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2008-07-06

Anyone interested in information visualization? I just found a very beautiful visualization of your music-listen-behaviour based on the last.fm database here:

www.diametunim.com/muse/

And here's a picture of such a visualization of my very own behaviour:


For an interactive version, just enter "KoMaXX" as user-name, and see, what kind of crap I like to listen to ;)

If you want something similar embarrassing, just get a last.fm-account and enter your name in the site after the link above.

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2008-07-03

French schools suck or don't do any science. Or history. Or teaching. There is no other explanation for this:

"I am French and have never heard of Kopernikus. And neither did my friends"

I mean: One dumb guy? Sure happens a lot (even you might be one - even ME! On second thought: No, not me.). But the the majority of the audience? That's a nation-wide embarrassment!

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2008-06-21

Don't you just love web-comics?

... and blasphemy?

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2008-06-19

Time for a "WTF of the day":

Dancing Spore Penis:


XD

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2008-06-12

I'm back.

.
.
.

Yes, I was gone. Just look at the dates of the posts! But I have a great excuse: My DSL-modem was broken and it took my ISP until today to deliver a new one. Thea also delivered two new splitters, although the old one was alright. Funny thing is: One of the new ones is broken :D

Alright, that's a rather bad excuse considering webcafes, open w-lans, my university access... The real cause was UFO Afterlight, a really beautiful and addicting game - like all of the previous UFO games I played. Come to think of it, this UFO-series of games chewed lots of my time since the unforgotten "Enemy Unknown" and "Terror from the Deep". What can I say, I looove tactical games with RPG-elements. Not a surprise, if you look a the features of PoRoBa, right?

Even, if it was bad as an excuse, it's still true: I had to live offline for a few days. Guess, what I missed most (besides a myriad ways to waste time)! dict.leo.org. Really! I derive from that fact two things:

1. I'm totally used to and dependent on some webservices by now.
2. My English still sucks (at least act surprised! Jerk.).

I already asked leo for five words only for this post. Should webservices make you feel all warm and fuzzy (leo'd ^^) inside?
Also, funny how the usual acquired reflexes don't work anymore: "Something doesn't work - let's check google what others did." ... pwnd.

There was actually quite something to brag about in the last weeks! And most probably I won't tell you in one of the next posts ;)

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2008-05-26

... nothing really new and insightful to tell, but I feel already bad, if I don't write an update for a week. Which is kind of funny and sad, since I don't have exactly a crowd waiting in angony for the next lines of poor English ...

Then: Just a really sweet video from somewhere in the web:

microwaves are handy alien breeders

Haha, that was a pun: Cell phones are called "handies" in Germany. Haha.

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2008-05-15

Back from the Wave-Gotik-Treffen (short WGT), the largest gothic and dark wave festival in Europe (as far as I know)! The WGT is always a special experience quite unlike other festivals. There are not just a few bands following each other on three stages, there are bands, readings, plays, parties, movies, exhibitions, markets, and so on. Also, all these events are scattered all over Leipzig to 26 (!) locations.
So, you have to travel a lot through the city - which is good, since Leipzig itself is somewhat of a star of the WGT with it's very own flair of lost beauty: Leipzig, at the right spots, looks like a withered rose or a forgotten garden. There are once beautiful city-houses now without glass in the windows but a dark gleam of decay shimmering through. This is like the perfect contrast to Munich, where any building looks recently painted and the lawn in all parks is perfectly trimmed... I'm not sure what I like better.
So much for my recently awakened taste for "Verfall". The WGT is also in other aspects a feast for the eyes: Many visitors go to great lengths to tweak their appearance with make-up, tons of hairspray and a myriad of leather, latex, lingerie, torn nylons, brokat, corsets, and whatthef*ckisthats. What might sound random to you now, actually follows very elaborate rules and is supposed to please the eye - and it does, once you discover the gothics' esthetics. Some outfits were downright gorgeous.

The bands and events:

• DAS ICH: Impressive. Two keyboarder and one singer dressed like the devil managed to do one of the best performances of all bands. However, they apparently forgot about their time budget and had to leave the stage before they could play their greatest hit "destillat". Well, at least for "Kain und Abel", "Krieger" or "Schwanenschrei" was enough time
• UNHEILIG: Actually, a lot better than expected. I've seen Unheilig a few years before on a different stage (but also at the WGT) and didn't like it particularly. This time however, perhaps because of the dark surroundings, the singer "Der Graf" (the earl) was able to impress with his charisma and stage presence ... and his voice of course, which sounds live as deep and controlled as on studio records.
• BLUTENGEL: Bad. Very bad. It wasn't completely their fault, since their in-ear monitors didn't work and they had to guess what they are currently singing. Also, the guy at mixer did a poor job blending the music from the ipod with the singing and thus pronounced every off-key note. But even without those difficulties, I'm not sure, if I would have enjoyed the show very much: The stage seemed always a little empty and the songs they selected were not my favorite ones.
• PARADISE LOST: All right. I didn't expect much and somehow that's what I got. Well, their show might have been quite good, if you like and know their music - and not just three songs like me ;)
• GOTHMINISTER: Nice. A lot harder than the records I heard from them before. However the bright daylight and the rather peaceful and relaxed surroundings at the "Parkbühne" somewhat damaged the atmosphere.
• COVENANT: Really nice: Good music selection (apart from "Leiermann" all I wanted was there), fine show. Definitely one of my favorites!
• TRAGIC BLACK: Missed. :( . Stupid public transportation.
• EMILIE AUTUMN: A very impressive reading located in the noble "Schauspielhaus". Profound and disconcerting experiences and thoughts recited in sympathetic and sometimes startingly cheery way.
• ZEITENWÄNDE:A play by Oswald Henke, the lead singer of the sadly discontinued Goethes Erben. Lots of big, existential questions, answer-approaches displayed through haunting utopias played by Henke himself and a selection of young professional actors. One actually needs to see this play more than once to understand all the layers and ideas - unfortunately we couldn't find the time to do this. The thin line between genius and madness seems stupid here: Henke appears to be a more or less mad genius.
• SAMSAS TRAUM: A big disappointment for me! I expected beautiful melodies and delicate fantasies - and what I got was ... Death Metal. If you like Death Metal and go without expectations to ST you might have actually a good time. For me it was lots of songs I've never heard before (and don't intend to hear again) and songs altered to fit the musicians on the stage. This worked sometimes ok ("Stromausfall im Herzspital") or more often plainly horrible ("Für immer"). Also, I missed the supporting female voice a lot.
• OBSESSION BIZARRE party: We weren't allowed in. Our clothes were just too ordinary. Too bad, this party was great fun the last times :(
• SIXTINA:This is a location, not an act. However, a good place to spend some time with fine ebm, dark wave and absinth. Also the photot-gallery in the ancient cellar-vaults was nice. Unfortunately, the cellar-cinema "Hofkino" presenting the movie "The secretary" was way too popular for us to get in :(
• DARKFLOWER: *Schattenreichparty*:A nice dark club packed with people and great music from ebm to industrial. I can hardly imagine a better way to spend a night ;)
• SALTATIO MORTIS: Possibly the best live band of the whole WGT. Although I didn't know most of the songs (I somwhow missed the newest record) my voice was after no other performance this hoarse!
• FAUN: As expected a very atmospheric performance. This band would have been better located on one of the open air stages under a sky full of stars than in the huge agra-hall. Still nice, though.
• CORVUS CORAX: They did their very best to keep the crowd entertained, but faced a difficult task in that: They were the very last band on the last night, so many visitors were already on their way home or leaving and the remaining lot seemed a little tired. Furthermore, there's no singing in their songs and after an hour of bagpipe- and shawm-based music you can't help but get a little bored. Even though, a good closure for the WGT - or almost-closure :)
• AGRA 4.2: DJ RONAN HARRIS: The last party of the wgt - and what a party. It's most probably not a good idea to drink until 5 a.m. when you intend to drive home before 10 a.m. but with this location music (and drinks) we just couldn't help ourselves. :)

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2008-05-06

Went to the Blade Night yesterday. At 7 pm as the web page said. Too bad, 7 pm was just an arbitrary point in time before the actual starting point, which was at 9 pm. So after mere two hours of strolling pointlessly around and freezing a little, the show finally started. Well, there was some good in the delay, after all: I had time for this fine photograph:

Well, all right, it's not soo fine, but I just don't have any others to show from the actual blade night. Don't think, I didn't try, but, well, the blade night happened at night (*whoa*) and my flash doesn't reach out further than my finger in front of the lens, so all other pictures I made are just smeared black in front of more black.

So, instead of the thousand words a picture is supposed to say (which is crap anyways. If you name every single pixel you are at 10,000 words at titchy 100x100 images already. Then there is exif, patterns, composition, blurb, blarb, ... "A picture x is worth about r(x)^3 + c(x) words for picture 'x' with 'r(x)' as resolution-function and 'c(x)' as content-intensity function" seems more accurate to me. At least as working hypothesis.) you just get these few:
Crowded, flashy lights on many boots, good asphalt, "don't go on the bicycle lane", flashy lights on many hats, "look at me"-guys suck, 18 kilometers are a long way on skates, bad asphalt, honking cars, skating on 4-lane roads is fun, hurting feet

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2008-05-01

This is almost xkcd-worthy:

This is something I would want on my shirt :)

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