Showing posts with label CeBIT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CeBIT. Show all posts
Thursday, March 20, 2008
OLPC Austria presentation at CeBIT 2008
Apart from having an OLPC Austria booth at CeBIT 2008 Aaron and me also held a presentation at the LinuxForum. This presentation was recorded and is now available at the Linux-Magazin.de website: LINK (Again the video is in German.)
Presenting the OLPC XO at CeBIT
My friend Sascha from eeepcnews.de recorded this short 5min video of me presenting the OLPC XO laptop and some of its highlights at CeBIT earlier this month. (Please note that the video is in German.)
Monday, March 3, 2008
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Friday, February 22, 2008
Movies, movies, movies, ...
It's just insane how quickly time passes, especially during the holidays. Being a student around here I'm currently enjoying 4 solid weeks of holidays in-between the two university terms. I spent the past 12 days back home in Upper Austria with my family and I'm proud to say that I managed to hit a perfect work-life balance. On the one hand I did get quite a lot of things done, for my bachelor thesis, preparation for the Chemnitzer LinuxTage and CeBIT (which means that I'll be heading to Germany for 10 days next Thursday) and also for the Activity Handbook. On the other hand I also spent a lot of time chillin', reading, visiting my grandmothers, meeting friends, going out and watching movies.
When it comes to watching movies I have a tendency to underachieve as they're are simply too many great movies to watch at any given moment. However this time 'round I had quite a good run as I saw the following movies in the past 2 weeks:
"3:10 to Yuma"
What can I say, this movie was everything I expected. And then some more. Having a thing for good vs. not-quite-sure-how-bad western stories and liking the main actors Christian Bale and Russell Crowe this film didn't have a chance of disappointing me. The pace of the film is just right with lots of action filled scenes and shoot-outs being balanced out by many quiet moments and dialogues. I'm not going to go into more details here but if you like westerns then this is a must-see!
"Charlie Wilson's War"
I read about that movie several weeks ago in the newspaper and based on the comments there I didn't expect to be blown away. And I wasn't. Charlie Wilson's War is definitely a solid movie and quite entertaining at times, however it's nothing to call home about. While Tom Hanks makes a solid impression as Charlie Wilson and his secretaries are definitely good looking my favorite character is CIA agent Gust Avrakotos who is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. In the end the portrayal of Charlie Wilson's actions and the results in Afghanistan are simply too shallow to have a lasting impact. Yes, the movie allows for a quick glance at the inner workings of how things came to be but these days I simply expect a broader and more differentiated perspective of things. You can watch it, but it's definitely not a must-see.
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Apart from deserving an Oscar for having one of the longest titles I found this western to be pretty darn good even though I'm not the biggest fan of the middle of the movie. The first and especially the last hour are absolutely amazing but there are about 40min somewhere in the middle where the movie is simply stretched too thinly and ends up being too long. The acting, especially by Brad Pitt (Jesse James) and Casey Affleck (Robert Ford) is outstanding and the quiet and long scenes really add a lot to the atmosphere. The movie is also quite stylized in some regards, especially when it comes to depicting violence. All in all certainly well recommended if you like westerns and/or enjoy a dense and epic struggle between two exceptionally well portrayed characters.
"Batman Begins"
I have to admit something, I hadn't seen Batman Begins up to now. I know, I know, there's no real excuse for that but now I'm glad I finally managed to watch the movie. I actually did it in anticipation of the release of "The Dark Knight" because after seeing that outstanding trailer [YouTube link] I know I have to see it once it hits the cinemas. Again with Batman Begins having been directed by Christopher Nolan, Gothan City being the prototype of a 'seedy', dark and atmospheric city (Sin City anyone?) and featuring Christian Bale and Michael Caine there's nothing that can really go wrong here. Even though the movie is nearly as long as "The Assassination of Jesse James" it never felt thinly stretched. In fact it's quite the opposite, all the 140min are dense and exciting and I wouldn't want to cut a minute of it.
"The Band's Visit"
This one is definitely the least well known movie on this list. The setting is quite simple: an Egyptian police band goes to Israel for a concert but ends up in the wrong city. There they meet some locals who help them out and thanks to one woman the members of the band are able to stay at various homes around the city while they wait for their bus to arrive the next morning. The individual members of the band and also the Israeli locals are all extremely interesting and different characters. Much of the communication in the film happens via facial expressions, small gestures and the lack of spoken words. The fact that the movie comes in a mixture of English, Hebrew and Arabic (with English subtitles) really adds to the atmosphere and realism. While the beginning focuses on the strange setting the story slowly develops to show the similarities between people who at first glance seemed to be so different. Some might go as far as saying that it's a romanticized and idealized notion of intercultural understanding and while that may be true I really liked the fact that the film focuses on the small steps towards each other that happen on a personal level. The movie might not be for everyone but I liked it a lot.
