another redefenition

holidays = more than 12 hours without lectures

Kundenabschreckung

Bei einer solchen Werbung wird auch das Vertrauen in die Ernsthaftigkeit des Betreibers erschüttert...
[gefunden online am 29.01.09]

introducing your course of study

you should make sure everybody understands what it is really about, otherwise you might end up with someone asking you:

"Your course is a main course, right?"

real timewasters

I simply get frustrated everytime when before finally getting down to work I have to search and install thousands of different tools for a functionality I already could use with something else, just to open some random file which is necessary to be able to start... In my world there should be only TEX..

Thoughts picked up on the way

Komik ist Tragik in Spiegelschrift...

[Freundeskreis - A.N.N.A]

I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am not your expectations, no, no
I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am a soul that lives within

[India.Arie - I am not my hair]

what if..

.. for each human there is really a path they are destined for but they are at the same time free to leave it, to sidestep from it, to keep going in circles instead? imagine there would be a sort of transparent hull around the path to guide the one travelling on it, which could at the same time be broken by each individual at all times by sheer will of ones mind? would one sense the resistance and reconsider? or play it down and go nevertheless, maybe even flee from the sensation of overstepping a border to nomansland?

deutsches blabla - schweres blabla

Ein Hoch auf deutsche Facebookwerbung....

holiday on ice

today i went for ice skating on one of the lakes not too far from home. it was simply beautiful - so much space, so few people, fresh crispy air, great view to the mountains, no noises except the crackling of the ice... we were skating round the whole lake, which took us quite a while. in some sense winter serves like an equalizer, making every part of the lake accessible even to people not owning land there. maybe some other day i will manage to put up some more pictures, for now just one so you get the idea that winter here is actually really beautiful ;)

tram to russia

hadn't it been for the tram driver shouting at people to clear the doors in most original bavarian, I truly would have believed this tram travelling to some russian city. it seemed highly bizarre that on a half hour's ride each group of people that entered the train started to speak in russian, on the phone, to each other...
it was like in a science fiction movie, where everything at first seems to be as always, until one notices that in fact under the surface everything is substantially different.

the answer is silence

what is the best strategy when the reaction to your action is silence?

to ask?

to assume everything is as it should?

to declare the action the acutal aim, consequently rendering an answer unneccessary?

to trust that there would be a response in case something went wrong?


these days i quite fancy the redefinition approaches; sadly they are not completely risk free..

let's go for a drink!

nice example of quite different strategies/control flows when tackling the same task..
thanks to elena who sent me this :)

another skype revelation

never be afraid to say what you feel. you can only die once.

relativizing opposites

left = right;

sometimes i really like program logic... :)

another approach to problem solving

picture wall

Some of you asked what became of the pictures I collected when I left Bz.. so here you can see them distributed around my room :) the ordering is quite random (probably the order in which i pulled them out of the envelope when fixing them up) so please don't use it to make any inferences on a imaginary friend-ranking :P
If someone feels they are missing on my wall, please feel free to send me a picture and I will happily find some space to put it (in case hard copy is no good for you, mail me the pic and I might eventually get round to print it myself ;).
Generally I have to say that I really like these pictures which make me think of you every day, hoping to see you again soon :)

random guest list

I wonder how it would be to make a party with all the people that I see online at the moment in skype.. Probably the best description would be 'quite randomized social experiment', as a lot of them are from totally different groups and have never met before, so the constellations would be rather interesting. Best would probably be if I was not present at that event, so the unifying factor would not be there either.. (and noone could eat me in case of things not working out ;)

one or the other or the same?

it never ceases to amaze me that there are people which are very important to me just maybe because of some facet of their character which proves to be the helping hand or the stone to stumble over which gives me the needed direction for my next steps.
quite often these people are probably not aware of their good influence on me and not always i can tell them (either i do not even know them as they might have impressed me by there way of behaving in passing by, or at the time when their behaviour is influencing me it is painful and so i cannot yet show/notice my appreciation for it).

this phenomenon in itself fascinates me a lot already. but even more interesting i find how the roles in this play change depending on the people with whom i interact. maybe it is best to use an approximate example to explain my point. each person biologically has parents, some have siblings, and some later might have a partner and children. let's pick one person which is in this full family network. it is clear to see that this person then has a lot of different roles with respect to nearly all of the others: the one of a child, the one of a sibling, the one of a partner, the one of a parent.. all those being just different facets of the same person, and likely to influence one another.

