Thursday, 31 December 2020

New Year Resolutions

While New Year resolutions are a tired old tradition, there is still sometime exciting and motivational about the start of a new year. Looking back over what was for many a traumatic 2020, I can count myself as being very lucky to be largely unaffected. In the coming year, I'd like to focus on improving:

  • my guitar skills
  • my Indonesian language competency
  • my exercise regime
In all three desired areas of improvement, the key factor is to make practice a daily habit. I already have some well established habits such as walking the dog at around 6am and 4pm. I never miss doing this and the same level of discipline needs to be applied to those activities in which I desire improvement.

In guitar playing, I play most days but mostly I'm just playing songs that I already know how to play using techniques that I've already mastered. I don't progress and remain plateaued for long periods. What stimulates progress most is watching YouTube tutorials and practising what's shown in them. This is key. I already have some guitar playing channels that I've subscribed to and that I watch in a rather desultory fashion. Given how many YouTube videos that I watch on any given day, it's not unreasonable to include a single video on guitar technique. My guitar time that day will then be spent on practising what is described in the video. 

My Indonesian language skills have also tended to plateau because I have no practice regime at all. Any activities are desultory and disorganised. I especially lack the competency is understanding Indonesian when it's spoken to me. There are plenty of videos involving spoken Indonesian on YouTube and once again I should aim to listen to one video a day and writing down any words that I'm not familiar with. It may take a little while to settle on favourite channels because I will have to test several out. 

My exercise regime has some regularity to it. Lately I've taken to walking at a brisk pace for about 3 kilometres at least every second day. As always I need to careful because I tend to get overly enthusiastic and push myself too hard, resulting in fatigue and cessation of any activity. I practise a limited range of exercises and once again it's always useful to watch instructional videos but not necessarily on a daily basis as this would be too confusing. 

Saturday, 26 December 2020

Indonesian Language

Back in December 2017, a full three years ago now, I took a list of the 300 most commonly used English words with associated contextual sentences and translated them into Indonesian. I completed words from 1 to 100 in a first post, then words 101 to 200 in a second post but only partially completed words 201 to 300. This final post I completed today, Christmas Day 2020. Here are the links:

  • Post containing words from 1 to 100
  • Post containing words from 101 to 200
  • Post containing words from 210 to 300
The site from which I took the words seems to be no longer active. I guess what motivated me was my current reading of James Sneddon's "The Indonesian Language: Its history and role in modern society". The book was published in November of 2003. I've always been interested in the language and learning it but have been rather lazy and disorganised in my learning.

I used Google Translate for the translations of the sentences illustrating the use of the 300 words and set things out like this:

A man and a woman sat down --> 
Seorang pria dan seorang wanita duduk

The indefinite article is of course a very basic word and is thus included in the list of words. As James Sneddon points out early on in his book, this sort of formal written Indonesian is quite different from what is spoken and even what is contained in casual text messages. Whatever grasp of the language that I have is largely academic.

There's other content that I've copied or created. Here are Google Drive links to a: 
Here are some other useful links that I've discovered (these don't require any registration):
Most importantly, I'm currently immersed in the culture and surrounded by native speakers of the language, so there's every opportunity for improvement. Most challenging for me is understanding spoken Indonesian when it's suddenly directed at me. I tend to have a mental block on such occasions. This is simply a habit that I need to break.

Friday, 25 December 2020

INDONESIAN: The 201-300 Most Frequently Used English Words Translated

The words were taken from this site. The 101 - 200 list of words can be found here.

High -  She threw the ball very high in the air --> Dia melempar bola dengan sangat tinggi ke udara

Every -  Every student is in the classroom --> Setiap siswa ada di kelas

Near -  My house is near my work --> Rumahku dekat dengan pekerjaanku

Add -  I will add that to my list --> Saya akan menambahkannya ke daftar saya

Food -  I'm hungry and need some food --> Saya lapar dan butuh makanan

Between -  My house is between two buildings --> Rumahku ada di antara dua bangunan

Own -  I own my car --> Saya memiliki mobil saya

Below -  My hand is below the table --> Tanganku di bawah meja

Country -  What country are you from? --> Dari negara mana kamu berasal?

