Some Christmas shopping with my mother. Everyone asked her what she did with her finger, which she found really embarassing. 🙂

I wish you merry christmas or whatever/however you celebrate the coming days. See you.

The Journal of Management Studies has a call for papers for a special issue on “Research and Technology Commercialization.”

We do want to submit an article there, hopefully we’ll make the deadline of Feb 2, 2007.

We’ve been at the Thermal Spring in Baden yesterday. It was quite an adventure. After managing the rush-hour stop-and-go traffic around Zurich, Lisa (our loyal GPS navigator) found the place easily.

I know, friendly dragons are popular at the moment, however this bath is guarded by one of the mean kind, sitting right at the entrance. She asked us if we *really* *really* wanted to go to the Sauna, as they would close it in 2 hours time. When she told me the price, I dared asking her if I could pay with card. She told me (in a grumpy voice) that, yes, I …*could*… do that, she would just have to cancel all the typing she had done so far and redo everything from scratch. As I am not sure she would have started breathing fire upon my insistance, I surrendered and offered her cash.
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heise online:
Sieben US-Universitäten und IBM betreiben offene Software-Forschung

Sieben US-Universitäten nehmen an einem Programm des IT-Konzerns IBM teil, das eine Erweiterung der vor einem Jahr verkündeten Initiative “Open Collaboration” darstellt. Die Universitäten Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Purdue, Rutgers, von Kalifornien in Berkeley und in Davis sowie das Georgia Institute of Technology beteiligen sich laut Mitteilung an Forschungsprojekten zur Verbesserung von Software-Qualität, von Sicherheits- und Datenschutzvorkehrungen und von Diagnose-Software im Gesundheitswesen. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt widmet sich “Mathematical Optimization Software”.

Das Besondere an diesen Projekten ist, dass sich die Beteiligten verpflichten, Patente oder Patentanträge kostenlos für die Implementierung der davon betroffenen Standards oder Software zur Verfügung zu stellen. Dafür soll ausreichen, die Code-Beiträge unter eine frei zu wählende Open-Source-Lizenz zu stellen. … (anw/c’t)

Interessant, Open Collaboration, ein neues Buzzword :-P.

Everexpanding almighty google has a new service: The Google patent search.

Thanks to Greg KH I know now about some crucial patents, like the one on a Monkey shaped camera bag.

I’m not saying I am against patents per se. (although the evolutionary nature of software development should make it *very* difficult to get one, if at all). However, seeing the level of invention that is actually patented, I am not so sure the current system isn’t completely broken.

Daring Fireball finds that Microsoft’s Vista website ripped off Apple’s Workgroup Manager Icon. They have replaced it by now, but the original blog post saved screenshots. 🙂
Is it “Steal-like-a-Pirate-Day” already?