Götz

Brilliant! Very interesting and good article - not all of the things piss me off, but certainly some of them used to ;) - "Here, then, are some surefire ways to upset a German person, should you need to…. [...] Cross at a red light (with small children) [...] Stare back at them using binoculars [...] Use fancy English words they don’t understand [...] Urinate standing up [...] Say you don’t like asparagus, especially if it’s white [...] Recycle erroneously [...] Break the news that no one outside Germany has seen Dinner For One [...] Set your alarm and grab the sun loungers first [...]" - Götz

MIT degrees for everyone - sort of. - "MITx is the next big step in the open-educational-resources movement that MIT helped start in 2001, when it began putting its course lecture notes, videos, and exams online, where anyone in the world could use them at no cost. "; "Beginning this spring, students will be able to take free, online courses offered through the MITx initiative. If they prove they've learned the materi­al, MITx will, for a small fee, give them a credential certifying as much."; "The real innovation of MITx, the breakthrough that may eventually put it among the pantheon of MIT's achievements, is the generosity inherent in a privileged university's giving away something that it could easily keep for itself. It is the act of a truly educational institution, in the finest sense of the word." - Götz

"I still find the budget allocation being spent on technology to be far to high, however I also understand that many vendors are not cheap which is why these budgets are so technology focused. But then again, many companies do complain of low adoption or minimal adoption as well so the overall cost of their deploying something that isn’t used is far greater then spending more money upfront and putting together a solid strategy in place. Technology is great but it needs a strategy to succeed." - Götz

Good quotes about organisational learning: "Real learning is all about experience, practice, conversations and reflections – no more, no less. ~charles"; "Social media is not something you talk about; it’s something you do. ~jane"; "In a knowledge economy, the individual is the knowledge creator, and relationships are the currency. ~harold"; "Increased complexity needs simplified design. ~harold"; "If it is social and engaged, there is no us andt hem, only we. ~charles"; "Work & learning are becoming one and the same. ~jay"; "When working is learning, then your organisation’s learning is working. ~charles" - Götz

Overview over HTML5 resources on the web. Links to English web standards, structure and comments in German. - Götz

"motorists can now gain a bird's eye view of London's traffic hotspots to see where traffic is building up and which areas to avoid. This includes access to a network of 170 'jam cams', as well as information on incidents that may affect their journey. A live Twitter feed, @TfLTrafficNews, will also carry up to the minute information, and particular roads and routes are searchable using hashtags (#)." - Götz

"Cycling Cities was my submission to ISTD 2011 - On yer Bike. The brief was to create an information system for cyclists to find their way around cities with fresh thinking on what cycling in the city can offer [...] The idea was to give cyclists a direction code with four colour schemes that they can immediately recognise the direction of where the cyclist is heading. Also the nearest points like underground stations or landmarks are shown with the direction code to help cyclists draw a mental map in their mind making cycling more predictable, efficient and enjoyable." - Götz

"Beide Gestalten, die Optimier-Frau und der Lieber-nicht-Mann, sind zugleich tragische wie komische Figuren der Gegenwart. Tragisch, weil sie sich mit ihrer Verbesserungssucht und Entscheidungsunlust so lange gegenseitig quälen, bis sie zusammenbrechen vor Erschöpfung. Komisch, weil sie trotzdem nicht voneinander lassen können." - Götz

"We're using Open Data to bring you train information. Right now, we have timetables, with real-time running information and historical data coming soon. We're working hard to bring you more."; "At the moment, we only have real-time information for the following train operating companies (TOCs): London Overground (LO), London Midland (LM), Virgin Trains (VT), National Express East Anglia (EA)" - great, but TfL should also provide data... - Götz

"In an interview to mark his 70th birthday this weekend, Stephen Hawking, the former Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, admitted he spent most of the day thinking about women. "They are," he said "a complete mystery."" - Götz

Overview over all projects in Sourcforge's Mirror Directory. Here Sourceforge lists projects that are not maintained or developed on Sourceforge, but Sourceforge just provides descriptions and a mirror to download the application files. - Götz

"I find that sad because in a way we're losing what makes us human. We find it easier to interact with the computer than we do to act with another human being. I want to do my little bit to actually help people realise that in fact we're humans, we're all part of a family and really we should be spending some time just interacting and getting on with each other." - It's about two years old, but still an interesting interview, if you're travelling every day from Warwick Avenue - or on the tube in general. - Götz

