OpenLife

InternetJura. Finally, the much anticipated second edition of the textbook InternetJura (”Internet law”) that I co-authored with Helen Holdt og Kasper Heine back in 1997/1998 will be published by Thomson 9 August 2002. The new edition where Helen Holdt has been replaced by Jan Trzaskowski as co-author is a heavy thing - 668 pages in hardcover. I would be lying, if I said that the second edition was a labor of love. The truth is that finishing the new book during a time where me and my co-authors have had plenty of other stuff to do has been a pain in the butt.

The logotype used back in 1996)

Araneum. It was made public on 29 July 2002 that TietoEnator, the Finnish/Swedish IT-company, have signed an letter of intent to buy Araneum. Araneum is the leading Danish that was the result of a merger 1. January 2000 between Netbureauet and Araneum. I founded the latter together with Alexander Aghassipour in March 1995. The agreement was reported among other places in an article in ComputerWorld online.

I have signed an NDA that prevents me from giving any detalis of the agreement. I can, however, assure that I am very pleased with the fact that it now seems that TietoEnator will take over Araneum and continue it. This is a very good solution for Araneum as a company, customers, employees and creditors. It probably will not surprise anyone that we the founders and shareholders will not be gilded in this deal. Times have changed oh so much since back in 1999/2000 where a webagency at Araneum’s size could be valued at almost 0.5 billion Danish (papermoney) kroner.

Alt om Data. start irony - My highest acheivement so far: I have made it to the cover of the August 2002 issue of the Danish datamagazine Alt om Data (”Everything about Data”) - end irony

Boykot Danmark. Normally this blog is not for political rants. Politics is often a futile endeavor. More often I simple do not understand politics and its inner workings. However, forgive me because I cannot help posting this one. I promise that it will be a while before this happens again.

Yesterday evening, on my way back after one of my all too infrequent jogs in Kongens Have (the King’s Garden), I noticed a poster on one of the building walls. It simply said: Boykot Danmark and had a pointer to a web-site http://www.boykotdanmark.dk/.

According to the web-site, BOYKOT DANMARK is a project addressing tolerance in public spaces. It is a campaign, which encourages the reconsidering and questioning of Danishness and the national patriotism. BOYKOT DANMARK encourages the boycott of a Danish mentality witnessed in public spaces. Boycotting the discrimination that manifests itself in subtle daily attacks on people with un-Danish habits and expressions. BOYKOT DANMARK boycotts the silent exclusion of people according to their cultural background, ethnicity or religion.

I - and probably most other people - wholeheartedly agrees with that we should always be addressing tolerance in public spaces and that any silent exclusion of people according to their cultural background, ethnicity or religion should be boycotted. What makes me suspicious and nervous about reading such always true and right statements is first of all that I have not got a clue about who are making them. No where on the web-site are there any information let alone indications as to who are the people or the organization behind the project. Not even a query on boykotdanmark.dk to the DK-Hostmaster will help you. I cannot see whether this web-site is the doing of right or left wing fanatics or of respectable people or organizations.

The web-site states about red and white as a symbol of Denmark and Danishness, that with the latest political development, these symbols have taken on a new meaning. Red and white now personifies intolerance, ignorance, and disrespect. It chastises the dissimilar instead of advocating for an open democracy, dialogue and respect. How can you talk about concepts as ignorance, open democracy, dialoque and respect when you are hiding behind anonymity!

Our western civilization is in badly need for constructive critique. After the fall of the world capitalistic thinking has not been challenged sufficiently. And challenged it needs to be. Enron, WorldCom and other manifestations of markets that are not working the way they should calls for a reaction from the people and their legislator. We must learn to recognize the need for bringing many more foreigners into our society in order to secure the welfare of the comming generations. We need to be internationalistic not nationalistic. It is a simple matter of demographics.

Please, come up with some constructive, intelligent and potent arguments that can better our democratic society instead of swimming without moving in old long forgotten and undemocratic paradigms of the 70s.

