Noteworthy

Weimar – Höhepunkt der deutschen Geistesgeschichte und Tiefpunkt der deutschen Vergangenheit

Warum es KZ Buchenwald und nicht KZ Weimar heisst? Es gab dazu Streit, so der mdr

Die Bezeichnung [Weimar] lehnte die Weimarer NS-Kulturgemeinde ab, da diese doch zu sehr mit der von den Nazis für sich reklamierten Weimarer Klassik mit Goethe und Schiller verbunden war. Eine Benennung nach einer kleineren Ortschaft in der Gegend [Ettersberg] lehnte wiederum die SS ab, da sie dann eine geringere Besoldung erhalten hätte. Schließlich wurde das KZ auf Weisung von SS-Reichsführer Himmler “K.L. Buchenwald/Post Weimar” genannt und unter diesem Namen auch im Telefonbuch eingetragen.

Bis heute sind die Daten der Häftlinge nicht erfasst – wer will kann dabei helfen, Dateikarten im Arolsen Archiv zu digitalisieren #everynamecounts.


Denkmal an ein Denkmal
“Zu Beginn unseres gemeinsamen Besuchs der Gedenkstätte Buchenwald haben der amerikanische Präsident und ich vor dem Denkmal für alle Opfer gestanden. Wenn man eine Hand auf das Denkmal legt, spürt man, dass es erwärmt ist, erwärmt auf 37 Grad. Das ist die Temperatur eines Menschen, wenn er lebt. Hier aber war kein Ort des Lebens, hier war ein Ort des Todes.”
Die Blumen liegen hier zu Ehren Eva Fahidi (1925-2023) die wenige Tage zuvor gestorben war.

 

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Noteworthy

Gegen das Schweigen und das Getöse erfinde ich das Wort

Hausfassade Weimar

über Oktavio Paz (1914-1998) auf infobae

Paz verwendet das literarische Genre des Essays, dessen Flexibilität es uns ermöglicht, über ein Thema nachzudenken, ohne den Vorwand zu haben, zu lehren oder universelle Gesetze aufzudecken. Der Aufsatz teilt einen reflektierenden Pfad, der gewissermaßen der Fluss des eigenen Bewusstseins ist. Der Autor weiß, dass Identität wie ein Labyrinth ein zu lösendes Problem ist. Für Mexiko ist es das Labyrinth der Einsamkeit[…]

Was bleibet aber, stiften die Dichter…

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Noteworthy

Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek

Dissertationen in der HAAB 9/2023 (c) wjst/imago
zur Geschichte der Bibliothek
Lutherbibel in der HAAB 9/2023 (c) wjst/imago
Nach Aussage eines Bibliothekars vor Ort stimmt die Legende, daß der damalige Direktor Michael Knoche bei dem Brand abends erschien und unter Lebensgefahr mit einem Feuerwehrmann auf die Galerie des brennenden Gebäudes ging um die Lutherbibel von 1534 zu retten

Rettung der Weimarer Aschebücher

 

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Philosophy

What is pseudoscience?

A recent Nature commentary defines pseudoscience as everything that cannot be empirically tested. Wikipedia is more comprehensive

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method

with a long footnote pointing towards Oxford English Dictionary 1989

A pretended or spurious science; a collection of related beliefs about the world mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method or as having the status that scientific truths now have.

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science 1988 gives probably the best definition

[w]hat is objectionable about these beliefs is that they masquerade as genuinely scientific ones…  claims presented so that they appear [to be] scientific even though they lack supporting evidence and plausibility” … In contrast, science is “a set of methods designed to describe and interpret observed and inferred phenomena, past or present, and aimed at building a testable body of knowledge open to rejection or confirmation”.

Here is my own definition of the scientific method in the ethics lecture 2021 (which is close to the initial statement).

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Philosophy, Software

No way to recognize AI generated text

Whatever I wrote before different methods to detect AI written text (using AI Text Classifer, GPTZero, Originality.AI…) seems now to be too optimistic. OpenAI even reports that AI detectors do not work at all

While some (including OpenAI) have released tools that purport to detect AI-generated content, none of these have proven to reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content.
Additionally, ChatGPT has no “knowledge” of what content could be AI-generated. It will sometimes make up responses to questions like “did you write this [essay]?” or “could this have been written by AI?” These responses are random and have no basis in fact.
…
When we at OpenAI tried to train an AI-generated content detector, we found that it labeled human-written text like Shakespeare and the Declaration of Independence as AI-generated.
…
Even if these tools could accurately identify AI-generated content (which they cannot yet), students can make small edits to evade detection.

BUT – according to a recent Copyleaks study, use of AI runs at high risk of plagiarizing earlier text that has been used to train the AI model. So it will be dangerous for everybody who is trying to cheat.

https://copyleaks.com/blog/copyleaks-ai-plagiarism-analysis-report

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Software

Suffer fools gladly

which is from the letter by Saint Paul in his second letter to the Church at Corinth (chapter 11) while today’s quote “neither suffers fools” is adapted from Walter Isaacson’s biography on “Elon Musk” published today

In the rarefied fraternity of people who have held the title of richest person on Earth, Musk and Gates have some similarities. Both have analytic minds, an ability to laser-focus, and an intellectual surety that edges into arrogance. Neither suffers fools. All of these traits made it likely they would eventually clash, which is what happened when Musk began giving Gates a tour of the factory.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Allergy, Software

Data security nightmare

A Mozilla Foundation analysis

The car brands we researched are terrible at privacy and security Why are cars we researched so bad at privacy? And how did they fall so far below our standards? Let us count the ways […] We reviewed 25 car brands in our research and we handed out 25 “dings” for how those companies collect and use data and personal information. That’s right: every car brand we looked at collects more personal data than necessary and uses that information for a reason other than to operate your vehicle and manage their relationship with you.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Joke

The dark factor

It seems that my dark factor is below average…

https://www.darkfactor.org defines the score as “the general tendency to maximize one’s individual utility — disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others —, accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications.”

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025
Philosophy

Science is great but scientists are still people

Time to read again the famous Kornberg article

In parlous times, some truths need to be remembered and repeated. When science is under attack from many quarters, we need to be reminded of the distinctions between the extraordinary power of science and the fallibility of those who practice it. We are aware of prodigious feats in the arts, law, and religion that endure for ages. Yet none of these disciplines offer individuals, as science does, the opportunity to contribute to a progressive understanding of nature. In persuading the public to support scientists in their attempts to achieve a more rational and effective understand-ing of ourselves and of the world about us, we must be clear in distinguishing the uniqueness of science as a practice from the human qualities of its practitioners.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 29.11.2025