In the train ICE 1083 from Fulda to Munich, as I return from the philosophical seminar Lies Camouflaged as Truth, I finally manage to take a closer look at my ”brand eins“. It is the November-2011 edition!
Isn’t it alarming how we are already again approaching winter and Christmas? Mind you, sitting at the window of the ICE, you can see the wonderful autumnal scenery of the Spessart (?) and the sun is shining upon you brightly. It does not seem to fit.
This month, the title page is green. It reminds me of the first VW Beatle my father had.
That must have been in the late 1950ies or early 1960ies. For a car, it was a totally strange olive green, but I forgot the exotic-sounding name.
The magazine title of this month is:
Be Not Afraid.
Strangely, it is written with a full stop. I would have expected an exclamation mark (because of the imperative form).
Underneath, you can read “Major Issue: Computing” (red) and “how you will be happy if you understand the world” (blue). To me, however, the connection between “computing” and “understanding the world” is not immediately clear. After all, I am just returning from a philosophical seminar about “lies camouflaged as the truth”.
Well, the title page arouses my curiosity. So I open the magazine.
And there I read that Frau Fischer herself graduated from a mathematically-scientifically oriented grammar school. I like that (I can now also be found on facebook). It turns out that this is also about mathematics (and computational errors). I like that.
Being a mathematics graduate of TUM, I also often find it quite strange what bizarre use of my dear mathematics is made in economic science. And how totally wrong conclusions are deduced from very simple numbers all the time. Sometimes it really hurts!
In the magazine itself, I again find a lot that I enjoy and that makes me smile – from the delicacy to the absurdity. Just beautiful. The same is true for the main focus: Computing.
As always, I also re-discover many things I already know quite well and meet a few old acquaintances. The phenomenon SAP is as prominent as my former neighbour Uli Hoeneß, whom, years ago, I sometimes met when I took my dog along the border of the forest in East Riemerling.
Some interesting persons, like Klaus Mattar, are introduced. According to ”brand eins“, he is currently looking for new business opportunities in data cemeteries for the US insurance. “Our problem is the future” is what he is cited to have said on page 106. Well, that is certainly how I, too, see it. Yet I am not so sure that date cemeteries will help.
Somehow or other, I prefer the theory voiced by Claus Peter Ortlieb on page 110. His credo is: “You cannot calculate the world!”. That is certainly more to my liking, even though I am a mathematician.
It is a truly exciting topic. I hope my readers did again get curious. Why don’t you take a walk to the kiosk and get the latest ”brand eins”? It is really worth the effort and, again, in a different league from many of the high-gloss magazines for managers and entrepreneurs.
I will soon arrive at my destination. So I will do some reading in a daily newspaper. In the ICE first class (I actually managed to get a super-sales-ticket), they have BamS, FAZ and Welt (the Sunday edition of both). As we all know, there is no such thing as a Sunday SZ edition. I wonder why?
It will not be hard to decide which of the newspapers I am going to read.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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