Pilot Had Hunch

San Francisco Chronicle: PILOT HAD HUNCH: It led him to wife, kids

"When I heard the family was lost, immediately I had a pretty good idea where they were," Rachor, a helicopter pilot for 10 years, said Wednesday. "It's real easy to take a wrong turn where they did. A lot of people make that mistake."
...
"I saw the picture of the kids in the paper," Rachor said. "I really know that area well. I live out there, so I know it better than most. I fly over it once a week."

Rachor knew that helicopters hired by the Kim family were looking closer to the coast. He said he had contact with government searchers, but they were looking elsewhere as well.

30

Copies from the office pinboard at my previous job:


Employees over 30 years old




Most developers make their first million by age 30.

Bloglife

a) Writing blog articles is as easy as writing emails. Even easier, as you don't have to think about whom to send it to.

b) Reading blogs is also as easy as reading email and even easier and more convenient than surfing around the web.

For completeness sake here is a presentation I gave recently for practicing purposes: RSS Feeds


to a) To get started writing (you can have multiple blogs for different subjects if you like), go to this web site and get yourself a free account:

http://www.blogger.com/signup.g

See these two screenshots to get an impression of how to use the service from blogger.com:




You see a list of your posts and when writing a new one it looks almost identical to writing an email.

to b) Instead of browsing from one news or blog web site to the next, checking if new and interesting things have been put online, you can use a site like www.bloglines.com. Register all the interesting news feeds and become your own news editor.


Here you can get yourself a free account:

http://www.bloglines.com/register

To add news feeds to your selection, click on the "add" link in the left pane above your list of existing feeds. Then you will be able to add a simple web address like e.g.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
http://www.unizh.ch/news/rss/all_events_rss.php

as the source of a new feed. Basically every news site or blog offers this so called RSS feed capability. Just look where RSS gets mentioned on a web site that you like and copy paste the link presented there into bloglines. Then bloglines indicates which site has any new content, which you can then easily read in the right pane of the bloglines site. Just check it out.


Now what to read and write about (and listen and see) is up to you! But it is easier and more efficient than it has ever been.

Richter The Enigma

There is a documentary on YouTube of up to 3 hours about Sviatoslav Richter, whom many consider to be the greatest pianist of the 20th century.

For a first quick impression check Richter Rocked instead.

[Update 2007-01-27: unfortunately "The Enigma" videos have been pulled down. Hopefully they will legally reappear someplace else someday.]
Richter The Enigma [1/18]

Richter The Enigma [2/18]
Richter The Enigma [3/18]
Richter The Enigma [4/18]
Richter The Enigma [5/18]
Richter The Enigma [6/18] - Richter about Maria Yudina (another story about her: she once played a Mozart concerto on radio, Stalin heard it and requested the recording. No one had the guts to tell him there is no recording of it - it was only live! So they played it again just for the record and handed it to Stalin as the supposedly first radio version.)
Richter The Enigma [7/18]
Richter The Enigma [8/18]
Richter The Enigma [9/18]
Richter The Enigma [10/18]
Richter The Enigma [11/18]
Richter The Enigma [12/18]
Richter The Enigma [13/18]
Richter The Enigma [14/18]
Richter The Enigma [15/18]
Richter The Enigma [16/18]
Richter The Enigma [17/18]
Richter The Enigma [18/18]

Postcards

Lang Lang & Karin Zhou

Lang Lang Panasonic Commercial

Hahaha
Lang Lang (da DONGAH) DEFINITIVE performance of Pimp Rappah2

Wow
Solfeggio C.P.E. Bach, played by Karin Zhou (6)

Bach Prelude with Karin Zhou (7)

Czerny Etude - Karin Zhou (6)

Hmmm
Mozart Sonata facile Satz 2 mit Karin Zhou (6)

And she plays even violin!
Chinese Dance - Karin Zhou (viol) & Hee-Jin Han (piano)

Dani Juggling

End of last year Dani Muri persuaded me to learn juggling. My motivation was to use it as a metaphor for being able to handle multiple projects in my life at the same time instead of getting lost in a single thing.
What I learned is that juggling is much less about catching each ball than to focus on throwing them the right way so you know already where and when they will land and forget (at least consciously) about them while they fly all by themselves through the air. Instead you are able to focus on the most important task right in front of you and get that done as precisely and quickly as possible so you are able to get to the next one and you need less correction and concentration when collecting things in the end.

