Hannes Seller
* 01. Juni 1988 † 14. Dezember 2021
Hannes Seller
* 01. Juni 1988 † 14. Dezember 2021
This website is for the memory of Hannes Seller, our friend and colleague. Hannes died on 14th December 2021, at the age of 33 years. We are grateful that he was part of our life.
Here, we want to share thoughts and memories. As one of you said upon learning about his death: "I am so very grateful for the positive ripples he sent into the world.“ Yes. He did. With this website, we want to ripple on … sending more positive small waves into the world, by memorizing him, memorizing what he taught us, memorizing what he liked, what he drew our attention to, and what he would have found funny.
If you want to contribute to this website (some lines, a picture ...), please send your contribution to admin@hannesseller.de (this message comes to me, Irene Peters. I'll upload your contribution). English or German, whichever you feel more comfortable with. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and memories.
A few days ago, our colleague and friend Hannes died of the consequences of a heart failure.
Hannes was a highly esteemed colleague. Those who worked with him appreciated his intelligence, thoroughness, and reliability.
As an instructor, he invested time and energy to help students succeed in subject matters that many felt difficult. They appreciated his generosity, his empathy, and his natural didactic talent.
And he was more than that: He was our friend. With his honest feedback, he helped us improve. With his knowledge and interests, he broadened our horizon. With his quiet, exquisite, uniquely Hannes humor, he gave us many delightful moments.
Hannes was 33 years old when he left us. We hope, and we believe, that he would have looked upon his life as fulfilled. He was a person with great consistency. He lived his passion. To quote one of his favorite authors:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones ... we are granted the opportunity to understand why our eyes are open, and why they see what they do ... After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?” (Richard Dawkins, 2006. Unweaving the Rainbow.)
In our deep sadness, we are grateful that we had his company for part of our way. We are treasuring what he leaves behind for us.
… that I learned of Hannes' death.
Actually, I was looking for Hannes to thank him for his endless help and friendship in what was for me a time of great helplessness. Something I unfortunately failed to do at the time. In this search I came across this beautiful site and I am at a loss for words. While reading the wonderful posts here, many beautiful memories come back to me. I would like to share one of them.
Hannes and I lived together in the same student dormitory. We had often talked about how I would love to learn playing Skat, the popular German card game. It takes three people, but no one wanted to play with Hannes and me. So Hannes decided to play for two people - an incredibly unexciting game for him, as there is little tension built up that way. Over many hours, I learned to play Skat from him. Hannes was always attentive, funny and an incredibly patient teacher for me. He usually sat cross-legged, somehow balancing a cup of tea and two hands of cards and managed to encourage me to take bigger risks in the game just by looking over his glasses and the rim of his cup, smiling at me. I often think of Hannes when I play Skat. His incredibly intelligent way of playing and the many little tricks and tips in the game still accompany me today.
Dear Hannes, unfortunately, I can only thank you in this way for all that I missed to say. You were an incredibly loyal and generous friend. Thank you.
… seitdem du von uns gingst.
In dem letzten Jahr wurde ich so oft an dich, deine Freude, deine Hingabe und deine Liebe erinnert. Jede einzelne Erinnerung trage ich im Herzen. Deine Art die Welt zu sehen, ist auch auf mich übergegangen und ich werde dies weiterhin leben. All die Jahre, die wir gemeinsam verbringen durften, haben mich weiter machen lassen. Dabei vergesse ich aber auch nie deine Eigenarten, mit denen du mich und uns alle zum Schmunzeln brachtest. Du hast uns im Herzen berührt.
Ich werde die Erinnerung an unsere Zeit immer im Herzen bewahren.
Hannes war nicht nur ein Kollege, der auch über seine Arbeit hinaus hilfsbereit war, alles gab und unterstützte, wo er nur konnte. Hannes war auch sehr störrischer Gesellschaftsspiel-Spieler, der es hasste zu verlieren. Eine Leseratte, die immer ein Buch bei sich trug. Jemand, der nicht viel übrig hatte für Sport jeglicher Art. Der schusselig war, wenn es um den Haushalt ging. Aber auch jemand der, ohne zu zögern, seinem Gegenüber eine Freude machen konnte, wenn er dies für würdig erachtete.
