I guess developers don’t like questionnaire requests anymore… Link here

“Hi, I’m a student at the university of fooville, and I’m doing a research project for my dissertation into open source. Please fill out my online questionaire. When complete, I will send you the results”.

I am *so* tired of reading these things year after year. Almost exactly the same questions, no doubt coming to exactly the same conclusions (I’ve long since given up caring, after first filling out a few of these five years or so back.) What’s really annoying is that the number of these seems to grow each year. If you want to survey people, at least make it interesting, especially if you’re following in the footsteps of at least a few dozen others who have done the exact same “research” projects. I guess you don’t win bonus marks in dissertations for originality any more.

I pity the people having to read and grade these things year after year.

Quick note for myself: Available radio channels

From Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed (Nov 11)
Peter Drucker, the deepest thinker the subject of management has seen, died earlier today at 95.

You scored as Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones is an archaeologist/adventurer with an unquenchable love for danger and excitement. He travels the globe in search of historical relics. He loves travel, excitement, and a good archaeological discovery. He hates Nazis and snakes, perhaps to the same degree. He always brings along his trusty whip and fedora. He’s tough, cool, and dedicated. He relies on both brains and brawn to get him out of trouble and into it.

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

I registered a new jabber account for instant messaging. You can reach me at spaetz@amessage.de. Alternatively I can receive and send messages through my ICQ account (#14349984).

From here:

A well known effect in scientific reputation is the so called Metthew effect (Merton 1968 in: id. 1973), also named halo effect (Martin, Irvine 1983): it takes its name from a passage of Matthewââ

Flusswasser-Studie: Deutsche koksen ungeahnte Mengen – SPIEGEL ONLINE –
Erstmals haben Forscher das Wasser deutscher FlÃ

… my brother Wolfram!
On Nov 3rd, the Hamburg Animation Award took place. Amond the 60 submissions and 10 nominations was the work “Bo” by my brother Wolfram (together with 4 other team members).

I did not know anything about the film in advance (not even the title) before watching it in Hamburg’s cinema “Streit’s”. However, I recognized it after the first 5 seconds as my brother’s style was easily recognizable.

I have to say, that it was really good and I was mightily impressed.

Apparently so was the jury: German actress Ulrike Grote announced the 1st place: “Bo”. I was totally stunned! WOW! Great work, Wolfram. I am really happy and proud!

It definitely deserves the prize (although the choice was hard, and the second-priced film “Delivery” was also amazing), and I am looking forward seeing this film on TV or as a pre-film in the movies in some time!

There is an article (German) in the Hamburger Abendblatt. From there you can also download a “small” version of the film (direct link here (50MB)). I recommend watching it (and that has nothing to do with being his brother).

P.S. Is the character’s “voice” really my brother’s?
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Yay, finally finished my PhD (or more correctly, my doctoral degree). Bow before me and call me: Dr. oec. (oeconomiae) (= Doktor der Wirtschafts- / Verwaltungswissenschaften) 😛

Von Wikipedia:

Der Anteil der Promovierten an der GesamtbevÃ

“Convention generalizes precedent to situations where one lacks shared experience, but knows that everybody involved is a member of the same community. An observable regularity in the behaviour of members of a community in a recurrant situation is a convention if it is customary, expected, and mutually consistent, compare (Lewis (1969) and Young (1993).”

from 1997, John B. Van Huyck, Raymond C. Battalio, and Frederick W. Rankin, ON THE ORIGIN OF CONVENTION: EVIDENCE FROM COORDINATION GAMES, The Economic Journal 107 (May), 576-696, Blackwell Publishers.
Lewis, David. 1969. Convention: a Philosophical Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.