Admiral Gjeddes Gaard. Hot summer Sunday in the center of Copenhagen. Hopefully, there will be more of these this year.The pictures above are shot from the top of Rundetaarn (The Round Tower) towards Admiral Gjeddes Gaard. Our roof terrace is in the lower right corner on the first picture. On the second, I have zoomed onto the terrace where Jeanne is standing in the middle.

Metrostar*. Article on metrostar* in JyllandPosten 22 July 2002. Metrostar* ApS is a Wi-Fi startup company that I have founded with Nikolaj Nyholm and Thomas Madsen-Mygdal (on the picture above). Read the article here http://www.jp.dk/itogc:aid=1336396/.

PC Forum 2002. I just received the printed proceedings from this year’s PC Forum back in March in Scottsdale, Arizona. The picture of me between two other attendees - Gert Birnbacher from the Danish eBusiness Association and Andreas Kemi from Fathom Technology - is from the conference book. It’s one of the very few events that I cannot miss. Hopefully, my conference allowances permits my to go next year again.

Wi-Fi HotSpots. Very funny Doonesbury (by Garry Trudeau) comic strip from ucomics.com.

M/Y Skat. Last night (20 July 2002) Jeanne and I spend a fantastic evening at the M/Y Skat celebrating its maiden voyage. M/Y Skat is a huge yacht (73 meters) owned by Charles Simonyi who is chief architect at Microsoft. He joined Microsoft in 1981 to start the development of microcomputer application programs. He hired and managed teams who developed Microsoft Excel, Multiplan, Word, and other applications. In 1991, he moved on to Microsoft Research where he focused on Intentional Programming, an “ecology for abstractions” which strives for maximal reuse of components by separating high level intentions from implementation detail. Before coming to Microsoft, Simonyi worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center developing Bravo, the first WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Born in Budapest, Hungary, Simonyi holds a BS degree in engineering mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford (cited from the Edge interview).


(The first time in more than 2 years that I have been wearing a tie. M/Y Skat is the huge vessel in the background)

Charles Simonyi actually spend almost two years at Regnecentralen after he escaped communist Hungary in the mid-sixties and before he went to Berkeley to study. The party last night was held in Copenhagen for Charles Simonyi to catch up with his old friends here from the days at Regnecentralen. Jeanne and I together with some other non-Regnecentralen people were invited as members of the general IT-crowd here in Denmark.

(Friends at the helicopter deck. From the right: Tor Nørretranders, Nikolaj Nyholm, Sebastiab Buettrich, Line Toftsø Nyholm, Anna Buettrich and Jeanne.)

The entrance to the party was kind of strange. In the invitation, guest were asked to wear nautical or black tie and that is how people showed up. However, before entering the yacht everybody was asked to take off their shoes in order to protect the wooden floors and the carpets onboard the ship. So here you had a lot of dressed up people in kind of a formal attire walking around in their stockings or with bare feet. Not that I mind walking with my feet bare. I like being casual. But why not then in the first place just ask the guests in the invitation to dress casual. Anyway, it was lots of fun to experience such a splendid yacht, to enjoy some good food and drinks, to talk to friends and to watch the surprise of the evening: A very impressive display of fireworks from Kvæsthusbroen. The yacht was moored just next to Amaliehaven.

(In the late evening, warming our feet in the hot Jacuzzi. In the picture is also Thomas Mygdal-Madsen.)

M/Y Skat is truly impressive though not very beautiful. I was told that the price tag on the yacht had read almost 50 mill. USD. As as Dane it is hard to fathom that someone can have such wealth that he can pay that kind of money for a ship that he only plans to spend about 10 days a year on. Charles Simonyi, however, also does good deeds with his money. He is the benefactor of two chairs: The Charles Simonyi Professorship For The Understanding Of Science at Oxford University which is held by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins; and the Charles Simonyi Professorship in Theoretical Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Admiral Gjeddes Gaard. My cousin Benjamin Lundström has produced these fine stitched pictures taken with his Canon PowerShot S30 from the Digterkroen (”The Poets’ Inn”) and Holbergsalen (”Holberg’s Hall”) which are part of the meeting facilities that are offered by Jeanne Grønbæk - my wife - to people and organizations that want to use them for meetings, seminars etc.