Ich kam in die Freude, Hannes in vielen Situationen begleiten zu dürfen und lernte, seine ganzen Facetten lieben.
Ich vermisse dich.
... this message. Thank you for sharing.
I maintained semi-regular contact with Hannes during his time at that HCU and afterwards. I reached out to him multiple times seeking advice. He really always was so encouraging and quick to lend a helping hand (or share a relevant resource).
I remember him telling me he started out in urban planning thinking it would be like Sim-city, only to find out that the emphasis at that HCU is more on people and participation (Also important, of course!). I was glad to see how he was able to shape his time studying REAP, working in your research group, and eventually moving onto further studies to deepen his knowledge of programming and technology development. I admired his enthusism and drive to continue learning.
And I am so very grateful for the positive ripples he sent into the world.
... habe ich von einem ehemaligen Kommilitonen an der HCU erfahren, dass Hannes Seller gestorben ist. Hannes hatte 2019 zusammen mit Irene Peters meine Bachelorarbeit betreut und war daneben auch mein Betreuer im Hiwi-Job und Dozent im P2-Projekt. In all diesen Bereichen habe ich Hannes als äußerst freundlich und hilfsbereit, vielleicht sogar aufopferungsvoll, erlebt. Als Dozent hatte er ganz offensichtlich ein ehrliches Interesse an unserem Lernerfolg und zudem ein sehr gutes Gespür dafür, wann seine stets kompetente, präzise und oft auch humorvolle Hilfestellung nötig war und wo er die Studierenden werkeln lassen konnte. Daran war auch für uns, die ihn nicht privat kannten, deutlich, dass Hannes seine Arbeit mit Herzblut gemacht hat. Er hatte seinen Anteil daran, dass ich und viele andere unsere Abschlüsse gemacht haben und nun in unserem Berufsfeld arbeiten, und dafür bin ich Hannes sehr dankbar.
... of working with Hannes on the HOOU R tutorial, where I got to know him a little better, and was shocked and saddened by his passing. I just wanted to share a few memories of Hannes.
Hannes was a brilliant guy with a mind like a trap, who in his curiosity and love for learning collected the most certificates from Coursera and Datacamp I've ever seen. I jokingly told him he was slacking one time because I had passed his point total in one of the R Studio datacamp tutorials. The next day he had doubled my points and I never caught up. Besides his playful competitiveness, we had a lot of fun working together and he was always generous with his time, explaining complex statistical concepts to me whenever necessary (which was often). He also wasn't afraid to be honest - giving me some much needed critical advice on my website, as well as writing a letter of recommendation and testimonial while I'm sure he was very busy.
During his and Prof. Peters’ course on statistics, Hannes was able to make what some consider a fairly dry subject quite entertaining by peppering in jokes and references throughout, and he was quite pleased when we would get the references or at least ask about them. Why, for example, did he always use ‘42’ as a filler number? Because it is the "answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" (Douglas Adams).
He was highly respected and well-liked by our class, and by myself. I was hoping to work with him again someday, as he was not only fun to work with, but one of the most intelligent people I've met. Sadly, none of us will get to see the heights he could've reached, but in his too brief time here on earth, he touched the lives of many and made it a better place. While those that are left behind will mourn him, I like to imagine Hannes is at peace, peeking at the architecture of existence. Satisfying his endless curiosity.
I wish you, his family and those that knew him my heartfelt sympathies. He will be missed.
… the sudden passing of Hannes Seller. Please know that my thoughts are with you, his family and friends at this very difficult time. Words don’t seem enough to console our grief for the loss of such an invaluable person. I remember he was very unique, always smiling and a very warm and welcoming person. We were very good friends. He was my guide in learning the programming language R, too. I remember our conversations about big data, and every time I was surprised by the depth of his thoughts and sensitivity. This is a very hard time for us, I can't believe we don't have him anymore. We have a really short time in this world. He was the only person that I knew who kept an old Nokia phone because of the data mess with the smartphones. We used to joke and say that our smart phones had become the extension of our brains and we are now very dependent on them.
In his memory, I want to call a quote from Horace Mann, a great educator, who said "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity". I know that in the world of unknown he is very proud of himself today, he accomplished everything that he could have accomplished. He educated a lot of people and left his positive contributions and memories with us. — My sincere condolences.
