be spontaneous; passions are the beauty of life.' They think that making an effort is not nice—a silly old discipline—and that's why we're such a mess. But many modern people understand the notion of getting fit with physical training." So the idea of developing mental skills with meditation is gaining ground.
...
Such adepts are the Lance Armstrongs of meditation, says Davidson, whose pioneering brain scans of monks provide tantalizing evidence that emotions like love and compassion are in fact skills—and can be trained to a dramatic degree. Studies also suggest that the monastic life is not a requirement; even brief, regular meditation sessions can yield substantial benefits. Nor is a belief in Buddhism necessary. "I'm convinced that you can make a huge difference in your life if you start out with even 30 minutes a day," Ricard says. "By maintaining the practice, there is a trickle of insights. Drop by drop, you fill a jar."
...
There are many types of meditation, and they can be used to develop a number of mental skills. This attitude focuses on practices that address common emotional struggles. Through basic meditation techniques, it's possible to cultivate a longer attention span, develop emotional stability, understand the feelings of others and release yourself from the constraints you place on your own happiness.
...
Much of our emotional experience consists of gusts of negative feelings blowing through the brain. The feelings torture us without being intrinsically related to experience. "Emotions are not actually facts," explains Davidson.
...
Scientists have only recently begun to map the brain regions related to positive emotions such as empathy. But when Davidson observed Ricard meditating on compassion while hooked up to EEG sensors, he found a striking increase in gamma waves in the left prefrontal cortex, an area correlated with reported feelings of happiness. The findings furnish scientific support for something the Dalai Lama often says: A person meditating on compassion for others becomes the first beneficiary.

If you liked this article, then you will love this related book by Matthieu Ricard:

Happiness - A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill

Also mentioned in the book are research results from Paul Ekman, who made a science out of reading facial expressions, especially fleeting expressions, so called microexpressions.

Ekman's studies of thousands fo subjects had taught him that the most talented at recognizing microexpressions were also the most open to new experiences, the most curious about things in general, and the most reliable and efficient. "So I had expected that many years of meditative experience" - which requires both openness and conscientiousness - "might make them do better on this ability," Ekman explained.

It turned out that two experienced Western meditators whom Ekman had tested had achieved results that were far better than those of five thousand subjects previously tested. "They do better than policemen, lawyers, psychiatrists, customs officials, judges - even Secret Service agents," the group that had proven hitherto to be the most accurate, Ekman noted.

Even more interesting:

To test the first meditator's startle reflex, Ekman brought him to the Berkeley Psychophysiology Laboratory run by his longtime colleague Robert Levenson. The meditator's body movements, pulse, perspiration, and skin temperature were measured. His facial expressions were filmed to capture his physiological reactions to a sudden noise. The experimenters opted for the maximal threshold of human tolerance - a very powerful detonation, equivalent to a gunshot going off beside the ear.

The subject was told that within a five minute period he would hear a loud explosion. He was asked to try to neutralize the inevitable strong reaction, to the extent of making it imperceptible if possible. Some people are better than others at this exercise, but no one is able to suppress it entirely - far from it - even with the most intense effort to restrain the muscular spasms. Among the hundreds of subjects whom Ekman and Levenson had tested, none had ever managed it. Prior research had found that even elite police sharpshooters, who fire guns every day, cannot stop themselves from flinching. But the meditator was able to.

As Ekman explained: "When he tries to repress the startle, it almost disappears. We've never found anyone who can do that. Nor have any other researchers. This is a spectacular accomplishment. We don't have any idea of the anatomy that would allow him to suppress the startle reflex."

During these tests, the meditator had practiced two types of meditation: single-pointed concentration and open presence, both of which had been studied by fMRI in Madison. He found that the best effect was obtained with the open presence meditation. "In that state," he said, "I was not actively trying to control the startle, but the detonation seemed weaker, as if I were hearing it from a distance." Ekman described how, while some changes had been effected in the meditator's physiology, not one muscle in his face had moved. As the subject explained: "In the distracted state, the explosion suddenly brings you back to the present moment and causes you to jump out of suprise. But while in open presence you are resting in the present moment and the bang simply occurs and causes only a little disturbance, like a bird crossing the sky."