HEINZ BUSCHKOWSKY: "[..]Verantwortung dafür, dass Kinder in den Werten unserer Gesellschaft heranwachsen und erzogen werden[..]vor allem dort, wo es an sozialer Kompetenz bei den Eltern fehlt[..]monetären Leistungen der Gesellschaft können durchaus regelkonformes Verhalten stimulieren.[..]"; GUSTAV A. HORN: "[..]stärkere Regulierung der Finanzmärkte in Kombination mit einer Bankenabgabe und einer Finanzmarkttransaktionssteuer sowie die Wiedereinführung der Vermögensteuer[..]"; HANS-WERNER SINN: "[..]Flexible, elterngerechte Arbeitszeiten, berufliche Reintegrationsmaßnahmen und Telearbeit sind das Minimum[..]"; NIKOLAUS SCHNEIDER: "[..]neue Zeichen einer lebendigen und solidarischen Zivilgesellschaft, die alle Menschen einbezieht und einen jeden[..]anerkennt.[..]»Ermutigende Allianzen«[..]Nichts ermutigt und stabilisiert Menschen mehr als die Integration in Arbeit.[..]Bildungspatenschaften vom Kindergarten an eine gute Sache.[..]" - Götz

"Großbritannien..unseren Erwartungen entsprochen..Sachwissen..gesundes Selbstvertrauen..stets bemüht..mit den Zielen des vereinten Europas..zu identifizieren..nach Kräften versucht, auch für andere Leistungen zu erbringen..meist mit Interesse bei der Sache..bei den anderen Mitgliedsländern außerordentlich beliebt..Aufgaben mit Erfolg zu delegieren..Geselligkeit trug..zur Verbesserung des europäischen Binnenklimas bei..erfrischende Offenheit..bei der Verteilung von Geldmitteln mit Nachdruck seine Meinung..vertreten..Niedergang seiner Wirtschaft..mit Toleranz..sympathischer Gelassenheit hingenommen..im Wesentlichen fleißig..ehrlich..Vor allem..britischen Presse..Bemühen um Fairness..Sachlichkeit..Kommentaren und Karikaturen..die Deutschen immer mit viel Humor und großer historischer Genauigkeit dargestellt..andere bei jeder Gelegenheit an seinen eigenen Kenntnissen teilhaben zu lassen..Pünktlichkeit..gutes Beispiel..wünschen GB für die Zukunft alles Gute, insbesondere auch Erfolg." - Götz

1. Big Company Bureaucracy. 2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. 3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. 4. No Discussion around Career Development. 5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. 6. Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs. 7. Top Talent likes other Top Talent. 8. The Missing Vision Thing. 9. Lack of Open-Mindedness. 10. Whoě°˝€™s the Boss? "Top talent isně°˝€™t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate."; "Smart Organizations are ones who get out in front of these ten things, rather than wait for their people to come to them, asking to implement this list." - Götz

"If you want to get good performance you need to speak loud enough for JIT compiler to hear you and adapt to your application. [...] In a sense you’ll be writing statically typed code in a language that does not support static typing."; "Good performance demonstrated by some inhumanly written piece of code (e.g. translated from C via optimizing compiler) does not prove that “JavaScript is already fast enough” unless you are planning on writing your webapps in C for the rest of your life or you are capable of writing such inhuman code yourself just like mr. C. Instead it proves that “Certain features of JavaScript when used in certain way lead to good enough performance.” Efficiency on a tight computational kernel does not necessarily translate into efficiency on different workloads."; "JavaScript is a complex and expensive language in it’s very core. Keep that in mind and don’t be charmed by the sweet spot." - Götz

"In fact, Internet culture generally favors a lighter, more informal style of punctuation. True, emoticons have sprung up to convey nuances of mood and tone. Moreover, typing makes it easy to amplify punctuation: splattering 20 exclamation marks on a page, or using multiple question marks to signify theatrical incredulity. But, overall, punctuation is being renounced."; "Interrobang [...] Such marks are symptoms of an increasing tendency to punctuate for rhetorical rather than grammatical effect. Instead of presenting syntactical and logical relationships, punctuation reproduces the patterns of speech."; "Dashes became common only in the 18th century. Their appeal is visual, their shape dramatic. That's what a modern, talky style of writing seems to demand. By contrast, use of the semicolon is dwindling."; "It may be that the hyphen's last outpost will be in emoticons, where it plays a leading role." - Götz

