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✓ Smart policy to ensure adequate, affordable housing
Lawrence is a city forged in flames over the principle that all people are created equal. Black, brown, or white we deserve compassion and respect. And we should be just as devoted to equal justice today.
I am running for city commission to make sure Lawrence lives up to our identity as a proudly progressive community. When we do, we can create prosperous neighborhoods and ensure the dignity of all Lawrence residents.
This site features information about me and my issues, but this campaign is about everyone who calls Lawrence home. Our goal is to build energy for change beyond one campaign.
Meet Joey
Joey Hentzler was born, raised, and educated in Kansas. His values were rooted in fairness and community by his family, and Joey has made it his mission to fight for equal opportunity throughout his professional life and community service.
Joey is director of advocacy at a statewide nonprofit advocacy group. He works to advance laws and change policy at the local, state and federal levels. Joey also serves on the executive board of the Douglas County Extension Council and is vice president of the Douglas County Young Democrats.
Affordable, Adequate Housing
Recent work to expand affordable housing in Lawrence was a promising start. High rents remain a challenge for too many Lawrence households and small businesses. Quality housing is vital for the well-being of individuals and families. It is how many families are able to build wealth. We must do more to significantly increase the supply of permanently affordable and safe housing.
Advance Racial Equity
All Lawrence residents should be able to participate in the economic, civic, and social life of our city. But that is not happening, according to the shared experiences of our neighbors, the Lawrence NAACP's 2016 Police Stop Survey, and the Health Department's 2018 Health Equity Report. We can make changes at the city level to advance racial equity.
Climate Change and Energy
Climate change is already devastating livelihoods in the Midwest. According to a 2018 Report from the United Nations, there is no historical precedent for the action needed at this time. We have no choice but to be bolder with green energy and preservation projects. We can reduce our environmental footprint and develop an equitable, 21st-Century economy.
Our vision for Lawrence
Our campaign is committed to advancing a progressive vision for our communities. Other priorities include protecting immigrant residents, access to reproductive healthcare, and progressive revenue streams. Learn more about that vision and additional policy goals here. That vision must respond to the needs and wants of Lawrence communities.


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Walking pneumonia z pack
Hi, I have a question about pnemonia that I would like answered. A friend of mine got diagnosed with walking pnemonia few days ago, he got some antibiotics and
I'm a pneumonia survivor. It wasn't walking pneumonia either. I was in the bed for a week. Symptoms and severity vary. Here are some tips for what to do.
Walking pneumonia is one of the common ailments and is often mistaken as a common cold and never realizes what condition they are suffering from until get checked by
06.07.2007 � Best Answer: ahhhhh the z pack - I love that antibiotic - 5 days and wham - feeling much better - love the fact that you dont have to take it for 10 days
FAQ • Pneumonia, Mycoplasma - MEDICAL.
Home Remedies for Walking Pneumonia:.
Pneumonia while pregnant - April 2011.
Walking pneumonia z packJust found out I have Pneumonia and put.
How dangerous is walking pnemonia �.
How dangerous is walking pnemonia �.
What to do For Walking Pneumonia
Is Zithromax Good for Pneumonia

subset: commoncrawl


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Couple's FAQ
Couple's Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry?
- How does the Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry work?
- Why should we use the Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry?
- When will we receive gift funds from this honeymoon registry?
- How much does it cost to use the Villa del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry and wedding website?
- What does the service & handling fee cover?
- How do we notify our guests about our Honeymoon Wishes registry and wedding website?
- What is a Wedding Website?
- What if some of my wedding guests aren't that computer friendly?
- Do you book the activities on my Honeymoon Wishes registry for me?
- How will I know how much to ask for?
- How am I notified of a purchase from my Honeymoon Wishes gift registry?
- When will my Honeymoon Wishes registry be active? When will my honeymoon registry close?
- Can we use this honeymoon gift registry if we are not from the US?
- Can I use this site for my Anniversary, Birthday or Graduation Celebration?
- Can we set this up for a wedding couple as a surprise?
- Who manages this honeymoon registry site? Are you a secure company?
- How do I make changes?
What is the Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry?The Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry is similar to a store gift registries, whereby you register for items you wish to receive as wedding gifts. This registry allows you to register components of your honeymoon or destination wedding online. Your wedding guests will then give you portions of your vacation as a wedding gift! Instead of asking for a crock pot, you could receive an upgrade on your honeymoon suite, a couple's massage or a romantic dinner as wedding gifts.
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How does the Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry work?
- Take five minutes to sign up and Register your honeymoon plans with this registry service, for free. You will select items and activities you'd like to experience on your honeymoon. Start Here
- Reveal your registry to friends and family, who will select gifts to purchase for you in celebration.
- Receive your gifts. Details here
- Enjoy your gifts and Remember your honeymoon forever!
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Why should we use the Villa Del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry?
- Your fully customizable, easy to use registry will have actual item descriptions, site specific photos and pricing provided by our partner resorts.
- You, your friends and family can talk to our customer service, toll-free at 877-699-5884; 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Time, Monday thru Friday. You and your guests can also email us 24 hours a day, support@eregistrygifts.
- There are no third party advertisements on your registry.
- We do not sell or share neither your personal nor your friends and families information.
- We process all transactions with the highest level of encryption available and carry a $3,000,000.00 insurance policy protecting your from fraud and theft. We are tested by Trust Guard and GoDaddy daily and are members of the San Diego, CA Better Business Bureau (A rating).
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When will we receive gift funds from this honeymoon registry?All gift monies for the "Trip Contribution" item will be transferred to you by check or ACH transfer according to your payment preference upon your request. Payment requests for the "Trip Contribution" item will be processed 24 hours after your request.
The gift monies for all other items on your honeymoon registry:
All gifts purchased for you up to 5 days prior to your honeymoon date will be transferred to you as a room credit and will be waiting for you upon your arrival. You may use this credit on anything that the resort allows you to charge to your room. Please note that we do not make the actual reservation for you. To book your gift items please follow the instructions listed under each item. All resort credits must be used on property during your stay, are non-refundable and non-transferable.
Any gift purchased within 5 days of your honeymoon date will be sent to you directly, not the resort. You will receive the cash value of the gifts purchased. The monies will be sent to you via your choice of either an ACH (secure bank to bank transfer) or by check.
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How much does it cost to use the Villa del Palmar Cancun Honeymoon Registry and wedding website?We charge a small service & handling fee to maintain a professional full service registry for you, your friends and family. This service & handling fee provides an ad free registry experience, wedding website and social networking tools with the highest level of security, encryption and insurance. Our team is here to answer calls toll free, process checks and credit card transactions of your guests.
You may choose whether you'd like the service & handling fee to be added or deducted from each gift amount. Adding it to the transaction means that the purchaser will be charged a 9.65% service & handling fee at check-out. Deducting the service & handling fee will have the gift amount transfer at 7% less than the listed amount to you, with the gift purchaser paying a reduced service fee of 2.65%. If the fee is added to the gift, purchasers can receive a 2.65% discount if they choose to mail a check directly bringing the total service fee to 7%.
Guests from around the world can make a contribution towards your honeymoon with ease which means no shipping or carrying gifts with them to your wedding destination. Please feel free to call us with any questions.
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What does the service & handling fee cover?The service charge covers your account management, unlimited fund transfers, coordination with Villa del Palmar Cancun; your wedding web site, order processing, gift announcements, email wizard, merchant account fees that we are charged and toll free live customer service to assist your guests. We ensure that your guest's transactions are processed at the highest rate of secure SSL encryption, and protected by a $3,000,000.00 insurance policy against identity theft and fraud.
This is not simply a fee for processing monies; it's a fee so that we can continue to provide outstanding services for you. To run this registry company, we have a dedicated team of people providing a high quality and professional service.
Store registries carry costs such as shipping, taxes and gift-wrap charges to cover the services. The service fee this registry charges is often less than these charges imposed on your guests. The honeymoon registry saves your guests time and gas with the comfort and convenience of purchasing their gift from their home or office. And, there is no hassle or embarrassment of returning or exchanging unwanted gifts for you!
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How do we notify our guests about our Honeymoon Wishes registry and wedding website?We provide:
- Downloadable announcements to print
- An email announcement wizard
- A wedding website
- A full online photo album
- A wedding blog
- A share tool, to post your registry on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites
Make sure your family knows how special this is to you, by using any or all of these helpful methods.
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What is a Wedding Website?Approximately 80% of today's wedding couples create a wedding website to share stories of how they met, their engagement, details for the wedding day, travel arrangements, etc.
Learn more about your free wedding website tool here: Wedding Website
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What if some of my wedding guests aren't that computer friendly?No problem! Our customer service representatives are happy to help and will take orders for your wedding registry over the phone. It is part of the outstanding customer service we offer and what makes us the premiere honeymoon registry. Our toll free phone number is found on every page of the honeymoon registry site 1-877-699-5884.
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Do you book the activities on my Honeymoon Wishes registry for me?You have the freedom to choose the supplier for any gift you receive, as we are NOT booking the item for you just because it is listed on your gift registry. If the supplier requires you to book in a certain manner, you will find those terms under 'Notes to Couple', in each item description and via an email notification, once the item is purchased.
