PhD – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

Cancelled Workshop on Viewpoint Diversity in HCI

2025-04-11

A workshop proposal about viewpoint diversity that — unfortunately — I cannot do at the moment and had to retract. In my opinion it is too good to vanish on some hard drive.
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Calisca Writing Editor-Role Update

2025-01-17

Writing texts without feedback is extremely difficult. You often don't see your biases or idiosyncrasies. A good editor can help here, make you sound more like yourself, but also much better. And apparently that's a task ChatGPT can do very well.
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Recommendation: Jordan Peterson and Lee Jussim

2025-01-07

Very interesting interview if you are interested in psychology, left-wing authoritarianism, and dealing with cancel mobs.
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DIE and Hell

2024-05-22

Niall Ferguson makes a great point about DIE (more accurate than DEI) at universities.
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Multiple Variables per Bullet Point Line in Obsidian — Great Way to Create Questionnaire Item Lists with DataView

2024-05-07

The DataView Plugin for Obsidian is very powerful. I can do complex queries based on multiple variables affecting the same bullet point line. Which is great if you want a table of possible questionnaire items.
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One Tip for Leaving Your Comfort Zone

2024-02-03

Anne Lamott's tip «Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.» is applicable to a wide variety of situations.
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ChatGPT as Counsellor

2024-01-29

ChatGPT is astonishingly good in taking the role of a counsellor.

Image: Ezri Dax from «Star Trek DS9» via https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ezri_Dax
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ChatGPTs Essay on «I am a scientist because science brings me closer to something greater than myself»

2024-01-27

Asking ChatGPT to write an essay on the theme of «I am a scientist because science brings me closer to something greater than myself.».

Image from «Mass Effect: Andromeda» (cropped).
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Giving Feedback to Student Texts with R and Obsidian Templates

2023-12-04

Might be an overkill, but makes giving feedback to student writing a bit less sucky.
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Keeping Your Head Clear in the Morning

2023-12-03

Simple (but not easy) effective method to keep the head free in the morning.
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.