so with people around it is similar. maybe the roles are not defined that clearly in terms of family concepts only (especially as the definition of friendship is very hard to be put down with precision; again i wonder if it is rather a matter of personal attitude or not..). nevertheless, there seem to be similar patterns: one person takes a certain role when relating to me; possibly a role which i cannot at first understand.

however, what recently has happened is that all of a sudden i find myself exactly in this 'other' role, being unexpectedly confronted with the inside view and challenges, when interacting with somebody else (whilst they might be taking on 'my' own old role...) summing up, the result is rather .. well .. i dont know if more frightening or fascinating. probably both. often it gives interesting clues about what other people might have gone through when having to put up with me.. and at the same time, it makes it a bit easier to understand what the other one in 'my' other skin is going through.

of course these are only hypotheses, and it is likely that i skipped some things which would make my flood even close to consistent. but could it not be that everyone is incorporating (consciously or inconsciously? nearly?) all different roles in their personality? and that discovering one after the other would lead them to finally get an idea about their own identity?

a dream

was keeping me busy during this day. i think i will have to add something more to my future possible projects, as this could be one of the few dreamy things which i could tackle directly in real life: it is departing, following an ancient path, leaving behind all usual life surroundings. the possibilities are quite vast but still.. just the person which accompanied me in the dream does not know about their luck yet (and don't ask me who it was, i will not tell ;) but anyway, i wonder what it should mean to dream of a person.. if it is not just some qualities of them which make them enter your dreams, which could be found also in others, maybe even yourself? i don't know. it's not important right now anyway, as my idea still will have to wait for about more 2 years and god alone knows what will be then... :)

the aim of music

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

Mit aller Musik soll Gott geehrt und die Menschen erfreut werden. Wenn man Gott mit seiner Musik nicht ehrt, ist die Musik nur ein teuflischer Lärm und Krach

— J.S. Bach

4'33" or the absence of silence

today these music scores fell into my hands by mere chance. Of course I had heard about John Cage and his (in)famous piece before, but actually laying hands on the score and seeing how to write down 'nothing' really impressed me. It is nearly an offence to people to mock them in such way; but at the same time it is an act of a genius. In a handwritten introduction, one finds how to perform this piece:
It can be performed by any instrument or combinations of instruments, and there are different versions of subdividing it into the compulsory three movements. How this is done is up to the performer(s).
Then there is the piece - sketched down on one page three movements, all of them tacets... simply

        I
     tacet
       II
     tacet
      III
     tacet

nothing else...

Now my curiosity was definitely too much so I started searching more information on this piece. The most interesting ones I collected here for you:

first performance by david tudor



The reactions to this first performance were quite strong, from confused to furious. Somehow I can not even imagine how these people must have felt, being confronted with such performance, totally unexpectedly. At no time before this 'nothing', which actually reveiled the absence of total silence, had counted as music or had been performed as such in public. (Actually, the idea was not completely new. Other silences existed already at the time, however written down in another, more verbose way... )

By now, the piece has become very famous and is being performed with all kinds of groups of musicians for quite enthusiastic audiences. For me the most peculiar of those was the following:

performance by the bbc symphony orchestra



Isn't it incredible? To let this whole bunch of world class musicians sit and do nothing, apart from existing? As the presenter states, these performances incur a lot of tension.. I really believe this - actually I wonder if I could even sit out those 4 and a half minutes without bursting into laughter half way through!
But then, it surely must be a very fascinating experience.

If you are interested you might enjoy this short essay on the idea behind the piece, this article "the sounds of silence", and also the following one which raises the question who actually owns 'silence'?

last but not least, I wanted to share with you another one of John Cage's works - a sonata for prepared piano:

wow

cuba impressions


found on someones travel album

Ein gutes neues Jahr!

An nou fericit! šťastný nový rok! naya saal Mubarak Ho! शुभं नववर्षम्! !سنة سعيدة Urime viti i Ri! Feliz Ano Novo! Felice Anno Nuovo! Mutlu Yıllar! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! BONNE ANNÉE! Sretna Nova godina! Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! Kiortame pivdluaritlo! Onnellista Uutta Vuotta! Boldog Ooy Ayvet! Sanah Jadidah! Laimīgo Jauno Gadu! laimingų naujųjų metų! Godt Nyttår! C Новым Годом! 圣诞快乐并贺新禧!есела Коледа и щастлива Нова година!Καλά Χριστούγεννα κι Ευτυχισμένος ο Καινούριος Χρόνος! חג מולד שמח ושנה טובה クリスマス、新年おめでとうございます schöni Wiehnachte und es guets Neus! เมอรี่คริสต์มาส และสวัสดีปีใหม่ a freydikn nitl un a gor freylekhn nay-yor!