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How will I know how much to ask for?When setting up your Honeymoon Wishes registry, we provide a suggested gift amount for each item, based on the suppliers in that area. However, you are free to ask for whatever you would like. We recommend using varied denominations to accommodate all guests and checking with your travel professional or supplier for exact pricing. All prices vary by location, availability, and are subject to change without notice. You can break down the amounts any way you choose.
For example, if an item is going to cost you $200.00, you may ask for '2 gifts of $100.00' or '4 gifts of $50.00'. If you've chosen to have gifts go to your hotel, those prices will be listed in the exact amount for you.
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How am I notified of a purchase from my Honeymoon Wishes gift registry?You will receive an email notice to view your 'Gift Announcement',filled out by the gift giver. Guests can also choose to print out this customized gift announcement, with a personal message and photo of their gift, to hand deliver to you. You can log in to your account at anytime and go to 'view gifts' to review gift details, givers and announcements. Guest can also post their gift announcement on your honeymoon registry under the 'Well Wishes' section.
You can then compose a hand written thank you card, right through your account.
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When will my Honeymoon Wishes registry be active? When will my honeymoon registry close?Guests can view and begin purchasing gifts immediately after creating your Honeymoon Wishes registry. Your honeymoon gift registry will remain active until you would like to delete it.
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Can we use this honeymoon gift registry if we are not from the US?Yes, absolutely! All amounts will remain listed and transacted in US dollars.
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Can I use this site for my Anniversary, Birthday or Graduation Celebration?Yes! We have many couples use this site for their Anniversary or Vow Renewal. You can also visit AnniversaryWishes.com. For your Birthday, Graduation, Retirement or any other special event, we've created the fun and versatile site CelebrationWishes.com!
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Can we set this up for a wedding couple as a surprise?Yes, you can set this up for someone else as a surprise. However, it is very important to notify our office of all the details. Please email specific details of your situation along with your contact information to email@example.com.
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Who manages this honeymoon registry site? Are you a secure company?Honeymoon Wishes provides all support and software for the honeymoon registry and has served over 120,000 couples since 2003. We are also very proud to be the honeymoon registry chosen by world-renowned travel and leisure companies.. We have been selected as the honeymoon registry for over 58,000 travel agents in the United States and Canada. We are tested every day for security by Go Daddy, are the only PCI compliant honeymoon registry, have an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and are a California Corporation. We are happy to speak with you if you have any questions.
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How do I make changes?To make changes or learn how to manage your registry click here: How Does It Work
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RecipeSource: Dips and Spreads
... Bean Dip Richer Ro*Tel Dip to Secret Ingredient Dip Seven Layer Dip to Spicy Clam Dip Spicy Dip For Vegetables to Strawberry Grand Marnier Cheesecake Dip Strawberry Grand Marnier Cheesecake Dip to Tofu Dip Tofu Dip to Whole Food's Black ... more pages
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... (0) | Philly Hostess Dip Views: 3102 | Comments (0) | Chilled Red Bean Dip Views: 2294 | Comments (0) | Clam And Olive Dip Views: 2304 | Comments (0) | Roasted Red Pepper Dip 2 Views: 1974 | Comments (0) | Vegetable Dip Mix Views: 2160 | ... more pages
dips-spreads recipes from FATFREE.COM: The Low Fat Vegetarian Recipe ...
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Dip Recipes - RecipeDude.com
... Dip Greek Olive Appetizer Greek Olive Appetizer Rock'n Dip Rock'n Dip 7 Layer Dip The classic Seven-Layer Dip. Add ranch dip instead of sour cream to spice it up even more. Rueben Dip Rueben Dip Hillary's Yummy Black Bean Salsa ... more pages
Dips Dip Recipes Index Curry Garlic Dip Diverse Dips : COLLECTION Hummus (1) Hummus (2) Hummus (3) Hummus (4) Keiko's Tex-Mex 7-Layer Dip Spinach Dip Tsatsiki amyl Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science (SCS) graciously hosts ... more pages
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... snacks of all kinds are featured here, from dips and spreads to appetizers. Popcorn Re-cipes (14) Deviled Eggs Recipes (9) Dip Recipes (23) Fruit Snacks (13) Snack Mix Rec-ipes (7) After School Snacks These after school snacks include sweet ... more pages
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... Sauce with Ginger Thai Peanut Sauce with Ginger "Meaty" Vegetarian 7 Layer Dip "Me-aty" Vegetarian 7 Layer Dip Vegan 7 Layer Dip Vegan 7 Layer Dip Quick 7 Layer Dip Recipe A quick and easy vegetarian 7 layer dip recipe, with sour cream, ... more pages
Best Sauces and Salsa Recipes from AlansKitchen.com
... often tomato-based sauces typical of Mexican cuisine, particularly those used as dips. If you're looking for dip recipes, Check our dip recipes: Looking for a good relish recipes? Check our relish recipes: Alan's Garden Salsa ... more pages


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Mr Periyasamy Kumar MBBS,
MS(Ophtho), FRCS(Ed) is a consultant ophthalmologist at University Hospitals of Leicester.
Medical Qualifications: MBBS, MS(Ophtho), FRCS(Ed)
GMC number: 5189811
Area of expertise in ophthalmology: Uveitis, Medical Retina and Ocular ultrasound
Mr Kumar has completed fellowship training in uveitis and medical retina from world-renowned Moorfields Eye Hospital, London.
He manages patients with ocular inflammation, provides treatment for various medical retinal disorders including age-related macular degeneration and retinal vascular disorders.
He is involved in running a busy full time clinical service at the University Hospitals of Leicester. Which includes clinical work, training junior doctors and allied clinical professionals, research and educational activities.
He has established ultrasound bio microscopy service at Leicester Royal Infirmary. Which provides regional service for adults and children in anterior and posterior segment ocular ultrasound in complex ocular disorders.
He has extensive experience in general ophthalmology and cataract surgery.
Membership of professional bodies:
- European retinal specialist
- British Medical Association
- Medical defense union
He has special interest in development of immunomodulation therapy in uveitis. He also has research interest in contrast enhanced ocular ultrasound.
Languages spoken:
English, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Kannada
Current post:
Consultant ophthalmologist, University Hospitals of Leicester
Contact details:
Department of ophthalmology
Leicester Royal Infirmary
Infirmary Square
Phone: 0300 303 1573 (Hospital switchboard)
Eye casualty: 0116 258 6273
Fax: 0116 258 5927
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
NHS Secretary: Mrs. Edna Barratt
Phone: 0116 258 6198
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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There are no reviews yet.
Mouse Loves Cookies Movement Cards and Posters allows students to "act out" the elements of the story. These cards and posters work well as brain breaks or for story enactment when the teacher reads the book.
As students become more familiar with the book they can begin to sequence the story learning about the beginning, middle and end of the story.
The Mouse Movement Cards paraphrase words in the story and suggested movements for kinesthetic learners.
This set includes 15 Mouse Movement Cards and 15 matching posters.
There are no reviews yet.


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In the closing of The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Weber remarked that "The Puritans wanted to be men of the calling – we, on the other hand, must be. For when asceticism moved out of the monastic cells and into working life, and began to dominate innerworldly morality, it helped to build that mighty cosmos of the modern economic order (which is bound to the technical and economic conditions of mechanical and machine production). Today this mighty cosmos determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not only of those directly involved in business but of every individual born into this mechanism, and may well continue to do so until the day the last ton of fossil fuel has been consumed." (121)
What a striking and powerful passage. It seems to capture so much, and would perhaps been seen as relevant in the early 1960s as in 1905. But today, perhaps even when compared to a period as recent as the 1990s, it seems to ring largely off-key. The cosmos has evolved and the post-industrial corporate state now allows a large section of the population to live in the shadows of the economic system Weber saw. There is no iron cage, as understood by Weber, for people who for generations have been mostly out of the employment pool. The compulsion to work and save and reinvest is hardly universal today.
After having expanded for some time, the working and middle classes are shrinking. Rather than being mostly an effect of a decline of work ethic, which was never really universal, holding only in certain, though large parts of the middle class, I think the chance is due primarily to the waning of asceticism and the waxing of consumerism among the middle class. When Weber wrote in 1905 he acknowledged that the religious aspect had largely and for some time already dropped out, with the correlative practices (work ethic, asceticism, and reinvestment of capital) remaining. And so while it might be tempting for some to blame the loss of religion, doing so would require dismissing a couple of centuries of recent history. The larger cause, following the path set by Weber (and there are other equally interesting interpretations) would be the decline of asceticism. Asceticism is bad for capitalism as understood today, based on perpetually increasing economic growth. Consumerism, on the other hand, is good: the summum bonum. So capitalism, and the democracy that grew up with it, hold the seeds of their own demise. The values that were helpful for their creation are now, in the present construal of capitalism, are seen to be limiting, as indicated by near-zero interest rates, the trend toward taxing savings, and unprecedented (and clearly unsustainable) debt. Perhaps we shouldn't even call it capitalism anymore, and the bailouts of 2008 will be seen as the end of capitalism.
