A sad moment for computer sience and humanity in the information technology age as software developer, researcher and philosopher Joseph Weizenbaum died on March 5th (bios in en, de, the news in german).

He worked and taught for over 30 years at MIT but he always kept a healthy and quite entertaining critical distance towards computer and technology. He constantly reflected about our usage of information technology. And more than once he came to the conclusion: Don't use it this way!

He grew up in Berlin where he also lived for the last decade or so. When he was still a child his family luckily escaped Nazi Germany. Weizenbaum returned to the Nikolaiviertel neighborhood after his wife's death.

His great book 'Computer Power and Human Reason' had a major influence on me. Still highly recommended! His last article (german original), published on the day of his 85th birthday in german newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung is still laying on my desk beside the laptop. It is about the perception and interpretation of all the information which is accessible to us these times. The article's subtitle (printed version only) translates to: "Earth could be paradise, if only we were able to truely understand it."