Category: General

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Random thoughts about injustices

Related to the actual incident all over Austrian News about the Tramway Driver on Line 1 who ended a speech with the Hitler salute:

One Tramwaydriver makes a bad & stupid joke and looses his job and maybe also gets punishment by the law and is all over the news. Somehow I think he is a poor guy, who maybe watched to much Sterman & Grisseman and didn’t realize what the difference between these two and him is.
Why I think he is a poor guy?

Because there are some politicians which say “Ausländer raus!” and other things (or praise the working environment in the third reich) and what do they get for it?
They get a good salary as Nationalrat and when they die they are nearly praised as a Volksheld by a whole Bundesland.

So “Wiederbetätigung” will be punished roughly and Xenophobia not?

Somehow strange all in all, isn’t it? I find the media coverage of this horrible.
I was there, and I didn’t really see that the people where laughing and cheering about this bad joke.
In reality the atmosphere on the last round around the ring, after his speech was very depressing, people talked about him and where trying to find out how he meant it.

I agree with the decision of the Wr. Linien to cancel his contract, but if he get’s punished for it, then I’d like to see much more people get punished for their statements.

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BarCamp Vienna 08 – Impressions after 1 1/2 days

Yesterday, the BarCamp Vienna 2008 started. It is the first BarCamp I am attending and after one and a half day I’m trying to put the experience (which was much greater than I expected) in words.
As there is not much time (lunch will be ready soon) just some short impressions/thoughts:

1) Twitter is really a useful tool for such Conferences. Everyone is tagging their Tweets with the Tag #bcv08. You can find all Tweets with that Tag on Twitter Search. Even if you are there and see what’s going on, it’s great to see what’s happening in other sessions or read other peoples thoughts about the session you are attending.

2) The Sessions are not everything. As every event, BarCamp is also a social Event and so there is much “networking” going on. But “networking” in a good & nice way. Soo many different people (Students, Founders of StartUps, People working in the IT Sector, Marketing People, Politicians,…) in one place makes the BarCamp such a great experience.

3) It’s interesting to get to know People you know by their blogs (or even people you “know” already since years through Online Communities) in person. As with many events organized by Online Communites which I attended, you feel like you already know the people you meet in person because of their “online presence”.

4) Somehow (probably because there are so many Bloggers here), by attending this BarCamp you find motivation to blog, you find out how useful Twitter can be and how to really use it. I twittered more in the last 1 1/2 days than in the 24 days before. The motivation to blog partly comes also from the fact that by Twittering for example about the BarCamp you have more attention from persons who before didn’t know your Blog and this way more people look at your blog or mention it in their blog. And due to the fact that I see that people are reading and at least partly interested in this blog, I’m more motivated to write Posts.

5) By attending such a “Conference” with your Laptop, you also change your style of Internet Usage. You no longer just browse randomly from website to website, you “report” about the conference via Twitter, IRC or Blog; watch the Twitter Search for the #bcv08 Tag, reply to people and twitter short thoughts about the Sessions or something else. In between you think what you will talk about in your Session and prepare a Presentation for it in the Evening. I think from now on I will more often take my laptop with me when I’m not at home and try to work with it on interesting things (read blogs/articles,write on twitter or on the blog,do university related stuff,…) and not just stupidly browse around. (There is a Word … wilfing or so for it … don’t have time to find it out now)

So these were my first experiences/impressions, Lunch is ready. Also another experience now after writing this Blog entry in a little bit of a “hurry” you find out that Blog Posts can be written fast. They don’t have to be perfect, better a not perfect Post than no Post.
My Session is at 2 pm in the yellow room, I’m looking forward to it 🙂

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Barcamp Vienna 08

This weekend (4th and 5th of October) I’m attending the BarCamp Vienna. It’s my first BarCamp and I’m curious how it will be.
What is a BarCamp: Wikipedia Article BarCamp
More Informations about BarCamps in Austria: barcamp.at

I will try to twitter some of my Impressions of the BarCamp directly from there.

One of the rules of a BarCamp is: “If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present.”
I’m not really reluctant to present, but I’m not sure if I know any interesting topic for this BarCamp. The only thing I could present about would be Couchsurfing, we will see, maybe I could present it as an successful example of a Virtual Community, more talking about the Couchsurfing Community and what we are doing and what we could do, instead of presenting what Couchsurfing is about (I think that’s not soo hard to find out anymore 🙂 ).

Maybe someone wants to join forces with me and present something together? Maybe someone wants to give some input?

Let’s see how the BarCamp is on Saturday, I will do the “extension” of the “presenting” rule (“Ok, you don’t really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.”) on Saturday, let my first day at an BarCamp “sink in” and then think about presenting again Saturday evening.

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Blogging,Twittering and Studying

Blogging is something I feel I should do more often. In the last months I started reading more and more really good blogs and somehow I think I would like to share thoughts/ideas via this blog (or on my new Twitter Feed), but I’m to lazy for it.
Maybe this is also because English is not my mother tongue and it would maybe be easier to write in German. Don’t really know, will try to find out. For the moment I will blog in English.