Plant -  I have a green plant --> Saya memiliki tanaman hijau

Last -  That is the last time that I will do that --> Itulah saat terakhir saya akan melakukannya

School -  My school is near my house --> Sekolah saya ada di dekat rumah saya

Father -  My father works in an office --> Ayah saya bekerja di kantor

Keep -  I will keep those books --> Aku akan menyimpan buku-buku itu

Tree -  I have a big tree in my backyard --> Aku punya pohon besar di halaman belakang rumahku

Never -  I never go to the movies --> Saya tidak pernah pergi ke bioskop

Start -  I will start a new book --> Saya akan memulai sebuah buku baru

City -  He lives in a big city --> Dia tinggal di kota besar

Earth -  Earth is the third planet from the sun --> Bumi adalah planet ketiga dari matahari

Eye -  I have two eyes --> Aku punya dua mata

Light -  The light is very bright --> Cahaya sangat terang

Thought -  I thought we could go to the movies tonight --> Kupikir kita bisa pergi ke bioskop malam ini

Head -  He has a big head --> Dia memiliki kepala besar (translating in the literal sense)

Under -  We will walk under the bridge --> Kami akan berjalan di bawah jembatan

Story -  She told a long story --> Dia menceritakan sebuah cerita panjang lebar

Saw -  I saw my friend in the park --> Aku melihat temanku di taman

Left -  I left my notebook at school --> Aku meninggalkan buku catatanku di sekolah

Don't -  I don't like to eat fish --> Saya tidak suka makan ikan

Few -  Few people like to eat raw eggs --> Sedikit orang suka makan telur mentah

While -  We could call our friend while we wait --> Kita bisa memanggil teman kita sementara kita menunggu

Along -  We will walk along the road --> Kami akan berjalan di sepanjang jalan

Might -  We might go to the movies tonight --> Kita mungkin pergi ke bioskop malam ini

Close -  Please close the door before you go --> Silakan tutup pintu sebelum Anda pergi

Something -  She gave me something to read last night --> Dia memberiku sesuatu untuk dibaca tadi malam

Seem -  They seem to watch basketball every night --> Mereka sepertinya menonton basket setiap malam

Next -  The next time I'll pay for lunch --> Lain kali saya akan membayar makan siang

Hard -  My homework is very hard --> Pekerjaan rumah saya sangat sulit

Open -  She needs to open up the door --> Dia perlu membuka pintu

Example -  Her work is a good example of perfection --> Karyanya adalah contoh kesempurnaan yang baik

Begin -  I need to begin my homework --> Saya perlu memulai pekerjaan rumah saya

Life -  My life is great --> Hidupku sangat bagus

Always -  I will always be there for you --> Aku akan selalu ada untukmu

Those -  Those people are in my class --> Orang-orang itu ada di kelas saya

Both -  Both of us need to work on our homework --> Kami berdua perlu mengerjakan pekerjaan rumah kami

Paper -  We will write a nice letter on paper --> Kami akan menulis surat yang bagus di atas kertas

Together - We will build a sand castle together --> Kami akan membangun istana pasir bersama

Got - I got a present for my birthday --> Saya mendapat hadiah untuk ulang tahun saya

Group - There is a big group of people standing outside --> Ada sekelompok besar orang yang berdiri di luar

Often - How often do you read a book? --> Seberapa sering Anda membaca buku?

Run - I run around the track once a week --> Aku berlari mengelilingi lintasan seminggu sekali

Important - She has an important job --> Dia memiliki pekerjaan penting

Until - I can stay until 10:00 PM --> Aku bisa tinggal sampai jam 10 malam

Children - The children are happy --> Anak-anak senang

Side -  The right side of my face is red --> Sisi kanan wajahku merah

Feet - Most people have two feet --> Kebanyakan orang memiliki dua kaki

Car - My car is red --> Mobil saya berwarna merah

Mile - I ran a mile yesterday --> Aku berlari satu mil kemarin

Night - The night is dark --> Malam gelap

Walk - I walk around the block every day --> Aku berjalan mengelilingi blok setiap hari