The next movie up my to-be-watched list is "Tropa de Elite" which won the Berlinale last Saturday. Seeing the first comments about the film and the fact that the co-writer is also behind the excellent "Cidade de Deus" / "City of God" I'm pretty certain that I'm going to like it. I actually wanted to watch the movie the other night but as it was quite late already I settled for "The Band's Visit" which was shorter.
Other films I hope to see in the near future include "Into The Wild", "No Country for Old Men", "Persepolis", "Cloverfield" and "Sweeney Todd".
When it comes to watching movies I have a tendency to underachieve as they're are simply too many great movies to watch at any given moment. However this time 'round I had quite a good run as I saw the following movies in the past 2 weeks:
"3:10 to Yuma"
What can I say, this movie was everything I expected. And then some more. Having a thing for good vs. not-quite-sure-how-bad western stories and liking the main actors Christian Bale and Russell Crowe this film didn't have a chance of disappointing me. The pace of the film is just right with lots of action filled scenes and shoot-outs being balanced out by many quiet moments and dialogues. I'm not going to go into more details here but if you like westerns then this is a must-see!
"Charlie Wilson's War"
I read about that movie several weeks ago in the newspaper and based on the comments there I didn't expect to be blown away. And I wasn't. Charlie Wilson's War is definitely a solid movie and quite entertaining at times, however it's nothing to call home about. While Tom Hanks makes a solid impression as Charlie Wilson and his secretaries are definitely good looking my favorite character is CIA agent Gust Avrakotos who is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. In the end the portrayal of Charlie Wilson's actions and the results in Afghanistan are simply too shallow to have a lasting impact. Yes, the movie allows for a quick glance at the inner workings of how things came to be but these days I simply expect a broader and more differentiated perspective of things. You can watch it, but it's definitely not a must-see.
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Apart from deserving an Oscar for having one of the longest titles I found this western to be pretty darn good even though I'm not the biggest fan of the middle of the movie. The first and especially the last hour are absolutely amazing but there are about 40min somewhere in the middle where the movie is simply stretched too thinly and ends up being too long. The acting, especially by Brad Pitt (Jesse James) and Casey Affleck (Robert Ford) is outstanding and the quiet and long scenes really add a lot to the atmosphere. The movie is also quite stylized in some regards, especially when it comes to depicting violence. All in all certainly well recommended if you like westerns and/or enjoy a dense and epic struggle between two exceptionally well portrayed characters.
"Batman Begins"
I have to admit something, I hadn't seen Batman Begins up to now. I know, I know, there's no real excuse for that but now I'm glad I finally managed to watch the movie. I actually did it in anticipation of the release of "The Dark Knight" because after seeing that outstanding trailer [YouTube link] I know I have to see it once it hits the cinemas. Again with Batman Begins having been directed by Christopher Nolan, Gothan City being the prototype of a 'seedy', dark and atmospheric city (Sin City anyone?) and featuring Christian Bale and Michael Caine there's nothing that can really go wrong here. Even though the movie is nearly as long as "The Assassination of Jesse James" it never felt thinly stretched. In fact it's quite the opposite, all the 140min are dense and exciting and I wouldn't want to cut a minute of it.
"The Band's Visit"
This one is definitely the least well known movie on this list. The setting is quite simple: an Egyptian police band goes to Israel for a concert but ends up in the wrong city. There they meet some locals who help them out and thanks to one woman the members of the band are able to stay at various homes around the city while they wait for their bus to arrive the next morning. The individual members of the band and also the Israeli locals are all extremely interesting and different characters. Much of the communication in the film happens via facial expressions, small gestures and the lack of spoken words. The fact that the movie comes in a mixture of English, Hebrew and Arabic (with English subtitles) really adds to the atmosphere and realism. While the beginning focuses on the strange setting the story slowly develops to show the similarities between people who at first glance seemed to be so different. Some might go as far as saying that it's a romanticized and idealized notion of intercultural understanding and while that may be true I really liked the fact that the film focuses on the small steps towards each other that happen on a personal level. The movie might not be for everyone but I liked it a lot.
The next movie up my to-be-watched list is "Tropa de Elite" which won the Berlinale last Saturday. Seeing the first comments about the film and the fact that the co-writer is also behind the excellent "Cidade de Deus" / "City of God" I'm pretty certain that I'm going to like it. I actually wanted to watch the movie the other night but as it was quite late already I settled for "The Band's Visit" which was shorter.