The point is that the American zeitgeist is bound up with the accumulation of things and with entertainment. Notions of perfecting the individual and the primacy of the family are giving way to concerns with the social. This is perhaps not unexpected in a land with a mobile workforce. Academia is especially populated with cosmopolitans who have no deep sense of home and family. And lacking religion, their higher calling is to the society as a whole. Had they lived in the same area for six generations, for example, they would surely hold a different appreciation for local differences. But I digress. Without taking the time for a full-blown cultural analysis, it seems clear, I think, that doing-well means something rather different today than it did 100 years ago. Of course, change is natural and neither inherently good nor bad.
To close, what does this have to do with privilege?
I have been supporting the idea that those burdened by privilege-guilt lack the spiritual drive of the Calvinists and that they have adopted a different, but equally religious view, that values social equality rather than personal and familial development/perfection. My goal is to allow people (college students and recent grads in particular) to see that white guilt is not natural or good; that it is part of a complex system of ideas that are used to discipline, control, and manipulate people in order to variously enhance, protect, and diminish the power of certain groups of people. And to that end, this blog seeks to encourage people to study the history of ideas, and particularly the history of the peddling of moral sentiments for ulterior motives.


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|Our Producers
|Trade Enquiries
|About Us
|Sundried Fig and Walnut Preserve Extra Jam
Food Orders £75 and over to England, Scotland and Wales have free delivery.
|Choose Size:
|Sunripend and sundried figs bursting with flavour with the addition of walnuts which makes the preserve less sweet. Made to a very traditional Lebanese recipe, this preserve is thick and dense. In the past a spoonful of this rich fig and walnut combination would be served after a meal when a little of something sweet was called for. Pairs very well with many cheeses.
Ingredients: 75% dried figs, sugar, sesame seeds, aniseed,walnuts 12%, lemon juice.
Nutritional Information:Per 100g: Energy 368kcal, Fat 4g of which saturated 0g, Carbohydrates 80g of which sugars 62g, Protein 4g, Salt 10mg
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Davy Crockett Ring, Wallets, and Badge for Sale
This is our Davy Crockett "King of the Wild Frontier" kit to get any collector going strong! We have a special Davy Crockett Ring, two wallets, and a pin to highlight this American icon.
As the History Channel puts it, "Famed as a frontiersman, folk hero, congressman and Alamo defender, Davy Crockett was one of the most celebrated and mythologized figures in American history. Crockett's biographers often say there were actually two Crocketts: David, the frontiersman and congressman martyred at the Alamo, and Davy, the larger-than-life folk hero whose exploits were glorified in several books and a series of almanacs."
Our wallets and accessories are in excellent original condition.
1 in stock
Additional information
|1.75 lbs
|8 × 8 × 8 in


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Guys, can you give me some pointers please, close to throwing the towel in here.
I've been doing this for a couple of years now and I'm getting really frustrated with my progress. Literally every watch I service has worse results (or the same) than before I took it apart! And I'm starting to think what's the point, I want to succeed at this but it feels like a losing battle...
For example the watch I'm working on right now a chinese clone movement. It is a brand new movement and was running at a solid 300 amp fully wound, keeps perfect time within a few seconds per day. I thought with this one I won't wash the balance/pallet fork/mainplate. Just to see if that makes a difference to my results. I washed the rest of my parts in my ultrasonic in some acetone (other times I use isopropyl or petroleum ether as recommended here). I've put it back together and dial up it's running at 270 and dial down 230. What could I have possibly done that's worse that the way these are assembled in China. There were a lot of random oil spots and they're generally assembled in dirty conditions.
I've taken it apart again and cleaned the gear train again. Cleaned up the oil from the movement that was there when I took it apart. End shakes look good. Stones are lubricated. Gear train moves very freely when I turn the crown.
I've done all of marks courses and the No Bs watchmaker course and understand how to service a movement but rarely see good results..
Any advice appreciated


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Roland DürreSunday May 26th, 2019
Turn of an Era: The End of the Digital World?
On May, 16th, 2019, I was invited to give a presentation on "post-digital" at the Hotel Eden-Wolff near Munich Central Station, which was organized by the regional GChACM group and the GI. It was about the question if and how the end of the digital world might be possible.
I try not to give any sales presentations with which someone tries to convince someone else to buy or do something. Consequently, I no longer use any manipulative transparencies that only restrict both the audience and the speaker.
Let the art of painting serve to illustrate how I speak: it used to be painting as true to nature as possible. Then, new forms of expression came along. They were called impressionism and expressionism and led to abstract art. My presentations are similar. I try to serve individual spots of colour dynamically and they are supposed to inspire and make the audience thoughtful. However, not everybody in the audience always understands this.
The question: "Who owns the internet" is such a spot of colour. Because for me, the internet is and always has been something special. The internet, too, has an infra-structure. It is similar to that of the railway or of streets for the motorised individual traffic and trucks.
Today, we have to accept that the internet as we loved and appreciated it no longer exists. And that we have only just started the phase where the network is controlled and used for influencing people. There is no end to gangsters who want to shanghai the internet.
Florian Sesser and yours truly spontaneously decided to give the presentation together. And we said: Hey, let us do a Chautauqua :-). Here is how you pronounce the word.
The Chautauqua combines entertaining and educational elements as a form of educational oratory. It also has aesthetic standards and wants to motivate the listener towards active participation.
I see myself also as a "digital evangelist", just like the "technology evangelists of Sun". This year, I will celebrate my fifty years of digitalization. There is definitely some pride about being able to present myself as a pioneer of the third IT generation.
Here are the presentations I gave at the same place:
Entrepreneur sketches (roughly twenty years ago with Norbert Weinberger and Alois Wolferstetter) and
Ethics and Computer Science (eleven years ago). Today, this was exactly what the focal topic of the current Informatik-Spektrum (membership magazine of Gesellschaft für Informatik) was about. I read it – and I really feel quite motivated to critically discuss what has been written.
Incidentally, I once was a member of the GChACM board of directors – together with Wolf-Rüdiger Gawron. He cannot come today because he is vacationing in Spain. The highlight of my time on the board was the local jubilee event that celebrated the 50-ieth birthday of the huge ACM (1998). Charles "Chuck" House had come to Munich and told us about the huge event in the USA (1998). Many thanks to the then GChACM president Wolf-Rüdiger Gawron who organized the event with the support of BMW AG (Siemens had opted out) and given everything an outstanding setting.
I never managed to visit the ACM jubilee event in the USA in 1997. When Chuck came to BMW Munich, he signed the book with all the presentations of "beyond computing" and gave it to me. So now I was able to read everything I needed to know about it.
I was going to show you my "beyond computing" book during my presentation, but, unfortunately, I could not find it. The important thing about it was that (at least) three famous science fictions authors (on top of many software development experts) were also present at the jubilee event. They also talked about the future of IT and software.
If you translate "Beyond computing" into German, you want to be careful. I just learned from Professor Oliver Kretzschmar (Uni Stuttgart) that the German "künstliche Intelligenz" is not really the same as "artificial intelligence", simply because intelligence means something in English that it does not mean in German. And this is the reason for quite a few misunderstandings.
I brought the following books/brochures for you to browse:
- Lexikon der Datenverarbeitung by Siemens, seventh (and last) edition of 1978. Incidentally, the first edition was of 1969. It was sold out so fast that they printed a second improved edition in the same year.
- 30 Hobby magazines of 1955 – 1967 (randomly selected). It is absolutely fascinating how technology, engineering concepts and knowledge are explained in such a way that everybody can understand it. All of them are great magazines, let me pick out two that seem to be particularly fitting today:
- November 1955. In this edition, they predict exactly how we are going to live in 1975.
- "Here a car comes flying" … which sounds extremely modern today (I wonder why I am thinking in terms of flight taxis today??? 😉
- And a few Science Fiction books (Issac Asimov in the Heyne-Verlag), for example "ich der Robot" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich,_der_Robot – the English version of which was published when I was born!)
Predictions are difficult to make, especially if they are about the future. (Karl Valentin).
Please note that even the great Hobby magazines are mainly about cars. This also goes to show what a formative effect the focus on mobilized individual traffic has had on us during the last hundred years. There are few digital issues – if at all, it is only Morse codes and similar things. I also seem to remember reading a short article about decoding.
What did I read in those days? After I started grammar school (1960), Karl May was a thing of the past. And Bravo was something I did not find really exciting. Consequently, science-fiction (along with existentialists like Alber Camus) became my favourite literature. At the time, the Heyne pocketbook edition was excellent.
Science fiction probably triggered my interest in IT. Mind you, Asimov had written "Ich der Robot …" twenty years earlier – and he had described laws of robotics that might now slowly become reality.
And I also brought along Florian Sesser. He gave me the book where I found Chautauqua. Robert Pirsig – Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Nachruf NPR). Thanks to Flo!
Then Florian introduced himself in his modest but very forward way. Let me tell you about him:
Florian Sesser, born in 1983, is a creative person. He loves it if he finds simple and elegant solutions to difficult problems in informatics. He started programming when he was eight years old. In 2014, he was one of the founders of accu:rate. The companie makes huge events and public buildings safer places by using computer simulation.