Now two weeks ago (2006-11-02) Dani gave a presentation in the office at the bi-weekly English Business Lunch, organized by our English teacher Sharon Epprecht. I recorded only parts as I had not enough memory, still you should get the idea with the snippets that came out of it. Enjoy!

Dani Juggling 1/8 (40 sec)
Dani Juggling 2/8 (23 sec)
Dani Juggling 3/8 (1 min 38 sec) Resilience

Dani Juggling 4/8 (1 min 27 sec)
Dani Juggling 5/8 (3 min 16 sec) Values of the Game

Dani Juggling 6/8 (1 min 29 sec) Imagination
Dani Juggling 7/8 (42 sec)
Dani Juggling 8/8 (32 sec)


Here is the single slide of the presentation,

according to the book

Values of the Game by Bill Bradley. Someone added, what also belongs on the list is the word Fun.

Check this Basketball Stunt Video by Dani's sun Kevin, which also contains some juggling.


Of course, this reminds me of my sister's friend Joram (who met his wife through her). He defected from computer science after he finished his bachelor in Bonn and made juggling his profession instead.
Check these two videos of Joram Seewi in action: trailer and glowing fascination

So, get yourself some juggling balls. It is never to early to start - and never to late. Like my nephew Timon, 16 months of age:

Applied Neuroscience

Excellent article full of practical tips and examples:

A cognitive neuroscientist uses his brain savvy in the ‘Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?’ hot seat

Researchers in my department, Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS), seek to understand the brain's mechanisms, including three cognitive systems that happen to be essential for a profitable performance on Millionaire: learning, memory, and decision-making. This summer [...] I decided to apply my graduate skills to a decidedly practical purpose and auditioned for a turn in the show's perilous hot seat.
...
- The first technique I drew upon was priming.
- knowing how to make decisions based on intuition.
- theory of mind, the ability to imagine other people's perspectives.

Pointer was from Marginal Revolution.

Richter Rocked

The title and "richter eats only pianos. He was the Chuck Norris of his time." are two quotes I like from this YouTube video: Richter - Brahms 2nd concerto


Here is a link to search for more Richter Stuff at YouTube.

Sviatoslav Richter plays Bach


I love the following Mozart piano concerto. It was his homework (to make a concerto out of someone else's piano sonata) when he was 11 or 12 years old.

Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.1 1st mov.
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.1 2nd mov.
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.1 3rd mov.

And two more Mozart piano concertos (also with Rudolf Barshai and the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra in 1994)....
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.5 1st mov.
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.5 2nd mov.
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.5 3rd mov.

Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.18 1st mov. Pt.1 of 2
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.18 1st mov. Pt.2 of 2
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.18 2nd mov.
Richter plays Mozart Piano Concerto No.18 3rd mov. (at the end he even smiles - it seems)

Supernatural

Google videos:

Crazy Ants in Panthanal - Why do they walk like this?


Muskel Beine

Putin, Stalin, Marx, Lenin

Putin, Stalin, Marx

Marx, Lenin, Stalin

Filmed by collegue and friend Jonathan Bee this summer in Moscow.

The Database of Intentions

The Database of Intentions is simply this: The aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result. It lives in many places, but three or four places in particular hold a massive amount of this data (ie MSN, Google, and Yahoo). This information represents, in aggregate form, a place holder for the intentions of humankind - a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, supoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends. Such a beast has never before existed in the history of culture, but is almost guaranteed to grow exponentially from this day forward. This artifact can tell us extraordinary things about who we are and what we want as a culture.

From John Battelle's Searchblog: The Database of Intentions

Guangzhou

Sound impression from a park in Guangzhou - people dancing and having fun playing cards (starting at 02:17 min).

Zurich under Construction