The University of St. Gallen sent me a call-for-papers for their data warehouse symposium DW 2008. The topic of this highly visible event is focused on "synergies through integration and information logistics".

It would be an excellent opportunity to present customer reference examples for SSAS and SSIS. For a second I had even considered to grab the opportunity myself, but I'm tired of doing other people's work and have decided to focus my bandwidth on areas that are valuable for me.

The submission deadline is Feb 29th.

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While seriously considering re-thinking some major decisions I had made recently I ran into the following piece that pretty accurately reflects my state of mind. Guess which company the person is talking about:

"... That's because back then this dog could hunt. Now, it mostly likes to eat, lie on the porch, and sleep a lot, while shareholders make corporate officers millionaires and underwrite the cost via stock declines and underperformance due in large part to the failure of said management's investment choices, execution, and ability to instill confidence on Wall Street.

So what does the future hold? Can this dog learn to hunt again?"

A long time ago I was involved with ai, now I think I need to re-engage again:

Tired of missing codecs for all sorts of multi-media files? Quite a number of people blame either Vista or WMP11 for screwing-up things. I was searching for the "MPEG-1 (50)", which was apparently removed by Microsoft resulting from alegal issue with the acclaimed holder.

Searching a little bit around, I found this site http://fileforum.betanews.com/browse/Multimedia&Graphics/Video/Codecs - very helpful.

Merlots typically had a low profile, were considered to be second-class wines, at best. This has changed quite significantly during the last 10 years, and there are even more surprising results showing-up from time to time.

Some years back I had the pleasure of accidentally receiving a recommendation to taste a Bianco Rovere. It was offered as a blind tasting, it was a most unusual wine and I had no clue of what grape it could have been made from. The explanation that followed was simple: it was a white wine made from the Merlot grape - a red variety. White Merlot is a rare beast indeed, but Switzerland, and in particular Ticino, produces some splendid examples. It has a very light golden yellow color, with just the very slightest pink tinge, and a light fruit nose of tropical fruits - in particular passion fruit. On the palate the wine is medium- bodied, soft and gentle, with exotic tropical fruit flavors and a lovely gentle minerality, which comes to the fore in the finish. Most unusual and a lovely wine, and I still carry a case in my cellar. One bottle needs to go with lunch today :-)

A few weeks ago I was offered another new experience - same result. This time it was a Merlot Rosé sparkling wine, best described by his German producer, Anselmann:

"Farbe: Brilliante goldgelbe Farbe mit dezentem Kupferton.

Bukett: Das verführerische Bukett erinnert an reife Kirschen , Pflaumen und Himbeeren. Das Mousseaux des im klassischen Flaschengärungsverfahren hergestellten Sektes ist sehr feinperlig und langanhaltend.

Geschmack: Im Geschmack gefällt er durch seine feine, fruchtbetonte Aromatik. Er ist vollmundig und langanhaltend.

Diese Sektspezialität eignet sich bestens zur Eröffnung feierlicher Anlässe, als Aperitif. Der richtige Sekt für alle Frauen, die Sekt lieben !"

Very true - a great new experience. I'll need to get me some bottles of this jewel, but unfortunately the producer's makes it extremely difficult - actually impossible - to place an order in his eCommerce app. We'll see, and may need to visit them.

Thanks, Jürgen.

With some delay, the 2007 Darwin Awards were just announced. In case you'd not yet be familiar with what this award is about, here's the background:

"Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it."

My personal favorite:

"Looking for a media reference of the elevator accident that happened in the hotel I work for, I found a sure winner of a Darwin Award and I could not resist the temptation of sharing this with you.

Apparently 22 year old Jessica Inés Covarrubias is not familiar with the use of the phone or the use of the stairs. Surprisingly so, because she was in a gym working out at the moment of the incident.

She was working out in the “Provincia Gym” and needed something from someone in the floor below hers, so instead of taking the phone, using the interphone or just using the stairs to go down, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift that is used in the gym would be the perfect mean of communication, so she stick her head out in the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs but somehow misses to see the elevator going UP, since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give; and well… let’s leave it at saying that the elevator won.

If the elevator was going down on her, one could say that she was in no position to observe the lift since she was yelling at the people below her, but if she was looking down, how could she miss the enormous mass of metal going her way?