🙂 We want to jam the Chautauqua together. I am (mostly) the vocalist and Florian will play the instruments. We will divide our teaching speech into two sections with thirty minutes each. And with a biological break. Because otherwise things might get too hard.
BLOCK # 1"Postdigital"
BLOCK # 2 "Digital and Society "
If the circumstances change – for instance because the audience is more active – then we change our agenda. We might, for example, remove the second block and, if that is what you wish (and Wolfgang finds it is doable), re-schedule it for another presentation.
Here is what the presentation will be about. I will not fill in all the comments. Instead, I will just give you the structure of the presentation in catchwords. This is like a collection of material in two blocks. You can let your imagination run free!
Syllabus BLOCK 1:
• Post-digital
• Definition (what comes to mind)
• Post-factual 🙂
• Era of irresponsible babble (R. Lay)
• Digitalization: buzzword, also "post-digital". Look it up in the internet and you will get the following hits.
• Definition of "Digitalization " (as I see it, it all began when the written language was invented). Today, it means something like automatization based on algorithms. A buzzword.
• In Wikipedia (fairly new article) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdigital
• Accenture (consultant: Bullshit) https://www.accenture.com/us-en/blogs/blogs-paul-daugherty-digital-transformation
• Digital is not reversible? Irreversible?
• What might destroy digitalization? Question – trying to find answers.
• Wikipedia
• Wikipedia is great (open source, totally based on honorary work, independent, no adverts,…)
• Question to the audience: Who of you uses, pays for, administration, …
• Infra-structure of knowledge (founded in 2001)
• Age and gender???
• A world of old white men (women are the exception).
• What will happen if Wikipedia breaks down? https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedistik/Soziologie
• Wikipedia is the best example for creative destruction.
• Wikipedia destroyed thesauri and encyclopedia.
• What will be the future of the infra-structure of knowledge when those who work it on an honorary basis no longer feel like doing it?
• Who will then own Wikipedia? (BRD, UNO or a private agent …)
• For the editors, it was really bad news
• Lucrative business models and enterprises were lost.
• Concerns, as opposed to the internet, will forget.
• Revenge (copyright legislation) (free from, because common-good oriented).
• Politics and lobbies currently practice how to deprive NGO-s of the common good status.
• Other threatening examples
• Over-regulation and influencing
• Facebook/Google example: vaccination enemies are ostracized
• Upload filters
• Commercial change (news that you pay for getting priority)
• Mooresch's Law (1965) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooresches_Gesetz We are close to the end. But perhaps the future will continue to need exponential growth (AI, BIG Data, Blockchain …)
• IT has the power of the potency (seed on the chess field)
• Trinity of computer science has its limits. No more exponential growth.
• Data storage – we are now in the nano sphere.
• Communication – we send at the speed of light on glass fibre.
• Computers – are quantum computers really the solution?
• Engineers have become priests
• Asimov (Trantor-Trilogie)
• Some programmers today actually remind me of it. Once in a while, I get the impression that they "have no idea what they are doing".
• Digitalism – a religion. Should we smile at it or take it seriously? Way Of The Future Church ?
• The infra structure corrodes. Then, there might soon be an end to world-wide communication.
• Speaking about which, it might be interesting to ask a few questions. Two of them are:
• Who owns the intenet – in the physical sense?
• How does it work?
I asked the questions. The result is a good example for the current state of the world – incompetence all over the place. Even the digital top Government cannot answer these basic questions.
It is easier for other (old) kinds of infra structure. Take for instance street infra structure. You always know who a street belongs to. And who usually should feel responsible for it.
- If you use the culture onion as a model, you can describe society and culture. See also http://if-blog.de/rd/die-kulturzwiebel-oder-auf-heldensuche/). Parts of the onion are also products, proverbs, jokes, appearance, and much more. All these things are part of our culture.
- What role do humans play in social systems?
- What do the extreme borders of social systems look like (family, enterprises, countries ,…)? Let me define two poles::
- HORG (short for @Büronyms in hierarchical systems) versus AUTOnomous
- Hierarchy (Organigram tree from top to bottom) versus Network (linked teams that co-operate)
- Group –based (model armed forces – Siemens) versus Team-based (micro organisation with self-organisation)
- Secrets versus Transparency
- Bureaucracy versus Subsidiarity
- Taylorism (detailed pre-defined work methods, one best way, exact fixation of the location and time of delivery, extremely detailed and minute tasks, one-way communication with fixed and strict content, detailed goal description for every individual worker without obvious connection to the general goal of the enterprise, also: quality control) versus Involvedness (as the sum of being part of an entity, task integration, corporate identity …).
- Processes (Henry Ford – the caste of engineers as a predecessor of the management cast) versus Self- organisation
and as an extension:
- Feudalism versus Self-determination
- Serfdom (slavery) versus Freedom
perhaps also
- Ratio versus Emotions
- Violence versus Non-violence
- Evaluation
- It is part of the operating system that organizes social systems.
- There are no purely BLUE or RED enterprises. Personally, I do not really know which is the better alternative and I assume that it is a matter if the best mixture. But my sympathies lie more on the BLUE side.
- Mafia and war economy in the Third Reich and WW-2 were BLUE
- Buurtzorg is an example for RED, perhaps the best example.
- Slavery and fiefdom were only abandoned because they were not economically successful and because they were inefficient.
- In the end, we will get the more efficient system.
- Digitalisation can support both the BLUE and the RED system (processes such as knowledge exchange / violence-free and open communication)
- Examples for BLUE:
- The straitjacket MS/SAP with enterprises or
- DB: the implementation of the price system (makes no sense, but is hard to change).
- Examples for RED:
- Shared applications based on knowledge.
- "Open Source" …
- Examples for BLUE:
- Those who are agile give VUCA (acronym for volatility – uncertainty –complexity – ambiguity) as a reason why RED is necessary, because, as they see it, BLUE cannot meet the expectations and complexity of our modern world. Because we need to generate new qualities:
- Resilience
- Anti-fragility
- I think that black-and-white concepts will always be sub-optimal and that the future will be hybrid in this regard, too.
- Here is what I fear: Perhaps the problems of humanity can only be solved if you apply BLUE ?
- Now let us assume the following for a mental experiment:
The social systems have been ruled by digital organization. What will happen if we add Artificial Intelligence?
- What is Artificial Intelligence?
- Self-learning system.
- AI is "the world beyond algorithms"?
- Let us look at games like chess and Go!?
- Does AI consist of banal applications such as ALEXA? Perhaps not.
- Some of the top consultants in politics I mentioned earlier believed that the English-speaking Chinese news speaker robot is an android system!?
- What is Artificial Intelligence?
Interesting things to notice about AI!
Just think of TAY, which created so much misfortune for Microsoft (and which the top counsellors often do not even know about!):
- Tay as an example for AI experiments: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(Bot)
- What will it mean if AI becomes part of digital social systems?
- Has Microsoft already given up on AI (at an aside)?
- Termination of Cortana
- How do they expect Bavaria or Germany to become strong players in AI if even Microsoft no longer has the courage to play?
- We talk about Bavaria FIRST.
- My personal experience from my own presentations is not very encouraging:
I know people who talked AI (people who actually are counsellors of politicians) and knew neither TAY nor the Chinese news reporter ROBOT.
- China will become a player. With the day when the self-learning systems beat the Chinese Go master, the Chinese appeared on the horizon in the AI sector. They have enormous power and they invest unbelievable sums in terms of money and research.
- What is the ethical consequence of AI becoming a part of the dominating digital control systems (TAY showed us how badly this can end)?
- Note for the audience about literature (Prof Bayer): Leben 3.0 – Menschsein im Zeitalter Künstlicher Intelligenz
- Asimov (Gesetze der Robotik 1950)
- German Ethics Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Dobrindt 2018), which was part of the electoral campaign that was supposed to show how future-oriented and responsible the Federal Government works for the citizens.
- It was only about autonomous driving (cars are in the centre of everybody's attention).
- Mental experiments in ethics become game theory. It has been a science that supported ethics since 1945. It is best described here: #filosofix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOJp1DcabM by SRF.
(They, too, have copyright problems: on the original SRF (Schweizer Rundfunk), some videos were blocked for Germany, yet I could see them on Youtube. This is just as annoying as the GEZ problem (many contents in the stream of ARD etc, cannot be viewed outside Germany, not even in Europe, but you can easily view them if you use a proxy. What nonsense).
- As I see it, #filosofix is not doing any good. You can talk and talk, but you get no results.
- That was the standard of Mister Dobrindt's ethics conference. It was not about AI in general, but only about autonomous cars in conflict situations. Instead of promoting or thinking about an ethics architecture in AI systems, there were many examples. For instance the two-bikers problem:
one is riding his bike and wearing a helmet, the other is not wearing a helmet. The situation suggests that one of them will be overrun by the car. Which one will the autonomous car overrun?
The solution was the one who wears a helmet, because he has a higher chance of survival. What a nice idea – but totally impractical.
- Let us finish our chautauqua by taking a look at the social credits system in China.