Other films I hope to see in the near future include "Into The Wild", "No Country for Old Men", "Persepolis", "Cloverfield" and "Sweeney Todd".
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
My mind is racing...
I'm looking at the clock in the lower-right corner of my screen and it tells me that I have to get up in less than 6 hours because I'll be helping out at the IT'n'T tradeshow (aka nano-CeBIT) here in Vienna for the next three days. That means having to get up at 6:30 a.m. to be there at 8 a.m. You honestly don't want to know how messed up I look when I get up at an insane time such as 6:30 a.m. (Should I post a mugshot first thing tomorrow morning? I didn't think so.) Now extrapolate how messed up I look when getting up at 6:30 a.m. after having slept only ~3 hours because with my current routine I normally don't go to bed before 4 a.m.
So being well aware of all these facts I actually started the process of preparing for those cruel three mornings today by getting up after 5h of sleep, normally I try to clock in ~6 hours. After a very productive day and a great dinner I decided to go for a 35min run at 9:30 p.m., hoping that this would make tired.
And now? It's close to 1 a.m. and my mind is racing. I've spent the last 3 hours working on various projects and ideas, reading websites and skyping with lots of people so naturally I'm in full-throttle fl0w-mode, ready to work until the early morning. So how on earth am I supposed to go to bed right now and fall asleep? It simply won't work. I'll be lying there, thinking about a million things, thinking about all the things I could be working on instead of lying there and slowly becoming angry about such an utter waste of time. Because that's what always happens. And this is the reason why I normally work until I'm fairly tired because that way I just go to bed, turn out the light and fall asleep immediatly. (Which of course results in the occasional dream about Java exceptions and 1's and 0's, I'll leave it up to the audience to decide whether those are signs of healthy sleep.)
Anyway, enough with the ranting already, I'll now check my e-mails for the last time and then I'll go and try get some sleep. In case you see another blog-entry appear within the next few hours be prepared for some serious ranting, b!tching and complaining, definitely NSFW...
So being well aware of all these facts I actually started the process of preparing for those cruel three mornings today by getting up after 5h of sleep, normally I try to clock in ~6 hours. After a very productive day and a great dinner I decided to go for a 35min run at 9:30 p.m., hoping that this would make tired.
And now? It's close to 1 a.m. and my mind is racing. I've spent the last 3 hours working on various projects and ideas, reading websites and skyping with lots of people so naturally I'm in full-throttle fl0w-mode, ready to work until the early morning. So how on earth am I supposed to go to bed right now and fall asleep? It simply won't work. I'll be lying there, thinking about a million things, thinking about all the things I could be working on instead of lying there and slowly becoming angry about such an utter waste of time. Because that's what always happens. And this is the reason why I normally work until I'm fairly tired because that way I just go to bed, turn out the light and fall asleep immediatly. (Which of course results in the occasional dream about Java exceptions and 1's and 0's, I'll leave it up to the audience to decide whether those are signs of healthy sleep.)
Anyway, enough with the ranting already, I'll now check my e-mails for the last time and then I'll go and try get some sleep. In case you see another blog-entry appear within the next few hours be prepared for some serious ranting, b!tching and complaining, definitely NSFW...
Monday, December 31, 2007
A look back at 2007...
It's a weird feeling sitting here in front of my notebook after basically not using the machine during the past few days. The last time I checked my e-mails was 2 or 3 days ago and overall I've probably spent less than an hour on the computer since Christmas. And you know what? It's been an extremely relaxing week! :-)
I spent most of my time sleeping, meeting friends, going to the movies (saw Gus van Sant's "Paranoid Park" yesterday and David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" today, both well recommended) and reading (I finished Cormac McCarthy's "No County For Old Men" in less than 24h). All in all it's certainly been a very relaxing week and I guess the only one who's had an even more relaxing week is our cat, who spent most of the last 2 days lying next to me and sleeping all day long.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll be heading to Vienna to celebrate New Year's with some friends and once I sober up (which will probably take until Jan. 2nd;-) I'll get back into the swing of things and start being productive again. I've lots and lots of things on my to-do list, the most important items being: studying for university as I've got lots of exams coming up over the next few weeks, preparing my bachelor thesis, finally sorting through my TransSib photos and also uploading the ones which I took on the recent trip to the USA, getting OLPC-related stuff done, getting work done for EPIACENTER, etc. So I certainly won't be bored...