Some words about Twitter (that I could not fit into Messages with a maximum lenght of 140 Characters 😉 ):
Some weeks ago I started reading more and more on Twitter and found it very interesting. I especially like the replies to other Tweets, because you find other interesting Twitter Users and the whole thing becomes more dynamic, more like if people would talk to each other in person.
Then I created my own account,and now I’m not sure about how to use it. Maybe I want to do it more often or not. From time to time doesn’t really make sense.

Studying is something that will also use up some time in the next months, because tomorrow the winter term starts at University, so I will be there more often again 🙂
Tomorrow I’ll attend the Beginners Day for Computer Science Students. Not really because I’m a real Beginner (already had 2 semesters to find out how some things work at the University) but more for the social component. Maybe I’m gonna meet someone I know, maybe some new interesting people, let’s see 🙂

Ohh and I changed this blog back to the standard theme because I just realized that the Fast Lane theme hides all the links … stupid theme, even though it looked so nice.

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WordPress Themes

So as you may have noticed, this blog now has a different theme. Many thanks to Sonja for looking out for nice Themes and choosing it. It’s really great, I even like the picture so much that I will keep it at least for some time.

But searching for a good theme is not easy. The usability of http://themes.wordpress.net/ is not the best of all and so many themes out there have bugs. Also this one, especially with the Smileys and SubCategories. But anyway it’s better than the standard theme.

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time for an update …

I just saw that I’ve not written into this blog for 8 1/2 months, well bloggin regulary is not so easy as it seems. So here is a short update about my life 🙂

University is going on smoothly and my progress on the Studienberechtigungsprüfung is good from my point of view. (Physics, English and Elective finished, 2 of 5 Mathcourses finished)

In a Seminary I’m attending we have to make a projectlog and so I will use this blog for it … but more in a seperate entry.

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Wow!

Hey,
I just realized that there are actually sometimes people who read this blog. Hurray! 🙂

Another Update: Had my english exam last friday, still no information if I passed it or not, but it looked easy.

Btw, can someone tell me why my ScribeFire is no longer working with this blog? What a pitty, it’s such a nice Tool 🙂

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Short Update about my "Studienberechtigungsprüfung"

Just a very short update. I did write in my last post that I did not have the written confirmation for the allowance to the “Studienberechtigungsprüfung”.

And now finally, I got it on Wednesday. So next step (till the beginning of the winter semester) will be my English exam.

I’ll keep you updated.

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Life 2.0

Another 4 Months without any Update to this blog … much things happened in the mean time and I hope that I will blog more in the future.

After returning from Prague and thinking about what to do in the next months I decided to don’t go on a really long trip. It was a decision travel lust vs. money & comfort. And money and comfort did win, so I did renovate my apartment (and I am still renovating) and looked for a new Job.
Which was not that easy. And was not really fruitful. Probably too many people out there looking for a job in the area of Systems Engineering for Microsoft Operating Systems.

But around the end of March I found a new destiny in life. I want to make the so called “Studienberechtigungsprüfung” (5 exams after which you can go to University and study) and study Computer Science.
At first it was just some idea, but after reading more and more (about the “Studienberechtigungsprüfung”, scholarship and Computer Science studies) I thought: OK I can do that, I can make these exams and afterwards start to study.

Also in the meantime I started to freshen up my programming skills and learn Java (which is needed at most Computer Science studies). Was not that hard to learn it, even though I didn’t really program since school,which is already around 6 to 7 years. But basic programming skills (like how if,then,else;for;while;… works) are hard to forget.

So after finally deciding (To which University do I want to go? Which study do I want to do?) and getting informations, I applied for the “Studienberechtigungsprüfung” around 3 weeks ago and already did the elective (which was to write an easy algorithm in Java). I still don’t have the written approval, but the Professor told me he will give his approval.

In Winter semester 2007 I will start some courses for the “Studienberechtigungsprüfung” (Math, German, Physics) for a Bachelor in Computer Science at the “TU Wien” and till then visit some university lectures to get a general feeling about University.

That’s why I subtitled my blog: Life 2.0 … it feels like that, the beginning of a completely different chapter in my life. Hope that it works out as I want it to, but I’m sure that it does.

All for now, next entry hopefully earlier than in 4 months 🙂

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Herding sheeps in New Zealand

I would like to, but the title is not what I’m currently doing. But it’s related to something that gave me think again about “the Trip”, about being on the road longer than the 3 weeks I’ve done this summer.

Mid of september I’ve quitted my job, to find a new work, where I can learn more and put my skills to a better use. Some days after sending a e-mail to everyone, telling them that I’ll , a colleague asked me: “What is it? A new job or India?” Funny question, but it gave me to think. The colleague already knew that I want to do a longer trip once in my life, and so she thought maybe this is why I quit. But I told her not this time, for some years I still want to work, but maybe in 2 or 3 years. Thats where my other colleague said: “Why not now? Even I was in the US for 3 months, just flew there with no plan what to do there. Go on a trip, do herd sheeps in New Zealand, fight with beggars in South Africa, …”

These words were like drugs for an ex-addict.

But I think I still want to wait with “the Trip”. But I definitly want to do it. Would be nice to “herd sheeps in New Zealand”, but not now, not this year, not next year. Maybe after that. In the meantime I can do smaller travels and hear all the great stories Couchsurfers tell me.