Anyway; I’m sure she will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool."

"Asomó la cabeza justo cuando descendía el ascensor
El Occidental
27 de julio de 2007
Redacción

Guadalajara, Jalisco.- Muere una joven de 24 años al ser prensada por un elevador industrial el cual se encontraba dentro de un gimnasio ubicado en la colonia la Hermosa Provincia, en el municipio de Guadalajara.

Se registró un lamentable accidente que le costó la vida a una joven de 24 años de edad, de nombre Jessica Inés Covarrubias, vecina de la calle Plutarco Elías Calles número 852, en la colonia Cuauhtémoc, en el municipio de Guadalajara, perdió la vida al ser prensada por un elevador industrial el cual se encuentra dentro de un gimnasio con razón social Provincia GYM, que se encuentra sobre la Avenida Pablo Valdez número 3608, a su cruce con la calle Esteban Huerta, en la colonia de la Hermosa Provincia, en el municipio antes mencionado.

La joven fallecida en un descuido se asomó por la parte en la que descendía el elevador, para solicitarle ayuda a alguna persona que se encontraba en la planta baja de este gimnasio sin percatarse que el ascensor ya se aproximaba, prensándole parte de la cabeza, lo que le ocasionó la muerte.

Al lugar arribaron elementos del cuerpo de Bomberos de Guadalajara con la intención de realizar las maniobras de rescate y poder liberar a Jessica Inés, pero a su arribo la joven ya había sido separada del muro y el ascensor.

El cuerpo de la víctima fue identificado por una de las compañeras de trabajo de la occisa, de nombre María Guadalupe Sandoval Herrera, vecina de la colonia Lomas del Gallo.

Personal del Servicio Médico Forense fueron los encargados de trasladar el cuerpo de esta chica a la morgue metropolitana para realizarle la autopsia que marca la ley."

Really cool stuff, from the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2007; my personal favorite:

Depicted is Stefan Vitanov's Sunset Mood. And as beautiful, the winners of the 2007 Science as Art competition held by the Materials Research Society (MRS). My favorite pictured here is Fanny Beron's Nano Explosions.

Wow - That's what computers are really made for :-)

The title of this entry may not be absolutely correct, but I was just taught to (always) replace the word BUT with the word AND. 

So here's the reference to the libretto: “Chicken versus Egg”, a mini-opera in three acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and words by Marc Abrahams, featured in last months edition of the Annals of Improbable Research. If you're wondering what's this all about, you'd better watch the video of the 2007 Ig® Nobel Award Ceremony from Sanders Theater at Harvard, and you may start thinking once you stopped laughing.

Listening to Cameron's struggles with employee rewards and recognition, explained during his closing keynote last week, reminded me of a historic incident:

During the qualification for the German national finals, maybe in the period 1974 to 1976, I had to fight this famous guy, Alexander Pusch, three times. Lost 0:5, 1:6 and 4:9 and was pretty upset because he was so arrogant that he didn't even shake hands after the fights.

Anyway, my trainer congratulated me for the good fight after the second round. The trainer even cheered me after the final battle, claiming that this had been the best fight he'd ever seen from me. I was even more upset after his remarks, assuming he'd make fun of me - in front of the team. Didn't call him stupid in public, but I guess that's what I had thought of him back then.

I simply didn't get it. I didn't understand that my trainer was recognizing my progress. I didn't listen when he mentioned that it was unheard of a junior placing four hits on the national champion, multiple world champion and Olympic gold medallist. I had only been looking after the results, not the progress. And therefore I didn't accept the recognition.

What a stupid mistake. And even worse: it took me thirty years to learn about it.

Video spoof, shown during Bill's last key note at CES 2008.

Managing smaller groups is normally easier then managing larger organizations. Therefore you'd better break-down complex projects into smaller work streams.

Some companies call that commitment setting: The boss's objectives are distributed amongst his or her subordinates. Sometimes the peons don 1st feel that good about this HR technique, especially if the things they are supposed to do, and the things they were committed to do, don't match very much.

It's simply themselves who are to be blamed: Why would somebody do something he doesn't believe in, only because somebody else asks him to do it?

All limitations are self-imposed.

What a rude moderator, dealing with such a nice little lady :-)