White - I like the colour white -->  Saya suka warna putih

Sea - The sea is fun to fish in --> Laut itu asyik memancing

Began - I began a new book --> Saya memulai sebuah buku baru

Grow - She will grow a few more inches --> Dia akan tumbuh beberapa inci lagi

Took - I took my friend to the movies --> Aku membawa temanku ke bioskop

River - The river is long --> Sungainya panjang

Four - I have four friends waiting for me --> Aku punya empat teman menungguku

Carry - I need to carry my backpack --> Aku perlu membawa ranselku

State - California is a big state --> California adalah negara besar

Once - Once upon a time, there was a happy family --> Dahulu kala, ada keluarga yang bahagia (dahulu kala = a long time ago)

Book - I read a book in four hours --> Saya membaca sebuah buku dalam empat jam

Hear - I hear my friends singing all of the time --> Saya mendengar teman-teman saya bernyanyi sepanjang waktu

Stop - You must stop at a red light --> Anda harus berhenti di lampu merah

Without - I will go to the movies without her --> Saya akan pergi ke bioskop tanpa dia

Second - The second I hear something, I'll let you know --> Segera setelah saya mendengar sesuatu, saya akan memberi tahu Anda (here, "second" has been translated by "as soon as" or "immediately after").

Later - He will come later --> Dia akan datang nanti

Miss - I miss my girlfriend --> Aku rindu pacarku

Idea - I have a good idea about how I could do it --> Saya punya ide bagus tentang bagaimana saya bisa melakukannya

Enough - I've had enough of eating candy --> Aku sudah muak makan permen (here the translation means "I'm fed up with eating candy").

Eat - I will eat later this evening --> Saya akan makan nanti malam

Face - My face got red when I saw him --> Wajahku memerah saat melihatnya

Watch - I need to watch my little brother --> Saya perlu menjaga adik saya

Far - She will travel far for her job --> Dia akan melakukan perjalanan jauh untuk pekerjaannya

Indian - Indian is an old word --> Indian adalah kata lama

Real - He wears a real Rolex --> Dia memakai Rolex asli

Almost - He almost won the game --> Dia hampir memenangkan pertandingan

Let - He let the girl drive his car --> Dia membiarkan gadis itu mengendarai mobilnya

Above - My hand is above her hand --> Tanganku berada di atas tangannya

Girl - She is a nice girl --> Dia gadis yang baik

Sometimes - She sometimes shops downtown --> Dia terkadang berbelanja di pusat kota

Mountain - He climbed a tall mountain --> Dia mendaki gunung yang tinggi

Cut - He cut his hand with the knife --> Dia memotong tangannya dengan pisau

Young - He is a young boy --> Dia ada anak laki-laki yang muda

Talk - I talk with my friends once a week -->  Saya berbicara dengan teman-teman saya seminggu sekali

Soon - He will soon come to my house --> Dia akan segera datang ke rumahku

List - He made a long list for the store --> Dia membuat daftar panjang untuk toko itu

Song - She sang a beautiful song --> Dia menyanyikan lagu yang indah

Being - She is being silly --> dia konyol (here being is implicit in the translation)

Leave - I will leave at 1:00 PM today --> Saya akan berangkat jam 1 siang hari ini

Family - My family lives in Denver, Colorado --> Keluarga saya tinggal di Denver, Colorado

It's - It's great that they came to my party --> Senang sekali mereka datang ke pesta saya (here it's is implicit in the translation)

Thursday, 17 December 2020

Recherché

Recherché is a word that I'd heard of in the past but had long forgotten its meaning. I came across it being used in a video about the fine-matter constant that is approximately equal to 1/137. The person concerned described the topic as recherché and joked that if there was a three digit code to a physicist's briefcase, the first combination to try in order to gain access to it would be 137. So what does the word mean? Figure 1 shows the definition from Merriam-Webster:

Figure 1: source


I took the opportunity to sign up to the Merriam-Webster site in order to be able to save words and access other features that are available. This is a resource that I should make more use of.

I was apparently signed up to the Free Dictionary already but had forgotten my password. After resetting, this was the definition that I retrieved:

1. Uncommon; rare.
2. Exquisite; choice.
3. Overrefined; forced.
4. Pretentious; overblown.

French, past participle of rechercher, to research, from Old French recercher.

