Last Saturday I heard this famous Wham song again for the first time this year. Not the best song but definitely an earworm and for mit it belongs to x-mas like santa clause or x-mas trees. Additionally shops and streets are already covered with x-mas decoration, is it really this time of year again? - GREAT :))
Just finished a 3 days exhibition / field study in Salzburg's biggest shopping center. We tested an ambient display installation in a sports store and conducted shopping observations based on camera built in spectacles. In this way we could watch on our computer what the participants saw while they were shopping and watched products, talked to other people or... It was hard work and I'm just exhausted. The regional TV station was also present and the spectacles cam is also shown for a few seconds on this online video stream of the news report.
I'm now attending the training of PSvBG Salzburg team that plays in Austria's National volleyball league. Maybe when when I'm grown-up :) I will also play in the team, for the meantime I attend the training as often as I can, try to improve myself and play in team #2. Keep your fingers crossed, maybe in a year or two...
Was driving in a taxi this weekend and the driver was listening to the Austrian radio station OE3 (they play music from robbie williams, tina turner, scissor sisters, boys & girls bands.. ). The weird thing though was that it was stored on on this radio on FM4 (=the 4th channel on this radio, unfortunately the quality of the picture is very bad). FYI: FM4 is the "alternative" radio station in Austria (they play placebo, beck, billy talent, scissor sisters (aha -some overlap, interesting:)). Alternative means that the music and image is the alternative to OE3. You can guess which station I'm listening to :)
after months of work Wolfgang, Christoph and I submitted a paper to next year's CHI conference in San Jose, CA. It's 0.30 am so we're finished in any possible sense and look forward to a good pint of beer (or two :)
I'm "using" some web 2.0 applications for personal interest (www.subpersonic.net will remain my most important site) and I also opened up an account on MySpace http://www.myspace.com/subpersonic Have 0 friends at the moment, so please join me :)
You find additional web 2.0 sites in the Links section.
I also changed the server for my website and I'm currently experiencing some minor problems, e.g. the guestbook doesn't work. Should you notice any other problems, please contact me, thx, bernd
Thanks to Christoph (biiiiiiiG THX) this website is now available on a real domain name: http://www.subpersonic.net/ :)
The CitySound Projekt connects the history of places in Salzburg with
music and textual information integrated in a cool Flash movie. A great
project (unfortunately only in German) on http://www.citysound.at/
created by a friend.
I was at the Ars Electronica gala in Linz last Friday, where the Golden Micas were awarded to media artists. Some of the masterpiece were really amazing, above all the winner in the categorie of digital movies (or similar). The artists created a computer simulated of two snails in a dark techno style with fantastic music and everything very aesthetically, wow. The theme of this years festival is "simplicity: the art of complexity" and since I'm working in the field of usability, I also had to go to the exhibitions: some great work but some things were already from the last year and not so exciting. However, if you 've never been there - go there, it's amazing what is possible with new technology and creative ideas. http://www.aec.at/
... need a new one. if you have a working mobile phone that you don't need any more and would give away at a low price - i'm interested. thx
"Publish or perish" is a famous quote among scientist. I recently started my scientific career with a PhD and from time to time I publish papers with my colleagues -> see the Research part on this page. If you wonder why I'm never on the first place in the author list, read the truth on this comic on http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562
I was in the cinema yesterday and watched the British movie "My Summer of Love", directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. I expected a great story about expectations, dreams & love and a tragic end. Indeed the film combined all these elements with charming scenes of young naivety and funny criticism of religious fanatism. A great story about love with an end that brings one down to earth, but without exceding tragedy.
Interestingly my friend and I were the only men in the cinema, but never mind, I liked the film ;-)
... is "Zirkus" by Mia (not to be confused with M.I.A. (UK)). It's wonderful German electronic Pop music and brightens up the rainy days in Salzburg. I also like Mia's previous CDs but now they got rid of this pseudo-protest songs and make wonderful, cheering music. It's a fantastic counterpart to the melancholic or strange music I otherwise prefer. Especially the single "Tanz Der Moleküle" is a real catchy tune.
I put some pictures from a weekend in Venice in the Photos section, a wonderful weekend, nothing more to say.
So, Lena, Robert & Lorenz came to Salzburg to support Costa Rica in
the opening match of the FIFA world cup against Germany.
Even though Costa Rica lost 4-2, we celebrated every goal
fanatically and remembered the great time we had in Costa Rica,
at least I did ;-). Eventually summer came back to Salzburg
now after weeks weeks of winterly temperatures. Sorry for those visiting Salzburg
in the last weeks having awful weather,
even though there are always options to have a wonderful time here :)
...from this weekend (from the Gaisberg, the soccer match on the Residenzplatz (mind the helicopter) and the sunny sky above Salzburg)
Finally, I managed to put the photos from the trip to Canada online. The collection contains photos made by Christoph taken with his SLR (thx) and some shots I took with my digicam. The descriptions are very short, but I hope to be able to tell everyone of you more about the trip in a face-to-face setting.
After several days of heavy rain we experienced 2 days of sun in new brunswick. However, right now I'm sitting in a room without any windows attending a session at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing System (CHI) in Montreal. It's raining again in Montreal while the sun is shining in Salzburg (I hope that this is not the only sunny week this spring in Salzburg) However there are lots of interesting people here at the conference and before that I was cordially received in Montreal by Karin. We got to know at high school and she's now at the beginning of an incredible academic career in biochemistry.
We arrived yesterday in Halifax and the weather was rainy and stormy - typical scottish weather on Nova Scotia. Today we went to Peggy's Cove, a lovely small village with a harbour and a wonderful light house. We had sunshine for half an hour there but we learned what windchill means ;-) Now I'm sitting in Baddeck, appr. 400 km northeast from Peggy's Cove from where we start our trip round the Cabot Trail tomorrow morning. Life can be so nice.
Mild temperatures returned to Salzburg after nearly 6 months of snow. We used the sunshine to give my hammock from Costa Rica a try in the park of Hellbrunn Castle.
My team PSV Salzburg became champion in the volleyball league of the province of Salzburg, Austria. I have to admit I only played the last two games because of an injury last autumn and my trip to Costa Rica, but never mind. It's also not such a big deal because there are only four teams in this league (and two of them are PSV teams) but nevertheless it sounds good :)
I'm going to Canada by the end of April. Together with Wolfgang and Christoph I will be travelling round Nova Scotia and then from Halifax to Montreal. We will attend CHI 2006 and have a research in progress aka poster presentation there. *yipieh!*
It's so annoying. I just finished my Costa Rica online web album but the webserver of our university where I'm hosting my website doesn't work *grmpf*. I also scanned some action shots taken by a lomo camera (see weblink). I borrowed the camera from Regina for this holiday, but it got broken at the end of the journey. I'm very sorry for that and promised her to replace it.
It was ABSOLUTELY fantastic! Lena (our communication officer aka Lt. Uhura), Robert (technician aka Scottie), Lorenz (pilot aka Cpt. Kirk) & I (navigator) had an ABSOLUTELY fantastic time in Costa Rica (as well as few days in Nicaragua and Panama). I will put a few more picture and some anecdotes online in the photos section in the next few days. Saludos!
Monday was the day of my final exam for my master in communication science. After long discussions about my admission, 2 terms of studying, 1 term writing my diploma thesis and a month preparation for this exam it's over. I feel relieved and look forward to my holiday in Costa Rica together with Lena, Robert & Lorenz. I'm just happy :)
