... of Thomas Dübendorfer

The following text about me was originally written in mid 2001 for "Mensa Inside", the Magazin of the Swiss Mensa Society, and was only slightly updated:

"You must be the new one," was the first sentence I heard after just having entered an Italian restaurant where a "Pizza mensana" had been announced. This warm welcome by the organizer of the meeting made me feel comfortable right from the beginning. Although I got my member account just the evening before I already had a faint idea about how the Mensa community does look like (by having read the online January issue of Mensa Inside and by a search through the member database). It did not take long until I was gently asked to tell something about me and what made me join Mensa.

As the second topic about why I joined Mensa is more straight forward to answer I will start with that. On a sunny but cold day this January I asked myself the question about what intelligence might really be. My biology teacher once revealed to us that we are part of the species "homo sapiens sapiens", which made me think (as "sapiens" is Latin for "wise"). Somehow my picture of the way people act (e.g., burning all the fossil fuels before making any serious attempts to start thinking about what could be wrong about it or e.g., how rude some people interact with peers) did not fit in the previously mentioned notion. So I had a look on the Internet and it did not take long until I found Mensa with its lower IQ bound criteria for its members. I already had heard about Mensa when I voluntarily redesigned and extended the website of the Swiss Study Foundation (www.studienstiftung.ch) in 1998. But this time I got one step further and subscribed to the IQ test offered by Mensa. Some weeks later I was kindly invited to join them upon passing the test. I still do not know what intelligence might be but I am trying hard to find out. You might want to tell me your point of view about what makes you so sure that you regard "intelligence" as one of your properties or why you do not, so don't hesitate to contact me.

Now it's about time to return to the first topic "who am I?". In March 2001 I finished my computer science studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (better known as ETH) in Zurich and I was told by the head of the computer science department that my results were the best of the year. Although I did rather follow my personal interests by taking way more courses than were required and although I was working part-time during my studies instead of merely aiming at preventing any "risks" of bad marks, I quite appreciated that honour. In April I completed my complementary study of didactics and pedagogic, the so-called "höheres Lehramt". It is somewhat difficult to explain how I managed to attend two minors (human computer interaction, economics) as well as my complementary study "höheres Lehramt" in addition to my computer science study. The only advice that I can give is "just go for it - as long as you really like doing it". In July 2001 I was working at a major research laboratory in Palo Alto, California (this region is part of the well-known "Silicon Valley") and enjoying life as well as supporting the brain drain (at least temporarily). Since I came back to small but beautiful Switzerland, I am doing research in computer science at ETH Zurich.

"Why did you choose 'computer science' as your study and would you choose it again," you might ask. I definitely would although studying in a constantly changing scientific field can be quite challenging. In the new economy a traditional year only lasts about 3 month, some visionaries say and they are not too wrong. What really fascinates me is the tremendous impact that computer science has on our society - especially if I compare the social interaction patterns of the tekkie generation with my grand parent's social life. Receiving far more e-mails than phone calls a day is a widespread fact and the trend towards short-term and spontaneous activities (organized by mobile phone calls, SMS and e-mailings) can't be denied anymore. But what's so special about those dumb computers? They cannot learn and do not adapt to me - I always have to adapt to them as a user. They quite often crash and lose my valuable work without being sorry for what they have done. Nobody would tolerate a car that throws exceptions and suddenly stops on the highway while showing artistic blue screens with some undecipherable hex values. And nobody would buy a car without getting any warranty at all. Surprisingly enough people just do not seem to really care about "warranty disclaimers" and "paying for bugfixes" (euphemistically called "updates" as they are wrapped with some additional unneeded features) when ordering software. Of course, there are some fundamental reasons why a software on a multi-vendor open platform such as a PC is intrinsically buggy but you have to admit that it could be worse and that it is getting better. What I like best is the core of computer science, which is better expressed in the German term "Informatik" ("Information" plus "Mathematik" or "Automatik"). It is the possibility to incorporate a complex information processing task into a program that runs on a simple, dumb, human-made machine. The creative process of analysing a complex system, breaking it down to small and understandable pieces, and finally putting it into a suitable machine readable representation will remain a human task for the next decades to come. But the repetitious and often boring work can be fully automated and carried out by a machine. Most important for me is that computer science is about finding solutions to help people accomplish their tasks more easily and not just about writing code for other people's computers. This was one reason for me to take the courses about didactics and pedagogic. Developers that do not take the time to talk to their customers can't possibly implement a user-friendly ergonomic and efficient solution.
Besides programming night and day and not talking to anyone who is not a machine - I am just kidding in order to emphasize a widely spread idiosyncrasy of all and every computer scientist - I was Vice President of the VIS (the computer science student's association at ETH). My main task was motivating students to dedicate some of their valuable time (as expressed in "lost money" while not working) to organize outstanding events such as the VIS anniversary in the Volkshaus for 240 people, contribute to our magazine VISIONEN and to establish and introduce new services for other students.

For now I hope that you are not excessively disappointed when recognizing that this text will end almost too soon without me having told you anything about my numerous hobbies and personal affairs but I definitely am not going to write here that I am fond of chocolate mousse and that I would have to invent the piano and Jazz if both were not already there. That much for the plenum. If you want to know more about me or if you want to share some of your philosophical or otherwise soaring thoughts, please don't hesitate to contact me.