I also signed up with Dictionary.com. Apparently, I could log in via Facebook but I don't want to be dependent on Facebook at all so I've logged in anew. In what might seem like overkill, I've signed up to the Cambridge Dictionary as well. I guess I should just focus on one or two of these sites and not spread myself too thin. What I'll do is that I'll put the link to these three sites on my Google Sites webpage, so I'm reminded to make more use of them. Here is the current status of my language page:

Here is a link to my Google Document on vocabulary, collected from Dictionary.com (accessed using Facebook). I also have currently over 700 words on my Kindle that I've marked during my reading. The words can be practised using a flashcard system that shows an example of each word's usage and allows you to mark a word as mastered if you know its meaning. There is a way to export the data but my first attempt at doing so failed, even though it seems straightforward enough (notes on how to do it have been saved in Google's Keep) .

I try to keep track of what books I read via goodreads.

The Cambridge Dictionary has a blog that contains some interesting posts. The latest post is titled I don't know him from Adam: phrases containing names. I've contributed a couple of comments that are awaiting moderation: one concerning "See you, Jimmy!" and other concerning rhyming slang. The dictionary has its own YouTube channel which I've subscribed to.

There is even an English-Indonesian dictionary with translations of many colloquial expressions e.g. a good loser is translated as sportif while a bad loser is translated as tidak sportif.

Stored Games on Lichess

I only realised today that Lichess saves all the games you play, provided you are registered. This is of course quite useful in analysing what went wrong. Figure 1 shows a position from a game I played last night and ended up losing, even though I thought I could win it or at least draw. Black has just captured, with a pawn, the white bishop on g6 that had previously captured the black bishop with check. It is now move 33 with white to play. 

Figure 1

I played my rook to e2 and lost ignominiously after 33...c7 c1+. The engine is recommending that I play 33 f1 g1 but even my 33. d2 e2 move all is not lost. The position is judged as equal. The critical position was reached in Figure 2, when it's white's turn to move and I played 33. b2 b1 and after 33...c8 c5 I'm finished. The recommended move is 33. b2 a3 and white has at least a draw.

Figure 2

I've embedded the game in this website:


I've been setting the lichess computer to level 6 which is apparently about 2300 level which is certainly strong enough for me. I've been playing at this level for my past few games now whereas previously I'd set it to the level 5. I'd won some games at that level but level 6 is certainly more challenging.

I'm reminded of that how many free resources are available now for improving ones chess prowess and I should be more active in taking advantage of them. Talking of which, I played my first rated game today and won easily. However, I'm sure that I'll meet much stronger players if I continue. Figure 3 shows a screenshot:

Figure 3

If you play 30 rated games, you get an official lichess rating so I should continue and try to get one. Of course, I should try to learn some of the more common opening traps that are about or else I'm bound to fall prey to some of them. I now have 88 games stored on lichess.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020

Bricolage

I came across the word bricolage today and had no idea what it meant. Learning a new word is always exciting. So what does the word mean? It has a Wikipedia entry from which I'll extract only its definition for the moment:

Bricolage is a French loanword that means the process of improvisation in a human endeavour. The word is derived from the French verb bricoler ("to tinker"), with the English term DIY ("Do-it-yourself") being the closest equivalent of the contemporary French usage. In both languages, bricolage also denotes any works or products of DIY endeavours. 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has this to say:

Bricolage is a construction (as of a sculpture or a structure of ideas) achieved by using whatever comes to hand; something constructed in this way.

The dictionary goes on to add that:

Bricolage Has French Roots

Centenarian: Claude Lévi-Strauss: 1908 - 2009
According to French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the artist "shapes the beautiful and useful out of the dump heap of human life." Lévi-Strauss compared this artistic process to the work of a handyman who solves technical or mechanical problems with whatever materials are available. He referred to that process of making do as bricolage, a term derived from the French verb bricoler (meaning "to putter about") and related to bricoleur, the French name for a jack-of-all-trades. Bricolage made its way from French to English during the 1960s, and it is now used for everything from the creative uses of leftovers ("culinary bricolage") to the cobbling together of disparate computer parts ("technical bricolage"). 

Rather off-subject but seeing that the name of Claude Lévi-Strauss came up, I'll include this quote of his:

A day will come when the thought that to feed themselves, men of the past raised and massacred living beings and complacently exposed their shredded flesh in displays shall no doubt inspire the same repulsion as that of the travellers of the 16th and 17th century facing cannibal meals of savage American primitives in America, Oceania or Africa. Source.

Encyclopedia.com has a lengthy and interesting explanation of the word.