- See also Justice Theories or poetic justice . At least, the Chinese believe that this is how they can generate justice. Good social behaviour will be rewarded, bad social behaviour will be punished. Just as fair justice demands it. It can only be done through total digital monitoring.
- Mobility
If you cross a street on a red light, you get minus points, even if you are a pedestrian. If you use public transport without paying or park where you are not allowed to park, you also get minus points.
- Statements in Multimedia
- All sorts of violations of rules and opinions.
- …?
- Is it possible? YES!
- Necessary requirements:
It can only be done with IT (social media, video screening, big data) that creates a total transparency of the citizens and thus makes it possible to measure and write down the social behaviour of all the citizens.
- But: who decides what is fair? Who will program or customize the system? Who makes the rules? How to get a consensus about it?
- What I fear is: China will find its way to us.
The IT products come from China. They will influence how we think. The tendency to limit freedom and introduce monitoring in Germany and Europe has already started.
- Consequently, there is only one option left for us if we want to see the post-digital era.
The people assault and destroy everything that is digital. A digital storm sweeps everything clean from digital influences!
- Here is an additional idea on AI:
Currently, sensors are the technological topic.
- Example from China: baby screening (a small box will notify you if and how full the diapers are).
- If you are fishing, you get a bite alarm as soon as the fish has bitten into the fly. It will also inform you about the characteristics of the fish you caught.
- Autonomous driving.
Under discussion all the time. But don't we have other problems?
- "Digital firm"
Producing more and more, and more diverse and cheaper all the time. …
Florian in a totally different environment.
A new definition of AI might be that AI is no longer about human-machine communication, but about world-machine communication.
My life as a computer scientist was basically about working at the human-machine interface (user interfaces).
Today, they work on the world-machine interface.
Perhaps this, too, might serve as a reasonable definition of AI:
"AI is if the software or the system directly co-operates with the world".
.. instead of with the people.
"AI is if the system no longer works determinedly (as you already see today with neural networks)?"
And we no longer know what it will do next.
Two words of warning:
Perfect manipulation per car:
Hobby 1957 – 1965
» Jene, die grundlegende Freiheit aufgeben würden, um eine geringe vorübergehende Sicherheit zu erwerben, verdienen weder Freiheit noch Sicherheit. «
» Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. «
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
» Jeder Zuwachs an Technik bedingt, wenn damit ein Zuwachs und nicht eine Schmälerung des menschlichen Glücks verbunden sein soll, einen entsprechenden Zuwachs an Weisheit. «
Bertrand Russell
Well, that was it.
(Translated by EG)
Roland DürreTuesday April 23rd, 2019
Invitation: Presentation "post-digital" on May, 6th, 2019, Hotel Eden-Wolff near Hauptbahnhof
Let me invite you most warmly to the following event!
On May, 6th, you can hear me as an invited speaker at the monthly event of the regional group Munich of GI and GChACM at the Hotel Eden-Wolff.
Here is the Link. The presentation will start at 7.30 p.m.. Food and drinks will be served earlier.
This will be the third time for me as a speaker at this event. There was one time when we did a wonderful sketch on our adventures with banks as entrepreneurial founders. Along with my entrepreneurial friend Norbert Weinberger and my very much appreciated banker Alois Wolferstetter, I played "true stories from the life of an entrepreneur". It was truly hilarious, we all laughed a lot.
My last presentation at the Hotel Eden-Wolff was on April, 6th, 2009 for the Gesellschaft für Informartik and German Chapter of the ACM. That is now more than ten years ago. At the time, the topic was a little more serious.
Life, knowledge, computer science and ethics.
You can find a short synopsis in the IF blog if you click here.
Now I am happy to see that the main topic of the last Informatik-Spektrum (that is the official GI regular magazine) was "computer science and ethics". It only took them ten years.
If I remember correctly, then my presentation at the time was a pleasure both for the audience and for myself. I want it to be the same this time.
Here is the official pre-view:
Turn of an Era: The End of the Digital World?
On the post-digital society
The presentation around digitalization will inspire you, give impulses and motivate contemplation:
What exactly is digitalization and transformation? Where exactly do we benefit? Who owns the internet? What influence does digitalization have on our lives? What will happen when the digital era is over? What are the consequences of digitalization in our work-life and our society? What is AI (artificial intelligence)? Where is Bavaria (Germany, Europe) in the process? Who will rule the world in the future?
Roland M. Dürre (ex-programmer, IT entrepreneur, blogger, business angel)
Born: June, 20th, 1950 (married, father and grandfather)
I will try and make the presentation very open and interactive. Perhaps we will manage to answer a question or two together. Besides, my goal, as always, is to inspire people, to give impulses and to motivate contemplation. And, of course, I also want to provoke people a little bit.
It would make me happy to see many of you. There is no admission, you need not register. If the lecture hall is full, the hotel will have enough extra chairs.
I very much look forward to seeing all and any of you.
Roland DürreWednesday January 2nd, 2019
2019 – My Personal Jubilee: Fifty Years of IT
Today: why the locomotives lost their "E" and their "V".
After having graduated from high school, I started studying mathematics and computer science at THM (Technische Hochschule München – today: TUM Technische Universität München) in 1969. Computer science was a totally new subject and this was the first year it was taught. You could only take it as a minor subject. Consequently, I take the year 1969 as the official start of my "informatics" career and that means I can celebrate fifty years of personal digitalization.
However, this was only the official start. Because I had concerned myself with computer science a lot earlier than that. And I do not mean the time when I learned to read and write, although the invention of the written language is doubtless also an informatics topic. The written word made it possible to save ideas, stories and other content "digitally". Consequently, it is informatics.
What I mean when I am talking my first contact with informatics happened when I read a children's book. It was probably one of the "Famous Five" stories by Enid Blyton. It was always about some villains who eventually were caught by a group of children/adolescents. And in one of the books the villains were smugglers who communicated with their team of smugglers on an island through Morse signals.
So Morse symbols (Morse-Zeichen) were the first code I learned when I was still very young. From the informatics aspect, the Morse code is something special, because it does not have a fixed word length. These days, whenever I give a presentation about codes, I often start with this so pragmatic Morse code.
Playing with model railways (with my Märklin model), I also learned a lot. My father designed a control panel for my model railway. It had two plywood boards, four screws and nuts from the "Stabilo set". It also had a distributor with three exits, four electrical outlets and one lever. This must have been before 1960.
With this control panel, you could, for instance, transfer electricity to one of the three (1, 2 and 3 in separate circles) tracks at a railway station. Simultaneously, you could switch on and off the light in the station (today, they do it with IOT). There was even a glitch we used as a feature: if the levers were not precisely arranged, you even had electricity for two tracks! Of course only for 1 and 2 or 2 and 3.
My father had designed this for me because he felt that the Märklin panels were too expensive. I also only had manually worked switch points, rather than electronic ones. Well, this limited my automation drive, but nevertheless, you could do work on a few informatics gadgets.
As early as 1962, I founded a Pfiff-Club (Pfiff-Club) with some friends. We tried lots of informatics things. And we also did some true automation on a shared model. There was also a DB newspaper with exciting topics that the Club got every other month from the Deutsche Bundesbahn. It was always very eagerly anticipated.
There are several other digital things I learned from my father. He worked at the Deutsche Bundesbahn and brought the old graphic time tables (of Swabia and Bavaria) home. They were meant to be used up as note paper (also for cutting patterns for dresses to be made) – but for me, these unique drawings of train routes, along with the actual time tables, became very exciting reading material. It was absolutely informatics.
Even better were the technological DB magazines (I forgot the titles and unfortunately none of them is still available to me) my father brought home from work, I think four times each year. It was a little like "Pfiff-Club for grown-ups". For me, it was exciting to read because it said many things about the real railway management.
It was about new railway control centres and new switch yards, and always about future technologies. About new locomotives and railway cars. In each of the magazines, you could find a particularly important topic as a highlight. I remember the opening of the as-the-crow-flies-line (that must have been around 1963), Roll-In-/Roll-Out Ferries, new sleeping compartments, the attempt at creating twin vehicles that could move both on the street and on railway tracks, new signalling and security systems and much more that definitely had an informatics background.
And in one instalment of the magazine, they celebrated the introduction of the new data processing technology at the Deutsche Bundesbahn. Let me explain:
In Germany, they used to have only state-wide railways. Some of them had their own locomotives. The Bavarian S3/6, one of which can still be admired at the Deutsches Museum, is a famous example. With the merging of the state railways to become the Deutsche Reichsbahn, there came a uniformity. The purpose of this merging had been to make the entire system more efficient through higher numbers.
Since the beginning of the railway was the steam locomotive, they noticed that the categorization would have to be between types 0 and 99. They called these types model ranges. Famous model ranges are, for instance, the 01 and the 03 (both are express train locomotives), the 10 (incidentally, that was the old Bavarian S3/6) and the 50 (a locomotive for freight trains). To the best of my knowledge, the last steam construction that actually took up work was the BR 10, but it did not work long.
