Soccery thoughts or zuckers

Looks like Lompsa didn't win anything. Argentina lost today. Brazil and Germany are still in, though. Who's going to say that the old men of France can beat Brazil tomorrow?

There's a lot of honking and cheering going on. Still, hours after the game on a city hundreds of kilometers away from Berlin where the match took place. Police car and ambulance sirens go off every now and then and German flags hang on cars, houses and sometimes on people.

If you're interested in my book project, it is going very well, thank you for asking. This week I've managed to reach my daily goal of about 1500 words every day. The chapter I've been writing this week is about 7000 words long now. The weather has permitted me to try writing outside on the balcony. At first it was impossible because the sun was too bright, but with the marquee completely outdrawn, it isn't a problem. As a matter of fact, currently the problem is the darkness. The sun has set, it is almost midnight and I can't see the keyboard. Well, I couldn't if I didn't have this handy swan-neck USB-light attached to my laptop. It might look strange, but it is actually useful.

Canada

We had grown men from Canada as guests last weekend.
Petri and Jari had chosen the worst possible train to travel from Bochum to Frankfurt. It goes through Cologne and at the same day (it was a night train) there had been the match England-Sweden in Cologne. The train was booked solid after Cologne. I hear everything went fine, there were a lot of fans, but no bodily fluids were extracted in their compartment.

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After the boys boarded their train Bochum, we went home, packed, fell asleep...

...and opened our eyes in Finland.

Heat wave AFFectS BRain vawes

Bochum has been hot the last week or so. When the temperature rises to 30 degrees centigrade both inside and outside of the apartment, I start getting a bit too mellow, just like toffee does. I'm enjoying this summer greatly!

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The Football/Soccer World Cup started on Friday and the German team managed to beat their opponent. People here were extremely happy, a little too much for my taste. They are going to play for a whole month, for Pete's sake. Seems that the Germans fear their team will soon drop out of the competition.

Now, after the first week and first round, we could setup our own small bet on the winner. I'll surely send a post card or maybe even a price of some sort to whoever who names the winner this week in the comment to this post. Now everybody, who's your winner candidate? I'm putting my mouth where it is and say that Germany will be the new World Champion!

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Think of the most unpleasant thing you can. A thing you'd never want to do. Then multiply that unpleasantness with a LARGE number and you start getting an idea of what we've been going through. We're trying to figure out how the value added taxes, invoicing and accounting all fit together. This unifying theory has been the target of European economic scientists ever since the foundation of the European Community a few decades ago. The target seems ever further away. An Austrian scientist, Dr. Müllerschau, has proposed a theory based on superstrings suspended between variable currencies on a multidimensional wallet-time continuum. The competing theory - although also not without loopholes - tries to explain the origins of the values of different monetary units by the interaction of small quantum particles, of which there are three (inflations, reimbursions and budgetons). Neither theory has been proved or deemed even close to useful, unfortunately. Perhaps the Hiltunen couple has more luck in formulating their own theory. I'm hoping for that.

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I apoloollogize four any tipos in these post. The heat is making it impossiossible to right good. Goodbuy four naugh!

Last day in Paris

We ended up not going to the Star Wars exhibition on Sunday, so we went today. Two hours went fast watching items from the six films and films about how the films were made. Even taking photos was allowed!

Today it is very hot in Paris, indeed. The view from Galeries Lafayette, especially from its roof was breathtaking. You could see all Paris sights apart from Sacre Coeur from there.

Yesterday we saw several policecars and motorcycles speed past the terrace we were resting for a while. The Nykänens had arrived in Paris. Two friends warned us about it.

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On this trip I trained almost 50 people to be effective checkers in the efficient code inspection method I call "Tick-The-Code" Inspection. It is always fun to notice how many more findings people make after my training than before it. It must be a clear sign of the usefulness of the method. To evaluate the real benefit, longer-term studies should be conducted. I'm contemplating contacting some universities, but almost all research is done with students as guinea-pigs, which won't really reflect the reality. It would be much better to use experienced people from industry. I have started to do this now.
At first the number of findings in the initial check was very low (the initial check is done without any assistance from me), but later in the week some people had learned some rules from their colleagues and were using those even in the initial check. That seemed to raise their finding accuracy considerably. But they would still beat their extrapolated number of findings after instructions from me. I'll have to analyse the results properly once I get home.