Hannes had a great sense of humor. Here’s a story. A few years ago, an exam question in a Bachelor course of mine required as correct answer “Nitrit – ein Fischgift” (nitrite, a fish toxin – the question was about combined sewer overflows). While grading, I noticed a number of exams in which the authors had written “Fischgin” in answering that question (in English, that would be “Fish Gin”). The exams with that funny answer lay next to one another in the stack that I had taken home for grading, suggesting that the authors had sat next to each other and handed in the exam around the same time. Indeed I did remember a group of young lads who had gotten up pretty much at the same time to hand in their exams. They also had common mistakes like “panthogens” instead of “pathogens” and more.
This was pretty strong evidence that they had copied from one another (and thus propagated this word “Fischgin” which one of them must have gleaned not quite correctly from another exam). I would have to call them into my office hours.
I told Hannes and Ivan about it, and we made a plan that I would collect the liquid at the bottom of our kitchen waste bucket (this stuff is quite fragrant), fill it into a small bottle and present it as "fish gin" to the students when we would discuss the matter.
So I did. I presented the bottle to the young lads and asked them „What is this?“. Baffled faces. “Sewage sludge?” one ventured. “No, this is fish gin!”. Puzzlement. “Fish gin! You wrote it in your exams! Don’t you know what it is?” – They had to re-write the exam, but we all had a good laugh.
A few weeks later, Hannes mails us this diagram with the subject line “Fischgin blubb blubb” and brings coffee mugs with this diagram printed on them to the office. The diagram has turned into a staple joke in my lecture.
Hannes was a chemistry aficionado. Notice the number of bonds and the bonding partners of the atoms. And the hitherto unkown element Ginium (Gi). And the O2 bubbles.
... denken wir an unseren Freund Hannes, Susi und seine Familie und Freunde. Hannes ist ein ganz wunderbarer Freund und Wegbegleiter für mich und meine Freundin, WG-Nachbar, Kommilitone an der HafenCity Universität und Kollege in der Arbeitsgruppe von Irene Peters gewesen. Auch in schwierigen Zeiten war er da und hat mich unterstützt. Wir haben in den vergangenen 9 Jahren viel erlebt und eine tolle Zeit gehabt. Hierfür bin ich ihm sehr dankbar!
Das bekannte Zitat von Dietrich Bonhoeffer beschreibt die Erinnerung und meine Zeit mit Hannes im Rückblick sehr gut:
"Je schöner und voller die Erinnerung, desto schwerer ist die Trennung. Aber die Dankbarkeit verwandelt die Erinnerung in eine stille Freude. Man trägt das vergangene Schöne nicht wie einen Stachel, sondern wie ein kostbares Geschenk in sich."
Hannes, sein Wesen und sein exzellenter, trockener Humor waren wirklich ein wahres Geschenk und er wird uns sehr fehlen... auch wir haben an der Fischgin-Geschichte Freude gehabt. Hannes trank öfters aus seiner Fischgin-Tasse seinen Karamell-Krokant-Kaffee und wir mussten jedes Mal von Neuem über diese Geschichte schmunzeln.
… that really meant something to me as a student:
My fellow 11th generation REAP students and I met Hannes in the first lecture of the Research Methods and Statistics course. After explanations of the intricacies of regression analysis, and how we were expected to learn and utilize the R programming language, the course requirements seemed rather daunting. For those of us not as familiar with these concepts, this was a bit overwhelming for the first day of a course. Hannes knew this.
I will never forget how he ended his lecture that day: he simply said "You can do this." (I believe he even had it written on the last slide of his presentation).
Over the course of the semester, he was always more than willing to sit down and give clarification, and to demonstrate commands in R Studio. From his lectures and the materials that he provided, we really were able to start programming with R. In the end, he was right: we could do it, and we did do it.
… and one that reminds us that even if it is sad … we remain thankful for the gift of your life.
Recently learnt of your passing and found this so beautiful to share the memories. It was through the R Studio (Statistical Computing) class and even though brief … I will always be reminded of your calmness and ease in providing assistance and direction.
We pray that you remain in calm and peace and the impact of your life on others will forever be a gift to them.
Sincere condolences.
Impressum
Verantwortlich für den Inhalt dieser Seiten: Irene Peters, Hamburg (admin@hannesseller.de)