With the advent of other drive systems, they put initial letters before the names. Electric locomotives received an E and the combustion motor (diesel) was given a V in front of the number. That meant the E-locomotives were now called E10 or E18 (fast train), E44 (passenger train) or E63 (switch engine) and the Diesel locomotives were now called V200 (multiple purpose locomotive) or V60 (switch locomotive). Other vehicle types were the VT (diesel railcar), the ET (electro railcar) and ETA (electro railcar with accumulator) – and more.
The species were something like CLASSES and the individual locomotives were the OBJECTS of a class. As with all huge technological devices, each OBJECT of a CLASS had its individual distinctive features that became more as time went by. In this system, the classes were described by the first two letters, then came – with a space that we today would call "blanc" – the object classification. That was the number of the individual locomotive, mostly in the same sequence as they were built. With most of the produced units, this number was a three-digit number, if the type was very successful, you occasionally got four digits.
Various BWs and BAs were assigned to the locomotives (objects). This is where they were serviced and maintained. This information was (incrementally) documented with tags on the locomotives, the same went for technological specialties as, for instance, for the compartment temperature or the compensating air (that kept the tyres away from the brakes through air pressure).
One significant difference between individual (steam) engines of a series was, for example, how they were lighted – with coal or oil. Naturally, this was quite a determining factor for the use, because a steam engine that was powered with oil could not make use of coal. If you were a member of the Pfiff-Club and spying out locomotives, you would be able to recognize the type from a long distance. Consequently, I am not sure if the lighting of a locomotive was also documented with a tag. For me, it was self-explanatory.
And there was a central register for all locomotives. In my imagination, this is a very big collection of very thick file folders. One for each locomotives – and they become thicker and thicker with time. All those data were to be transferred to electronic data processing.
And thus, there came a day when the magazine's highlight was the information that, with the introduction of electronic data processing, the "number tags" on the locomotives were no longer to have letters but numbers instead. Now all the locomotives got new number tags – and the old tags became well-loved collector pieces for the Pfiff-Club and other railway friends.
The number was probably the key to the locomotive in the then perhaps still sequential database. I think that must have been around 1965 – and even then, I found it rather annoying that electronic data processing (informatics) could not process letters.
? And this is how the E10 became the 110 and the V200 became the 320. What a pity.
(Translated by EG)
After my learning years at Siemens, I had the chance to be part of the team that wrote the proposal for an X25 network based on a separate BASA cable network of the Deutsche Bundesbahn at the Munich Bundesbahnzentralamt (BZA). That must have been in the early 1980ies and it was a really great project. However, the end was not really glorious. … (but I will write more on that at another time)
Roland DürreSunday October 28th, 2018
1969 – 2019: Fifty Years of Computer Science.
It is now autumn of 2018 – which means that, before long, we will have 2019. 2019 minus fifty is 1969. In the autumn of 1969, I had my first intense contact with "computer science". I started studying at TUM as a mathematics student, minoring in computer science. At the time, TUM was still Technische Hochschule München (THM). In fact, I found that name even nicer that TUM, but that is neither here nor there.
This means that, next year, I will have a very special personal jubilee – fifty years of computer science in my life. In the light of this, it is probably justified that I consider myself an IT pioneer of the third generation. In my view, the first generation was represented by people like Konrad Zuse, whom I was lucky enough to meet in 1985 during the InterFace bike tour to Hünfeld (where Konrad Zuse lived at the time).
The second generation is represented by people like my teacher Friedrich L. Bauer, who, among other things, gave the first lecture in computer science at THM (now TUM) in 1969. I was there.
I think that fifty years of contact with IT are definitely something special. There are so many stories I need to tell.
However, the current digitalization hype is something I am fed up with. For me, digitalization started happening when they came up with a method to write down what you said. And what we today call digitalization is basically nothing but normal progress.
And I intend to tell many stories from those fifty years in 2019. I will relate anecdotes that are quite useful when it comes to understanding how things were done in those days. Without internet and wikipedia. And I will also talk about the influence our entrepreneurial cultures had on society. And how we ourselves were influenced and changed.
It will be a potpourri of individual contemporary stories that go well with each other and that describe many different aspects of change. Since there are many exciting stories, I will make two presentations out of them. Part one will be the first twenty-five years from 1969 until 1994. Part two will relate the time from 1995 with the change of the millennium until today. However, I will not only speak about yesterday and today. There will also be some tomorrow. I really look forward to it and I will see to it that both the audience and the speaker will enjoy the presentations.
Well, I already told some of the stories in the IF blog, didn't I? For instance when I wrote about Tools Making Tools … (Werkzeuge machen Werkzeuge …) in 2017 or when I wrote about My First Project (Mein erstes Projekt) in 2015 or My Best Slide… (Meine schönste Folie …) of 1981 (written down in 2008) – but these are all only examples. Of course, my presentations will not be quite as lengthy as my IF blog articles.
And the occasional missing story will also become an IF blog article. And, of course, I will also tell you in the blog where and when the presentations will be given.
(Translated by EG)
Roland DürreMonday September 24th, 2018
Disruptive Technologies & Fear of the Future
Are you scared of the more and more speedily growing complexity? And do you long for such buzzwords as agile, resilient, anti-fragile?
I never knew either of those fears. For me, the change was something exciting and I looked upon all the buzzwords as the normal result of more and more nonsense being talked without any responsibility in our times.
Because I believed that, even today, we experience nothing but very ordinary progress. Which, of course, at all times, has massively changed the world and society. Just remember the times between 1918 and 1938! Those were twenty years during which everything was in uproar.
And those times, too, can be summarized quite adequately by the words of Bertrand Russell:
» Every increase in technology will cause the same increase in wisdom, provided it is also meant to mean more instead of less human happiness. «
Because even then, it did not work.
There are at least three exceptional and particularly exciting technological dimensions.
- World-machine interaction (sensors) instead of human-machine interaction.
- Total networking of machines (IoT).
- Learning machines at the roots (artificial intelligence) .
Well, these factors have the potential of new superlatives when it comes to change. Because the machines get exponentially more intelligent, they are connected world-wide and they will no longer need humans as connecting agents between themselves and the world.
Taken together, this will probably change our world and society as much as (or even more than) the triumphal procession of the "individual mobility based on combustion motors" changed it. And that is an idea that brings even me to a point only slightly short of fear. Because the triumphal procession of the car really had tremendous consequences and it probably minimized the happiness of mankind considerably.
Well, the only hope that remains is that people will become wiser with the same speed as the "technological advancement" gains momentum.
(Translated by EG)
Hans Bonfigt
Erfolgreiche Projekte
Wann gelingt ein Softwareprojekt ?
Über "Projektmanager" und ihre Wünsche nach "Resilenz" und "Agilität"
kann man sich trefflich amüsieren. Vorausgesetzt, man ist nicht darauf
angewiesen, daß die bedeutungsschwangere Gruppe selbsternannter "Indivi-
dualisten" (mit Google-Einheitstelephon) irgendwann einmal liefert.
Deutlich schwieriger ist es schon, aufzuzeigen, wie man es besser
machen könnte. Nun hat mich jemand genau danach gefragt, und warum
sollte man nicht einmal die Projekte aus 35 Jahren Berufserfahrung
Revue passieren lassen, die gelungen sind ?
Dabei möchte ich mich unterscheiden von üblichen "Ratgebern", die unre-
flektiert postulieren, was sie im Herzen bewegt. Ich nehme mir statt-
dessen reale Projekte und bilde Schnittmengen gewisser Merkmale.
1. Der Sinn eines Projektes muß allen Beteiligten klar sein.
Nur so kann die Unternehmensleitung Rückendeckung geben,
nur so erlebt ein Entwickler die Freude an sinnvoller Arbeit,
nur so wird das Endprodukt vom Nutzer angenommen.
2. Ein Projekt muß wirtschaftlich erfolgreich sein.
Vor allem aber: Man muß diesen Erfolg auch transparent machen
3. Die Einfachheit und die Eleganz eines Entwurfs entscheidet !
– Das zu impementierende Verfahren sollte so einfach sein, daß
man es einem Siebenjährigen erklären könnte. Vereinfachen,
vereinfachen, vereinfachen.
– Das, was nicht vereinfacht werden kann, wenigstens sauber
modularisieren !
– Immer nur EINEN Standard für einen bestimmten Schnittstellen-
typ auswählen !
– Lieber die Aufgabenstellung reduzieren als das Team überfordern.
Tatsache ist oft: Erst wenn das Endprodukt unter realen Bedin-
gungen läuft, stellt man fest, was es wirklich leisten kann und
welche Funktionen auch tatsächlich genutzt werden !
4. Prototypen bauen !
Viel wichtiger: Wenn sie funktionieren, gnadenlos löschen und
neu beginnen !
5. Tote Pferde nicht weiterreiten !
So gut wie jede Entwicklung kommt an den Punkt, wo sich Fehler
in der Konzeption zeigen. Gnadenlos zurückbauen.
6. Keine Demokratie und vor allem KEINE KOMPROMISSE !
In der Sache nachgeben mit Rücksicht auf persönliche Empfindlich-
keiten (Na gut, Meike, Du kannst Dein Modul auch in JAVA schrei-
ben …) erzeugt eine sprudelnde Quelle von Problemen.