"Viele Pädagogen meinen, alles, was sich vom klassischen lehrerzentrierten Frontalstil unterscheidet, sei automatisch guter Unterricht. Diese Ansicht ist naiv. Ein individualisierter Lehrstil ist anderen Unterrichtsformen nicht per se überlegen. Das hat vor zwei Jahren der Schulforschers John Hattie gezeigt, der alle weltweit verfügbaren Studien zu gutem Unterricht zusammenfassend analysiert hat."; "Gerade kooperatives Lernen stellt hohe Ansprüche an den Lehrer. Das beginnt schon bei der Gruppenbildung."; "Effektiver ist es, wenn leistungsstarke Schüler einmal die Rolle des Lehrers übernehmen und leistungsschwächere Klassenkameraden unterrichten."; "Bevor der Lehrer mit individualisiertem Unterricht beginnt, muss er wissen, wo die Potenziale und die Grenzen seiner Schüler liegen."; "Der Vielfalt in unseren Schulen gerecht zu werden ist wohl die größte Herausforderung, vor der Lehrer heute stehen." - Götz

Useful tool to search quickly in documentations for CSS, HTML, JavaScript, DOM, jQuery, and PHP. - Götz

"I started thinking about the books that have taught me much about people, teams, and organizations -- while at the same time -- provide useful guidance (if sometimes only indirectly) about what it takes to lead well versus badly. The 11 books below are the result." - Interesting list, most might actually be worth a read! - Götz

"Become a Programmer, Motherfucker - If you don't know how to code, then you can learn even if you think you can't. Thousands of people have learned programming from these fine books" - with a huge list of (free) books - Götz

"IBM’s Alistair Rennie, GM of Social Business, has three predictions for what we can expect to see in social in 2012: 1. Social Analytics (social analytics tools will become the must have to gain insight and make better, faster business decisions and improve customer satisfaction); 2. Gamification of social networking in the enterprise (use of game elements in non-game systems to improve business outcomes, has the opportunity to transform how employees work); 3. Community Managers Rule (increasing need for staff to manage the new processes and communities, to measure their effectiveness, and to educate and enable the workforce to participate. ... Key skills required: Ability to be transparent, drive sharing among members, and listening and shaping conversations.)" - Götz

Luis Suarez explains in a short video clip how he improves his knowledge sharing by replacing email with social networks. - Götz

"Normally when you think of "bad design", you think of laziness or mistakes. These are known as design anti-patterns. Dark Patterns are different – they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind." - Götz

"* more space on the home page should be given to listing popular forms, tools, how to topics and popular lists (such as key phone numbers) * less space should be given to news * more top level menu items should point staff directly to these types of content, instead of putting them at hard to find lower levels such as Business Unit headings or user defined categories such as Survival Kit, Campus, Workplace, Laundry, Employee Central or Employee Resources." - interesting findings. And, if I consider what I am looking for on our intranet/wiki, these are not surprising results. - Götz

Der anerkannte Kannibalismus-Experte (er schrieb schon für die Zeit über das Thema) Sebastian Brauns klärt auf ... ;) - Götz

"Rede zum NPD-Antrag "Deutsch statt 'Denglisch'" im Rahmen der 42. Sitzung des Sächsischen Landtags am 12. Oktober 2011" - Sehr schön, Deutsch, der Sprachbastard. Von Quark bis Blitzkrieg läßt er aber auch gar nichts aus... - Götz

That's something I brought back from my ten day stay in Germany: Keks, alter Keks, ist der mit Ohr-Sand - actually somehow funny. Alone for mentioning Helge! - Götz

"Bei beiden Verlagen zeigen die Dateien genau definierte Regeln auf und enthalten also keinesfalls irgendwelche Defaultwerte, die bei der Installation eines Webauftritts möglicherweise vorgegeben sein mochten. Kurz gesagt: Die Verlage haben ganz genau definiert, welche Dokumente für welche Robots für die Indizierung verboten sind und welche nicht. In beiden Fällen haben die Verlage die Indizierung der Artikel also aktiv erlaubt. Einerseits die Verlinkung zu erlauben, andererseits gegen die Verlinkung vorzugehen, zeugt offensichtlich von einer irrationalen Vorgehensweise." - Götz

Interessante Liste. Auch wenn ich bei WordPress die unsaubere Trennung von Code und Templates anprangere. Sowie den teilweise etwas verwirrnden Code generell. Aber vielleicht hat sich das inzwischen ja auch gebessert. - Götz