While hangin' around these past few days I also spent some time thinking about 2007 and as ever so often I was amazed at just how quickly it went by. I tried coming up with some core things I did this year but too much has happened to really be able to compile that into something short'n'sweet. So here's a slightly chaotic look back at 2007:
Travel: If there's one thing that certainly kept me busy this year than it was travelling. All in all I spent about 9 weeks outside of Austria, a pretty decent amount I dare say. Starting with the family trip to Barcelona in February, continuing with my standard CeBIT visit in March, to be followed by visiting one of my closest friends in Granada. In June I flew out to Taiwan to attend Computex, in mid-July I spent a weekend in Paris and at the end of August I took off on one of the finest journeys I've ever made, the one along the Transsiberian Railway from Beijing, through Mongolia to Moscow. And now the last-minute decision to head to Washington and Boston which made for a very nice end-of-the-year in terms of my travels. I'm not quite sure what 2008 will bring but at the moment I know that I'll certainly be at CeBIT again, plus I'm very likely to head back to South America (with a focus on Brazil and Argentina) come August. Plus I'm pretty sure some other opportunities will present themselves and knowing myself I'll probably jump on every one of them.
Concerts: While certainly not having been to as many concerts as my dear friend Patrick I did see a couple of very good shows. Off the top of my head I'd probably say that the recent Ennio Morricone concert in Vienna was amongst my favourite ones. The best one however was the Nine Inch Nails concert back in March, I've never seen that kind of jump-start energy as when Trent Reznor hit the stage on March, 29th. Again it remains to be seen what 2008 will bring, at the moment I'm trying to get tickets to the Korn show in February and the tickets for the Smashing Pumpkins concert in January have already been bought. The interesting decision will be which festival to attend, at the moment the first band-announcements for the ones close by haven't been too exciting so we might head to Southside in Germany this time 'round.
Movies: I haven't had a chance to count my movie-stubs (I collect those) for 2007 but I'm guessing I saw about >50 movies in the cinema this year. Most of them during my two favourite film-festivals around here: the Crossing Europe in Linz and the Viennale in Vienna. It's certainly been a very good year when it came to great movies!
OLPC: The single biggest theme that makes this year different to previous ones is my involvement in the One Laptop per Child project and more specifically OLPC Austria. I can't even begin to count all the great people I've meet within and thanks to OLPC Austria, the countless hours I've spent on that project, the many lessons I learned about myself, ICT, education, project-management, collaboration, etc. This is probably the single best thing that happened to me in 2007 and I'm thankful for being able to work on this project because it's really an amazing experience.
University: I'm very happy with the progress I've made these past 12 months and if all goes well I'll finish my bachelor degree no later than autumn 2008. As mentioned above I'm currently in the brainstorming- and planning-stage for my bachelor thesis (surprise, surprise, it's something in the OLPC context) and that will definitely keep me busy during my semester-holidays in February. Looking back it's really quite amazing to see how much I've learned during this past year, both in terms of actual technical skills (especially thanks to two lectures about object-orientated programming and software engineering) and more general skills that I now find to be applicable in a variety of settings and projects. With regards to the future of my studies I'm not to happy with the stock Master programs offered at my university so I'll probably go for a custom-tailored one with a focus on ICT and its correlation with society. Plus even though I absolutely love living in Vienna it's definitely time to pack my bags and study abroad for at least half-a-year in the not-so-distant future. No clue about when, where or what but again I'm sure I'll figure it out along the way.
Blog: I have to say that I'm also quite happy that I managed to keep this blog alive after my TransSib journey and at the moment I'm up to around 80 posts with some of them remaining unfinished and sitting in the background. This highlights an issue that most bloggers are likely to encounter: Not having the time to update the blog as much as one would want to. It really does take a lot of discipline to keep posting and I hope to be able to do better in that regard in 2008.
Well, what's left for me to say at this point? All I can say that 2007 has been an outstanding year and just looking back at this mini-summary above I'm extremely happy with how it went. Now bring it on 2008!!! :-)
I wish all of you a Happy New Year and a great start into 2008 (at least once that hangover goes by)!