EINER leitet das Projekt, genau wie auch nur EINER ein Auto fah-
ren kann. Das ist das Erfolgsrezept der Seefahrt.
7. Mitarbeiter respektieren !
Auch vermeintlich "einfache Codierarbeit" ist erstaunlich nicht-
trivial. Der Architekt sollte den Maurer mit Respekt behandeln
und umgekehrt.
Aber niemals sollte ein Architekt mauern oder ein Maurer planen.
8. Kommunikation standardisieren.
Keine Dokumente und Codefragmente
hin- und herschicken. Kein kompromittierendes "WhatsApp" oder
"Twitter". Schon gar keine "Google-Accounts" !
Wir müssen Kundendaten treuhänderisch behandeln.
Klare, eindeutige Begriffe verwenden !
Die Fachtermini des Kunden verwenden !
9. Anzahl der Mitarbeiter
benötigte Externen und benötigte
Zukaufprodukte reduzieren !
10. Die Werkzeuge müssen sich der Idee unterordnen und nicht umgekehrt.
Haskell, Lisp oder "Clojure" machen noch keinen genialen Entwurf.
11. Die Chemie im Team muß stimmen !
Die "menschliche" Komponente ist zu 70 Prozent entscheidend für einen Projekterfolg.
12. Keine "Gnadenhäppchen" für die Mitarbeiter
in Form von "kostenloser Maté" und "Kickerautomat im Flur". Das ist keine Wertschät-
zung auf Augenhöhe. ORDENTLICH ZAHLEN ! Das garantiert souveräne Mitarbeiter.
Abgesehen davon: Arbeit kann und soll durch sich selbst schön sein und
muß nicht mit albernen Spielereien "aufgepeppt" werden. Was dabei heraus-
kommt, kann jeder sehen, der ein aktuelles "Windows" öffnet.
Roland DürreSaturday May 26th, 2018
The Good Children and the Evil Internet …
There are about seven billion people living on this planet. Less than half of them have internet access. The majority do not have it. It seems to be clear that those people and nations that have internet access will become richer. And those that do not have access to the internet will become poorer. They already talk about the new poverty caused by the lack of digitalization.
Something similar is true for children. If children learn to handle the internet early, they will usually have better chances in their lives than if they are kept away from it.
In our country, children under the age of sixteen will need the formal consent of their parents if, for instance, they want to be part of social media. Among social media are: FB, Twitter, Instagram, MeetUp, LinkedIn and many other often very useful systems that change the world.
If I activate a usercode in Wikipedia, I will be member of a large social media system. Even in Wikipedia, there is a huge danger that it will swallow me whole. And there is a lot of mobbing going on, too – I can really tell stories from personal experience.
Now let me ask the lawyers and all those wise legislators:
Will a thirteen-year-old genius who won "Jugend Forscht" need his father's written consent in order to become a Wikipedia member?
And here is a question for you all:
Will a Mormon father (small religion with perhaps 20 million people) or an Islamic father (huge religion with about 2 billion believers, slightly behind Christendom but with a better trend) give his child said consent?
I am not sure. The mother will not be allowed to do it.
But let me switch from general considerations to my personal experiences and mental experiments.
As some of you know, we have seven children. I am sure that nothing in life taught me as many positive and important things as my children did. That includes my parents in the same way as my mentors and teachers, perhaps even Barbara. From whom I also learned a lot. As opposed to school, which you can forget about.
That was true for life in general and especially for digital life. And this is true regardless of me having been the IT professional (and pioneer) in our family who actually created some of it.
Today, if a grandchild of mine wishes to participate in facebook or twitter, then I will support him or her. I would give advice and ask if he/she likes it if I follow. And I would learn the new things he/she would bring me. The only way I would be worried would be if he/she chose a "private modus". That would actually make me doubt if he/she has been socialized properly.
So here is a mental experiment: What would I do if he/she were to experiment in the "darknet"? Note: the darknet is an attempt at moving through the internet in absolute anonymity through wearing a mask. You hide your authenticity (what you really are) in order to move under an identity that cannot be tracked back!
Argh! That is exactly what the tax agency wanted to abolish, which is why Swiss numbered accounts were made illegal.…
For technological IT reasons, this goal is just as impossible to reach as absolute data security – even if it is supported with very archaic methods, it can basically not be guaranteed. If this were not so, the success of the cyberspace armies in the darknet would not be possible. All you need to know is how it has been programmed. And you need to be good and industrious. Perhaps a little more proficient than the enemy. But there are always ways.
My grandchild – if he/she has learned a little more in the internet – will soon contradict me and point towards blockchain technologies and bitcoin.
After all, in these scenarios, it is guaranteed (even at a high price) that, as soon as you choose your identity, you have a guaranteed part of a percentage of a totally virtual (and limited) number without having had to give your authenticity. Or rather: back-tracking is made impossible (which, incidentally, is only true for the one who actively and successfully does the "mining").
A normal buyer will definitely have to identify himself or herself, again and again (at least until his/her bitcoins have become worthless).
So if my grandchild were to start moving in the darknet or trying bitcoin , I would probably get a little worried, but I would not ask them to terminate their experiments. In the case of the darknet, I would recommend the highest degree of caution, in the case of bitcoin, I would fear that they will probably go crazy. After all, I personally know quite a few people who believed in it and some of them ended really tragically (or, in the best case, they only went crazy).
Well, basically, I can also well imagine that children under sixteen might, strictly under the law, be allowed to generate some part of a bitcoin – even without the consent of their biological parents. After all, all they would have to do is find a clever way of joining a few asic systems – don't young people enjoy to experiment a little?
And if they successfully generate bitcoins, then they have them. Regardless of the fact that they do not actually own them. It is more like "possession they achieved through computer capacity and algorithms" – which, strangely enough, is a very small part of a virtual and limited range of numbers. Numbers some analysts believe in and some gamblers are prepared to pay money for. Just as it was a long time ago with tulips in Holland.
Because, as far as I know, the exciting question if bitcoin is virtual possession or virtual ownership has not yet been answered. At least the tulip bulbs were real – allegedly, you could even eat them when they no longer had any value.
Now this was heavy material. I know that even many of those who regularly talk and write about bitcoin and blockchain will not understand it. So, please, excuse my digression.
There are so many exciting – and also simpler – things happening in the internet that I could write about, and whenever there is an opportunity, I will probably do so. And over-emphasized topics such as "mobbing in facebook" are certainly not the most important issues, even if some grown-ups like watching their occasional porno (which, of course, they will deny). Neither are Parship, Elite-Partner or Tinder the real problem. There are many far more exciting things happening – in many dimensions.
But now our children have to ask dad and mom if they want to test a new social media platform on the internet. Mind you, there are so many more important things the parents need to do, such as earning money and washing their first and second cars.
But currently, I am in Greek and the sun is shining – and, to me, those are more important things! So long.
(Translated by EG)
Roland DürreFriday September 15th, 2017
My USP :-)
What is my value?
When I was young, some adults called me a good for nothing who, they were sure, would never amount to anything. One of them was my mother. She said it to my face more than once. At the time, it annoyed and hurt me. On the other hand, it was not so bad, because I definitely preferred becoming a good-for-nothing to becoming the same type of adult person I sometimes saw in my vicinity. In my mother's eyes, those were definitely no good-for-nothings. And it must be said that eventually, I, the black sheep in the herd (as I often felt) did not turn out too bad, anyway.
Today, I voice my opinion on many topics, often give presentations and impulses, inspire young and older, female and male persons. This is how I want to help them towards becoming a little happier and more successful.
Some young start-ups and also some already quite established enterprises can rely on me as an actively involved party. I help them to find the right questions. Because these are the requirement for change and innovation.
I build networks for people all the time (if I believe they should be networked) and then I am happy if everybody benefits.
Once in a while, I ask myself:
Am I qualified to do it?
It is a question I myself cannot answer.
But, during the thinking process, I at least found my personal USP ("Unique Selling Proposition").
I owe my unique selling proposition to a combination of three specialties of my life-line:
- Firstly: I have been working with, at and for computers since 1969. The Germans call it informatics. During the first ten years (in the 1970ies), I mostly did "industrial informatics". Consequently, I missed out on the "toy" computers Commodore and Atari to some extent. As soon as UNIX found its way to me (or I found my way to UNIX), I caught up in the pc sector. That was in the 1980ies. During those years, I did many things. For instance, I had an intense involvement with several operation systems, such as process computers, communications computers, main frames and distributed data processing. At the time, it was called MDT and had originated at companies like Kienzle, Nixdorf, Olivetti and, of course, also Siemens. I was also part of software developing teams for remote data processing, storage, banks, transaction monitors and many other applications. And in the process, I used and sometimes also developed various assemblers and higher languages.
My personal highlight was the development of a window manager where I was part of the developers' team. It ran both on graphic and digit-based end devices and was called Collage. Collage was also a Siemens AG product. However, as was – unfortunately – so often the case during the phase of the slow downfall of the sector data processing at Siemens AG, it had no chance on the market
Matters continued in the same way and this is how I basically experienced everything that is important in digital life first-hand. This is why I call myself – not just in jest – an IT pioneer of the second generation. The honour of having been part of the first generation belongs to the founding fathers of electronic calculating systems: Konrad Zuse and my first informatics teacher in 1969, Professor F. L. Bauer of TH Munich (today TUM).