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I'm part of the True Professionals. If you need reliable help in software development, see www.true-professionals.eu. My friend Antek will be happy to organize help for you.

Famous Austrians and the Bonus Question

Last week I asked you to name a tune by a famous Austrian and the hint was some humming. The march is very recognizable and you will have heard it before. The march was named after an Austrian Field Marshall called Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. It was composed by Johann Strauss Sr. and is called the "Radetzky March".

Other famous Austrian musicians: Falco, DJ Ötzi and Johann Strauss Jr.

Two famous Austrian writers: Franz Kafka (born in Prague, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time), Rudolf Steiner (there are Steiner schools even in Finland).

The typewriter, sewing machine and gaslight are Austrian inventions. Ferdinand Porsche was also born in Austria-Hungary.

For a full list of (all) famous Austrians, see here.

You could also spend a few minutes to wonder what the definition for "famous" is. How many people out of 100 have to recognize somebody's picture in order for that person to be famous? Or is there some other way to measure that? Is being famous the same as being mentioned in a newspaper? On TV? On the radio? Does publishing a book qualify for fame? Or selling a painting or reading a poem? How about acting in a play for an audience? How does one become famous and what are these "infamous" people then all about? Known, but bad?
Are the words "familiar" and "famous" more related than "famous" and "fame"?

Weekend in Paris

Yesterday we went to Parc Asterix.


In the evening we went to see the Tower of Eiffel, which is a magnificent thing, especially with the lights darkening all around it.



Today, we just might visit the Star Wars Expo in the science museum.

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Here's a picture Virpi took on her first wander around Paris. This is the trip she got lost getting back, not the one where the avian attack occurs. A mighty impressive church!


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Today's lesson: 'HDTV' is in French 'TVHD', of course. (High definition television - La télévision haute définition)

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Related to inspections: Tom and Kai Gilb hold excellent courses, for example, on document inspection. Now their seminars on "Requirement Specification" are hosted in Germany by ASQF.

Pardon my French

These French people are just great! My Frech really isn't that good and I have to use English every now and then. And so far everything's going fine. Let me tell you how to cope.

1. You ask the person, if he/she speaks English. He/she says "yes" or "but of course". You speak English with him/her.

2. You ask the person, if he/she speaks English. He/she says "no" or "non". You happen to know the three words you need, in French, and you use them.

3. You ask the person, if he/she speaks English. He/she says "no" or "non". You don't have the slightest idea what the word for spoon or pillow is, so you do your best mime.

4. You ask the person, if he/she speaks English. He/she says "yes" or "oui". You listen to him/her going on in French and try to guess what he/she is saying.


And in every case - remember to smile!

Under attack

After yesterday I was quite confident, nothing unpleasant couldn't happen to me today. Boy, was I wrong!

Someone asked me to check out a couple of hotels in Paris as I happen to be here. Going around in Paris was not the problem today because I took the underground. I found the first of the hotels quite easily and decided to walk a bit further and check out the Les Invalides church. Mistake!

I had passed the church and wanted to walk along a boulevard heading to the other hotel I was supposed to check out. And stupid me, I stopped under a big three for taking a photo of the church. Suddenly something hit me in the head. Hard. Really hard. I almost lost consciousness. I'm not kidding here! I looked around, wondering if it was a big branch from the three. Or a dead bird.

It was a bird alright, but not a dead one. A big, black raven was walking around me, looking furious. Believe you me, a bird can look furious! I took the photo of the church as quickly as I could and the raven flew by my ear. Off I went, didn't look back.

I tried to figure out if that furious bird had harmed me, if I was bleeding or anything. No sign of blood, so I kept going, but I must say I felt kind of dizzy for the next twenty minutes or so. I just hope I'm not going to feel the flu coming up any time soon ;-)

Let's wait and see what happens tomorrow!