Germany's defence minister, Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg has just resigned (link is in English; a more detailed German version is also available). I have written at length about this affair ( 22 Feb, 21 Feb, 17 Feb).

A few snippets:
The heavyweight German weekly, Die Zeit brought out a satirical piece making fun of Guttenberg
About 23,000 academics ( Read more... )

I was recently going through some documents and found a print-out (!) of an e-mail exchange between egadfly  and me. Here are some excerpts from his reply (with kind permission), which show how quickly this digital stuff has infiltrated our everyday lives.
Date: 12 May 2000
Text: This was actually my first experience with Acrobat and I do see the point of ( Read more... )

I've recently been exercised by the plagiarism allegations around the doctorate of Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg, German defence minister (previous posts: 17 Feb, 21 Feb).

We may have reached the denouement of this short story: Guttenberg has now issued a mea culpa. He admits to having made serious, albeit unintentional, errors that are not in line ( Read more... )

So, I recently posted at length about the German defence minister and his allegedly plagiarism-riddled doctorate *.

Three new snippets:
1. The GuttenPlag Wiki has been set up. Collaborators claim so far to have found plagiarism in more than 1/5 of the thesis by volume ** (link to DE news story), though to be fair it's not all verified.
For a visual ( Read more... )

Germany's defence minister is Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (yes, that's really his name, though Freiherr is his title, Baron.)

Zu Guttenberg completed his law PhD about 5 years ago, but is now facing allegations of plagiarism (English link). This apparently even ( Read more... )

The German-speaking world is known for adoption of English, sometimes infusing words with peculiar meanings. Two examples illustrate:
"Handy": mobile phone
"Messy": pack rat (compulsive hoarder)

In this vein, seen on the side of a car recently: www.ass-team.net (most definitely SFW)

A friend from university wrote once that Americans often start a talk or presentation with a joke, Germans with an apology, and Russians with a complaint. But people from the Middle East, he said, often start with a conspiracy theory. Now, I'm not exactly middle-eastern, but three generations of my family did live in Egypt ( Read more... )

Bickering Belgian politicians should be starved of sex until they can create a new gummint *, says married Belgian politician **.

Ah, Belgium! The elections happened last June, but the various parties have been unable to agree a government. The world hasn't ended, The country continues to function; not least because the national government is ( Read more... )

This is a story about a teacher who got fired and then officially reprimanded. The reason for all the fuss is that he failed to provide a formal, written risk assessment before spontaneously allowing a couple of 15-year-old boys to ride a toboggan down a small slope under his supervision. Oh, and he didn't make sure the kids were wearing the ' ( Read more... )

What is it about homeopathy that makes some people weak at the knees? Even those who are usually intelligent and sensible ( Read more... )