Bricolage

The French word bricolage can be translated as "patchup" or "do it yourself " in English. This term has been used as a metaphor to designate the combining of a variety of religious practices and representations found in certain oral societies and, in a different form, in the most modern societies.

The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, in The Savage Mind (1966), was the first to use the term bricolage. From a structuralist perspective, bricolage is understood as a metaphor for mythic thought. On the practical level, bricolage takes objects that have been used before and reorganises them within a new perspective. For example, one would take spare parts from old automobiles to construct a new one. Similarly, on a theoretical level mythic thought takes bits and pieces that have perhaps already been elaborated in previous myths and puts them together to form a new narrative. Lévi-Strauss asserts that mythic images, like the materials of a bricoleur (a person who does bricolage), have a dual characteristic: They have already been used and they can be used again. According to structuralist theory, mythic bricolage is not arbitrary: By necessity it takes into account the heterogeneous nature of the preformed elements it uses. This is why the number of rearrangements of mythic elements is limited. Also, mythic bricolage is not the product of individual caprice; it is guided by general structures of the human mind of which individuals are not aware.

Cuban Santería and Haitian Vodun (Voodoo), which are found in the United States today due to Caribbean immigration, are good examples of this first type of bricolage found in oral societies. Slaves who had been taken to Cuba and Haiti associated West African divinities with Catholic saints. But the links among European and African belief systems were not formed randomly. An African god and a Catholic saint were identified with one another when they possessed a common characteristic. For example, in Santería, Ogun corresponds to St. Peter because the first is the African god of iron, while the second, who guards the gates of paradise in the Catholic tradition, always carries metallic keys in Catholic iconography. In Vodun, the same African divinity is often identified with St. James the Elder, a warrior spirit much like Ogun.


The term bricolage is used today to describe certain religious behaviours that are characteristic of the most modern societies. Just as in oral societies, in the modern West one can observe the phenomenon of the combination of preexistent religious elements that have been abstracted from the belief systems in which they were previously embedded. But contemporary religious bricolage is nevertheless very different from the mythic bricolage described by Claude Lévi-Strauss. First, contemporary religious bricolage rests on the free choice of individuals. In a context of a great diversity of religious beliefs and practices, individuals choose among these according to their personal inclinations. Religious bricoleurs no longer accept institutional dogmas. Furthermore, they do not submit to the demands of coherence that guided mythic thought according to structuralist theory. Individuals borrow elements from heterogeneous traditions without attempting a logical synthesis. Contemporary religious bricolage is an individual juxtaposition of religious elements that are not organised within a structure. Finally, bricoleurs neglect the religious stability of tradition. In constructing their own religion, they aim for personal achievement. Therefore they can at any moment abandon certain beliefs or practices in favour of others they consider more efficacious, and this without excluding the possibility of returning to their previous position if they feel the need. Therefore it is only with difficulty that modern religious bricoleurs tie into a historical continuity shared by a community of believers, because their beliefs have no institutional base and vary in the short term.

The New Age is a characteristic example of this second type of bricolage. New Agers patch together elements of Western and Eastern religious traditions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islamic Sufism, to which they add astrological or parapsychological beliefs as well as other elements that issue, notably, from Native American religions. New Agers seek neither to systematically organise this ensemble of beliefs, nor to maintain it over time, nor to organise collectively. Within the range of available religious resources, New Agers choose those elements that will best serve their corporal and psychic development. This ensemble of individual beliefs can evolve over time as a function of the needs of the person concerned. These asystematic and unstable individual religious combinations of New Agers thus typify the religious bricolage found in modern societies. 

Let's wax more visual now and look at some examples of bricolage in the visual arts. Figure 1 shows a detail from a bricolage work by El Anatsui that is comprised of liquor bottle caps and wrappings. The photo is included in a blog post in which the author says:

Bricolage is a term that is beginning to be used more frequently to describe artworks made from found, recycled or ready-made materials. Such material is usually called junk, but since we are talking about fine art,  I prefer to use a term which may be considered the equivalent of "collage" except that the materials are not necessarily paper and they are not necessarily attached with glue. Perhaps "assemblage" is a more familiar term for the process we will be using, but instead of just joining together elements or objects, I want to stress the manipulation of individual elements and the submersion of elements into a completed work.


Figure 1

The Internet is awash with examples of bricolage in all sorts of contexts. This is just a cursory look at some of them.