At work, a large part of my day is taken up by speaking. I spend a significant amount of time in meetings of some sort, both where other people are primarily talking and also where I have to talk most of the time. Because I started noticing that many of these hundreds of thousands of words were being applied less effectively than they could have, I began trying to derive some rules of thumb for effective verbal communication.
Ultimate Dutch Snack
While it’s true that Dutch cuisine is the brunt of far too many less-than-flattering jokes, it definitely has its highlights. Ontbijtkoek is a very typically Dutch spiced cake that is often eaten in the morning, whilst Hagelslag is the Dutch word for chocolate sprinkles, which people from around these parts like to use as a bread topping, also mostly in the mornings. By themselves, each of these is an interesting contribution, but probably not a culinary breakthrough.
Outraged
The year is 2008. A young Iraqi woman falls in love with a British soldier. Her father hears of this and subsequently, assisted by his two sons, stamps on, suffocates and stabs to death his own daughter. He is outraged that she has shamed his family in this way. Furthermore, he claims that she deserved this, as what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion. The father is not prosecuted for his barbaric behaviour.
Recording screencasts on Windows with free software
(This post was first written in May of 2008, but I’ve been updating it periodically. See also the updates right at the end.) What are screencasts? Screencasts refer to video recordings of screen activity, often with narration. These can be used to demonstrate software or to serve as a kind of visual HOWTO. We often make screencasts of software we design in the Medical Visualisation group at the TU Delft to use in presentations at conferences or to distribute online.
I have an official course code!
I am currently designing a new master-level course at the TU Delft, creatively named Medical Visualization, and it’s just been assigned an official course code: IN4307. Whooo! Keep an eye out for IN4307: This 5 ECTS course will run in the 3d period (February to April) of the 2008/2009 academic year and it’s going to rule. I’m integrating more modern educational techniques (thank you TU Delft BKO for the inspiration) in that the whole course will be run as an interactive workshop (I lecture, you immediately try it out on your computer machine), and assessment will be based on weekly practice exercises as well as a more extensive project that will have to be orally defended at the end.
New work laptop
I think I just might have found my next work laptop. Imagine the surprised and definitely jealous expressions as you plonk down your new Hello Kitty laptop at that next power meeting or important research discussion. Marvelous! Click on the image for the accompanying site (found via engadget.com).
Dr Werner, you are a singularity of stupid
We all know that homeopathy is really stupid, just like most alternative medicine. However, when I saw this “lecture” by Dr Charlene Werner, I was astounded by the depths of stupidity that she is able to attain. It’s almost like she’s a kind of Superheroine of Stupidity, with the special power of creating a singularity of stupid. This is of course stupidity that’s so extreme that it tends towards infinity and temporarily makes all reason disappear into a black-hole of scientific incompetence.
DeVIDE 8.2 released
I almost forgot to mention over here that the first open source release of DeVIDE is now available. See the relevant DeVIDE news blog posting for more information and links to yet more information!
I’m in love
… with Vienna. As mentioned elsewhere, I’m in Vienna at the moment for ECR 2008. Tonight started with a heavenly dinner at the Vital Images party in the Sky Bar. By 22:00, my night was already more or less perfect, mostly due to great company and beautiful food. However, we (an intrepid group of Medical Delta scientists from Delft, Rotterdam and Leiden) decided to go to Der Roter Engel in the Bermuda Triangle, mostly because I insisted that the night would only be complete after some cocktails.
SimVis 2008 Best Paper
It’s really nice when it happens, it’s even nicer when you really don’t expect it. Our DeVIDE paper won the SimVis 2008 best paper award! Read all about it in the relevant DeVIDE News Blog posting.