In the 1990ies, my programming shoes were hung on the wall in more than just the symbolic sense. I remained true to IT – well, nothing else was imaginable – and I tried to remain up-to-date as far as possible when it came to digitalization.
- Secondly: all my life, I was extremely lucky in that I always learned a lot, especially during those phases of my life that came after school and university (unfortunately, university was not at all where I learned a lot)! Mathematics certainly helped me to remain a critical spirit. However, in many fields, I acquired the most precious knowledge initially from older persons and later also from persons my own age and younger. Quite a few teachers, also outside my professional field, became friends with me. Examples are Klaus-Jürgen Grün and Rupert Lay. There were other great persons too who accompanied me as teachers. It started with my time at Softlab – where I had a very wise boss. I had to attend "personality-promoting" seminars, because it was a requirement if you wanted a managerial career (at the time, I still wanted a career). From that time, I remember an enterprise that called itself TPM (Training Psychologic Management). It was situated in Frankfurt and their founder was named Uhlenbrock (or something that sounded similar). He was in charge of my first seminar on the beautiful lake Starnberger See, from which I really personally benefited a lot. In those seminars, I not only learned from the trainers, but also from the other participants I met. I also want to thank the many colleagues whose professional competence I looked up to and from whom I learned so very much for the craft. Later (in the 1990ies), I often went to workshops with Simon Grand of RISE, an institute at Hochschule St. Gallen. Again, I met many nice persons and great enterprises and had terrific verbal exchanges with them.
I spent the last ten years mostly on Barcamps, besides playing an active role for the development and propagation of PM-Camps. I had a great time and met even more wonderful people than in the years before.
Last not least, I also have to thank my children. It made me truly happy that I was given seven children. More often than not, I believe that I learned more from and through my children than from all the rest. Consequently, I know that living and learning are synonymous.
As long as you live, you learn.
And as long as you learn, you are alive!
- Thirdly: I have always been a revolutionist who got considerably more criticism than praise for his "strange" opinions. Today, I have a positive explanation: I think that total breaking in, as it was practiced on children as early as during the 1950ies, did not manage to erase everything in me. A bit of autonomy, joy of life and basic trust remained in me. And quite a few attempts at indoctrination were in vain.
Well, when I was an employee at Siemens and Softlab, I soon discovered that this was not my world. And I had the wish to become an entrepreneur and was lucky enough to make a success of it. Consequently, I had the chance to build my own world, the InterFace Connection GmbH
The first ten years were like a dream. Our success came around almost effortlessly and we went beyond all borders. Unfortunately, I later made a number of entrepreneurial and human mistakes. And a few times, luck just was not with me. The enterprise survived these misfortunes quite well – and I now have a few more experiences of the kind: "what you should not do" . I am happy to let others benefit from my own experiences.
So I will continue for a few more years and enjoy doing so. And a little feedback will always make me happy. Especially positive feedback.
Roland DürreWednesday April 5th, 2017
IT Upland BarCamp on May, 12th, 2017 in Holzkirchen!
The BarCamp on Digital Transformation and its Social Consequences
Currently, the buzzword DIGITALIZATION is ever present. There is a Zentrum-Digitalisierung.Bayern (ZD.B) and in the Bavarian districts, state-subsidized digitalization centres are being established.
Except that digitalization was yesterday. Those were the days when clocks, tachometers and thermometers suddenly got digital displays. I think it must have been around 1985, when Apple 2 and MacIntosh were modern and the German computer scientists still earned a lot of money in their industry nostalgia with BS2000.
Today, the internet and google are old. Even a few decades ago, we dreamed of self-learning systems – due to our AI (Artificial Intelligence) euphoria. The more modern persons among us gave the German KI the English title AI, because we already knew that it was not going to have much of a chance in Germany. In those days, we dreamed of Lisp and Prolog. Now we have thinking systems that quickly learn by themselves – in areas like translation and traffic – because the hardware is so powerful that it starts to work properly. Even without Lisp and Prolog.
To this day, many new things happen. They happen at a speed that we can no longer follow. And it seems to only just start. An unbelievable wave of products rolls towards us. It will again radically change the world. Many laws and regulations will no longer function in the future. Many questions come to mind:
- Today, everybody discusses the "self-driving car". But I wonder if that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to changes in our lives. And maybe much more will, palpably and impalpably, change before that?
- Aren't we living in the time of sensor technology, which creates a totally new connection and interaction between informatics and the world? And will not soon the time come when this is no longer about the interface humans-machines, but about the interface world-machine?
- Is it really possible to practice data protection rationally? Or is it just a chimera of those who eternally live in the past? What does it mean for our society?
- What technological elements do smart solutions need in a modern IoT architecture? Incidentally, what exactly is the meaning of "smart" – and what exactly do we mean when we say IoT?
- What about the rules for robots (self-driving cars)? What does the Federal Ethics Commission have to say about it?
- What about fighting robots and drones? What does all this mean for war and peace?
- Should we not be thinking new concepts with respect to many elements of our social order as a consequence of technological development? Or even define them anew?
- What does this mean for our social framework? Will politics remain the means by which to form it, or have machines already taken over?
These and more questions will be discussed openly, honestly and considerately during the Oberland BarCamp in Holzkirchen – which is what we mostly do on barcamps.
That is why I registered for the BarCamp on digital transformation and its social consequences – aka Oberland BarCamp. It will be in the RSC Factory – Trainings- und Coachingzentrum für Digital Business & Innovation in Holzkirchen on May, 12th.
And I already look forward to meeting many friends!
(Translated by EG)
Roland DürreThursday February 16th, 2017
In 1985: object-oriented – Today: agile, digital, lean, open, social.
A short time ago, I retrieved it. It reminded me of having been at Uniforum conferences with friends of mine in February 1985 (Dallas, Texas) and in 1986 (Anaheim, California). It was great. In those days, the Uniforum was the one and only UNIX conference in the USA. We were thousands of enthusiastic visitors from all over the world. I experienced a huge atmosphere of dawn at the time.
There was also a small sensation. Copies of the very new book on C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup (see left on the picture) right from the printing machine were delivered in the middle of the conference and sold directly from the palette. I bought a few of them and took them home. They were probably the first C++ books to ever reach Munich.
This brings to mind: in the 1980s, I constantly gave presentations on software development. At the time, the change in programming was the central topic, and the catchword used most often was OBJECT-ORIENTED.
I also wrote quite a few presentations on "OBJECT-ORIENTED" for IT managers. Among them was a "high-up" at Siemens AG in UB D at D AP (or was it already SNI at the time?). He was asked to tell his "team of leaders" what exactly OBJECT-ORIENTED meant. Afterwards, he said the presentation had been well liked – but it certainly did not really make a difference.
Today, everybody programs object-oriented. In fact, it is even a little too much for my taste.
Later, I gave up my "programming career" and became something like an "entrepreneur".
Now I was no longer preaching the gospel of technology. Instead, I spoke about leadership and management. And in particular, I talked about the "smart" pentagram that consists of the terms "agile", "digital", "lean", "open", "social" and how they interact.
For instance, I related why courage and joy in those working for an enterprise is also a central requirement for economic success. And I also told the people how necessary mutual respect and appreciation of each other are (not only) in an enterprise. Why meeting at eye-level and shared participation and responsibility are the basic requirements for innovation. And why humans are not resources. And how change can only happen in an agile environment.
I explained why processes, rules and bureaucracy are obstacles to the necessary change. I also explained what a huge damage Taylorist developments cause in an organization and how much waste (as opposed to "lean") is created by an overwhelming administration and the rising bureaucracy in an enterprise as a consequence of those developments. And that it is totally useless to have endless meetings.
And that departments such as "human resource", "customer relationship management", "marketing", "legal service" etc., basically do not guarantee the success of an enterprise. In fact, they come closer to endangering it.
And that the young and well-educated persons of today prefer working in an enterprise the central element of the culture of which is trust.
I can easily give you good reasons for all I said. After all, I myself was part of the scenario when we software developers made a (as I see it: central contribution) towards a new understanding of work that now spreads more and more to other sectors (#newwork). And this is how it helped to change the world.
I wonder if my call for "agile, digital, lean, open, social" as a "smart" pentagram will do any good? I am not sure.
I also got the impression that my audience mostly saw it in the same way. In fact, it would make me happy if we in the German Industry were to talk less about industry 4.0 and more about entrepreneurial culture. Be it 2.0 or 5.0.
Even the big bosses must understand that our enterprises and we ourselves can only survive well if we are prepared to question what we used to consider certainties and to change what we were used to.
Of course, I understand that it hurts to question hierarchies, cherished sinecures and structures you have become used to. Especially if you are the boss. But please keep in mind: we no longer live in the times of Henry Ford's conveyor belts and even the prime time of the Chicago slaughterhouses is coming to an end.
(Translated by EG)
I took the star from the central media archive Wikimedia Commons.


text:
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