In Paul Ekman's book Emotions Revealed (2004), there is one paragraph about his early view on the benefits of meditation:

I'd like to also mention an approach that is complementary to these, mindfulness meditation. I did not say much about it in Emotions Revealed, for two reasons. There isn't hard scientific evidence that mindfulness meditation actually improves emotional life, although there are many studies in which people claim that it has had such benefit. Also, I previously couldn't understand why focusing our awareness on breathing would benefit emotional life.
Like the proverbial bolt out of the blue, just a few weeks before writing this afterword, the explanation struck me. The very practice of learning to focus attention on an automatic process that requires no conscious monitoring creates the capacity to be attentive to other automatic processes. We breathe without thinking, without conscious direction of each inhalation and exhalation. Nature does not require that we divert our attention to breathing. When we try paying attention to each breath, people find it very hard to do so for more than a minute, if that, without being distracted by thoughts. Learning to focus our attention on breathing takes daily practice, in which we develop new neural pathways that allow us to do it. And here is the punch line: these skills transfer to other automatic processes - benefiting emotional behavior awareness and eventually, in some people, impulse awareness.

For meditation, what has an amazing impact on me is listening to this theta metronom by Stuart Wilde (Meditation CD). The idea is that while listening to a beat of four ticks per second, what first appears intuitively as fast paced and aggresive, it syncs your brain waves (the things that get measured by an EEG) to the same state you have when in a normal sleep state. Other people I gave the CD to were either also excited or very annoyed by its sound.

Here is a recent study about Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: change your actions not your circumstances by Sheldon and Lyubomirsky from 2006.

And, seen 2007-01-19:

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Zurich from Above

Ultra cool pictures by Thomas Kamps:

See them all at: Bisenfliegen am Üetliberg

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Sotheby's Zurich

Today have been at Sotheby's Zurich seeing the "Highlights from the London Impressionist and Modern Art Sales" exhibition with paintings that will be auctioned in London on 2007-02-05/06. Just a few paintings, but ....

Picasso, Munch, van Gogh, and especially a magnificent Renoir.

The estimated price for the above Munch is EUR 1'040'000 - 1'340'000.

This Renoir has an estimated price of EUR 8'890'000 - 11'850'000. I would pay it, but we will see in February what the going rate is.

Last auction in Zurich had a beautiful Hodler.

Here is a Neue Zuericher Zeitung article about that auction which brought a record price (CHF 5.73 mio) for a Swiss painting:

Mit Hodler über dem Nebelmeer

Actually (in)famous Swiss politician (and industrial [EMS-Chemie]) Blocher is known to be a Hodler collector.

Here you can search for Sotheby's events, maybe you happen to be in one of those cities (you can also narrow the search down).

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Lang Lang meets Oliver Kahn

Lang Lang ("weltbester pianist--haha!!!") meets "mit mir wären wir Weltmeister geworden" Oliver Kahn: same hand size, same ego size?

Lang Lang on TV talk-show, September 2006

Moderated by Thomas Gottschalk at the biggest Saturday evening show in Germany.

Lang Lang ad for Rolex on the back of the Swiss Stocks magazin:

And Mr. Kahn: Oliver Kahn - World Cup 2006 Ad

Finally here you can see Oliver Kahn at work (having fun with Okocha):

Mieczyslaw Horszowski

Mieczyslaw Horszowski is an insider's tip for piano connoisseurs. He was famous as a Wunderkind and then again when he approached 100 years of age. According to Wikipedia he "had the longest career in the history of the performing arts".

From this short biography, which also includes some photos:

In 1981, at age 89, Mieczyslaw Horszowski married for the first time; his wife was Italian pianist Beatrice Costa.

I think he got to know her, as she studied with him.

Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 1
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 2
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 3
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 4 - heaven light Mozart sonata KV 332 (starting at 00:46)
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 5
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 6

Bach: English Suite No. 5 BWV 810

Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 7 - at the Carnegie Hall
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 8
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 9 - some shootage in Lucerne and you see his wife playing some Schumann
Mieczyslaw Horszowski documentary part 10