Berlin's Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch

The Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch in Berlin yesterday was a lot of fun. Eike and I arrived a few minutes late only to realize we'd really not made good arrangements for how to find others at the huge beer garden. Eike took off his hat to be more easily recognizable; clearly I should have worn my pink shirt. Fortunately it didn't take us long to find the early birds; the hats with little propellers really helped. Beer is not my drink of choice, but I'm acquiring a taste for weißbier so I promptly started on one of those. After the social lubricant, we got down to some real hard work. First we created an economic model which we used to resolve the economic crisis.


Then we built a climate model and promptly came up with a way to halt global warming without banning SUVs.


Next we hashed out a new food distribution model to solve the problem of world hunger; there really is plenty of good food to go around.


And finally we created a new agent model to arrive at a proven policy for achieving world peace. We're calling the new policy: Open Source for Open Minds.


When all the great problems of our times were resolved, Ralph showed up to shower us with praise and more importantly, the free beer I promised.

I lost track of time after that. Good company and good beer tends to do that! Thanks for the fun time to those of you who came; sorry you couldn't make it to all the rest of you. Maybe next time...

Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch Plans

As my plane approached Frankfurt early Friday morning, the sun peeked over the horizon with promises of good things to come, which of course includes tomorrow's Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch Eike, Ralph, and I blogged about last week.


So far nineteen people have responded to our poll. We'll host the Stammtisch at Der Biergarten of the PraterGarten and start at around 6:30PM. What better place for free beer? It seats 600, in case a few more people decide to join the last minute. This is a golden opportunity to meet and greet!


Don't miss it. See you tomorrow, i.e., Wednesday August 19th.

Berlin: There I Go Again

Berlin was so cool I'm going back later this week to see all the things I missed in June.

Eike, Ralph, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to host an Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch on Wednesday August 19th. If you're not into modeling, you're still more than welcome to join the party; expect to be converted into the fold.

Please let us know your intent to join by completing this poll. We'll find a good location based on attendance. Did I mention Ralph's promise of free beer?

On Dead Lines

Although lines don't die, deadlines are nevertheless an ugly fact of reality. In particular, the opportunity to submit a talk for Eclipse Summit Europe 2009 is rapidly reaching its inevitable conclusion. This year's drop dead date is August 19th so you have just barely over two weeks to dilly-dally before it's too late. After that, it will just be so much water under the bridge, or is that over the falls...

The runtime folks are certainly off to a running start with their submissions---not that I'm competitive or anything---while the modeling submissions are sadly lagging. No doubt folks are busy modeling their submissions first and will hence be far ahead of the game in the end. Of course my whining is really just a case of the pot calling the kettle black given that I've not yet submitted a proposal for the modeling symposium, as I committed to doing several weeks ago. In my defense, I've been traveling and Vancouver was way too beautiful to spend at a computer! To my credit, today I'm working during a holiday.