I spent most of my time sleeping, meeting friends, going to the movies (saw Gus van Sant's "Paranoid Park" yesterday and David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" today, both well recommended) and reading (I finished Cormac McCarthy's "No County For Old Men" in less than 24h). All in all it's certainly been a very relaxing week and I guess the only one who's had an even more relaxing week is our cat, who spent most of the last 2 days lying next to me and sleeping all day long.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll be heading to Vienna to celebrate New Year's with some friends and once I sober up (which will probably take until Jan. 2nd;-) I'll get back into the swing of things and start being productive again. I've lots and lots of things on my to-do list, the most important items being: studying for university as I've got lots of exams coming up over the next few weeks, preparing my bachelor thesis, finally sorting through my TransSib photos and also uploading the ones which I took on the recent trip to the USA, getting OLPC-related stuff done, getting work done for EPIACENTER, etc. So I certainly won't be bored...
While hangin' around these past few days I also spent some time thinking about 2007 and as ever so often I was amazed at just how quickly it went by. I tried coming up with some core things I did this year but too much has happened to really be able to compile that into something short'n'sweet. So here's a slightly chaotic look back at 2007:
Travel: If there's one thing that certainly kept me busy this year than it was travelling. All in all I spent about 9 weeks outside of Austria, a pretty decent amount I dare say. Starting with the family trip to Barcelona in February, continuing with my standard CeBIT visit in March, to be followed by visiting one of my closest friends in Granada. In June I flew out to Taiwan to attend Computex, in mid-July I spent a weekend in Paris and at the end of August I took off on one of the finest journeys I've ever made, the one along the Transsiberian Railway from Beijing, through Mongolia to Moscow. And now the last-minute decision to head to Washington and Boston which made for a very nice end-of-the-year in terms of my travels. I'm not quite sure what 2008 will bring but at the moment I know that I'll certainly be at CeBIT again, plus I'm very likely to head back to South America (with a focus on Brazil and Argentina) come August. Plus I'm pretty sure some other opportunities will present themselves and knowing myself I'll probably jump on every one of them.
Concerts: While certainly not having been to as many concerts as my dear friend Patrick I did see a couple of very good shows. Off the top of my head I'd probably say that the recent Ennio Morricone concert in Vienna was amongst my favourite ones. The best one however was the Nine Inch Nails concert back in March, I've never seen that kind of jump-start energy as when Trent Reznor hit the stage on March, 29th. Again it remains to be seen what 2008 will bring, at the moment I'm trying to get tickets to the Korn show in February and the tickets for the Smashing Pumpkins concert in January have already been bought. The interesting decision will be which festival to attend, at the moment the first band-announcements for the ones close by haven't been too exciting so we might head to Southside in Germany this time 'round.
Movies: I haven't had a chance to count my movie-stubs (I collect those) for 2007 but I'm guessing I saw about >50 movies in the cinema this year. Most of them during my two favourite film-festivals around here: the Crossing Europe in Linz and the Viennale in Vienna. It's certainly been a very good year when it came to great movies!
OLPC: The single biggest theme that makes this year different to previous ones is my involvement in the One Laptop per Child project and more specifically OLPC Austria. I can't even begin to count all the great people I've meet within and thanks to OLPC Austria, the countless hours I've spent on that project, the many lessons I learned about myself, ICT, education, project-management, collaboration, etc. This is probably the single best thing that happened to me in 2007 and I'm thankful for being able to work on this project because it's really an amazing experience.
University: I'm very happy with the progress I've made these past 12 months and if all goes well I'll finish my bachelor degree no later than autumn 2008. As mentioned above I'm currently in the brainstorming- and planning-stage for my bachelor thesis (surprise, surprise, it's something in the OLPC context) and that will definitely keep me busy during my semester-holidays in February. Looking back it's really quite amazing to see how much I've learned during this past year, both in terms of actual technical skills (especially thanks to two lectures about object-orientated programming and software engineering) and more general skills that I now find to be applicable in a variety of settings and projects. With regards to the future of my studies I'm not to happy with the stock Master programs offered at my university so I'll probably go for a custom-tailored one with a focus on ICT and its correlation with society. Plus even though I absolutely love living in Vienna it's definitely time to pack my bags and study abroad for at least half-a-year in the not-so-distant future. No clue about when, where or what but again I'm sure I'll figure it out along the way.
Blog: I have to say that I'm also quite happy that I managed to keep this blog alive after my TransSib journey and at the moment I'm up to around 80 posts with some of them remaining unfinished and sitting in the background. This highlights an issue that most bloggers are likely to encounter: Not having the time to update the blog as much as one would want to. It really does take a lot of discipline to keep posting and I hope to be able to do better in that regard in 2008.
Well, what's left for me to say at this point? All I can say that 2007 has been an outstanding year and just looking back at this mini-summary above I'm extremely happy with how it went. Now bring it on 2008!!! :-)
I wish all of you a Happy New Year and a great start into 2008 (at least once that hangover goes by)!
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