randform

strange car as seen by tim

randform reader Sheila asked:

Nad wrote: “In addition I proposed to the people at arxiv to introduce a closed pre-preprint section for the arxive for timestamping works (something I am going to talk about later in more detail)”

Why did you write to the arxiv people? You should have made that public!
The recent protests against journals could have started much earlier if all people would have published their ideas earlier!

With “protests” Sheila is probably referring to the current protests against the publisher Elsevier and the increasing discussions (see e.g. the forum math2.0) about different models for scientific publishing and mathematical software.

My answer to this: I actually “made this public” in a comment on the math blog n-category cafe. The search button at the n-category cafe doesnt work to good, so I currently can’t find the comment. It must have been something like in 2009. In this n-category cafe comment I explained that it would be good to establish a “lockable section” at the archive (see below) with review function, so this kind of discussion has been prevalent for a while within the math/physics community. As a major application for such a “lockable section” I had actually the review and guidance of Ph.D. thesis’ in mind (a “pre-preprint section”), rather then, whats currently more discussed, the review of finalized articles. Apart from the n-category cafe comment I explained the concept also in this randform post. It may sometimes take a while for a discussion to grow and gain importance.

The underlying concept for these kind of software solutions and in some sense also for the discussion itself is what I would like to call “the traceability of intellectual properties”. On the Azimuth project wiki I recently tried to explain this concept a bit more. Moreover I transferred the concept also to other intellectual property issues, in particular to patents. This resulted in a proposal for a lockable patent archive.

After the click you may find a copy of the current Azimuth project wiki entry.

Short comment: In the above mentioned randform post the revocation of Germany’s former minister of defense Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s doctoral degree following accusations of plagiarism was mentioned. Despite the revocation of his degree it seems he may still be a rather good law expert (at least thats what I understood from the comments of his coworkers). In addition he seems to be an expert on some internet software related issues . I could imagine that the legal subtleties of such online legal facilities could be an interesting subject for a new Ph.D. thesis, but of course I am not his advisor :)

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The past 6 months I was involved in a student software project at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (University of the applied sciences). The project is called MIMIRIX. It is going to be presented today at the school in building G Room 007 around 1.30 pm. As you may know there is currently the filmfestival Berlinale in Berlin, hence there are many wellknown actors in Berlin. So actually the latest gossip here was that Angelina Jolie comes together with Shah Rukh Khan to the MIMIRIX presentation. But these are of course blatant lies. More about MIMIRIX later.

supplement 11.2.12:
Short comment to the above logo:
The term MIMIRIX was coined by Martin Bilsing,
the logo was designed by Igne Degutyte
using the font Petita by Manfred Klein.

It is currently very cold outside here in Berlin, which lets one feel like sitting in the warmth and do some crafts. At this place one should probably mention the blog of Tim’s sister Hanne called metamorfix. Hanne is a dominie in Stockholm and surroundings. In her free time she does stitchings and sewings and other crafts. Some of them are published on her blog.

Tim was unreckoned given notice for his room in munich. So he needs a new one.
If you know a room close to a subway, preferably close to the subway which goes to TU munich and which is maximally around 300 Euros (all inclusive) per month then please send an email or give a call.

Gerda Schellhase, fotographer unknown

randform reader Bart asked about my grandmother Gerda. As said before I am reluctant to talk about my family. However in some sense – especially if they are rather part of history- I may make an exception. Talking about them may be important to understand history.

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Concerning my laptop: I was informed by the repairshop that the hard disk is broken.

Tim had found some time over the holidays for doing music. He has thus just uploaded a cool new song to soundcloud. It is entirely written and arranged by himself. Vocals and some violin by Cat Caspari, cello by Z.

Short note: On monday I finally got my macbook back from the repairshop. Unfortunately it seems now its broken again.

The discussion about certain nuclear waste problems which was indirectly adressed in my previous post about mini nuclear reactors went a little further on the blog Azimuth (here, here and here). Connected with the Azimuth blog is the socalled Azimuth project and the Azimuth forum, where amongst others people voluntarily discuss scientific studies on climate and environmental issues and even do some related software projects (like for example this here). So in the comment I suggested that someone could eventually do the necessary calculations to check wether there is a higher cancer rate in the San Francisco Bay area which may be due to a nuclear waste site in the waters close to San Francisco. Likewise one could eventually do similar calculations for the 25000 undersea radioactive waste sites in Russia mentioned in the post about the mini nuclear reactors or to other known sites in the world (see also this post and this comment about sites in India). It would of course also be interesting to hear about related studies.

related randform posts:
->on a recent study of increased risk of cancer in the vicinity of german nuclear power plants
->On the socalled Greiser-study
-> and the general overview on nuclear science posts on randform