Signpost at Vetmed
NSFW
This week’s song is from Elise LeGrow.
Funnily, there are two very beautiful, yet very different versions on YouTube with very different microphones used.
Here’s an acoustic version with a Shure SM7B (my ‘old’ #arsboni standard mic)
and here’s a another, much more intimate variant with a Neumann (is this a TLM 107 or a M49V or a TLM49 or a M149 ?)
I had this in permanent repetition, this week. Is ist just me, liking the Neuman-version much, much better?
In any case, her voice is just incredible in both versions. And yes, she reminds not only me of Amy Winehouse. She says that she doesn’t really care about mics (I assume that this is a gender thing?), but somebody in her environment (or she herself) likes Neumann - this is (I believe) a U87 in another beautiful cover:
Retrospect
Meetings
I had quite some meetings this week with not too much to publicly report on them. One was the yearly conference of BBMRI.at
at VetMed where we are the legal partner. Another one was part of my diploma seminar and brought me to RTR
which was interesting as we could discuss, inter alia, matters of DSA-enforcement in the light of a quickly changing political landscape of platform regulation this EURACTIV-article, for example, reports about.
The issue has gained further domestic political importance recently.
I also attended a session of the “Wiener Rechtsgeschichtliche Gesellschaft”. Prof. Johannes W. Flume delivered a speech on the history of the Vienna stock exchange with some reflections on the legal quality of stock market contracts. This is him with the society’s president, Prof. Dr. Josef Pauser.
And last not least I attended a surprise birthday party in Salzburg. Prof. Dr. Dietmar Jahnel received his “Festschrift” (commemorative publication) without pror warning;editors publishers, authors everyone had really managed to keep this secret until the very last moment.
This is him in the moment understanding what’s going on - after having given a 50 minutes full presentation on recent issues of data potection law for the Salzburger Juristische Gesellschaft.
Jahnel is a really big name in data protection law, a very nice person and he has been teaching in the UNIVIE LLM-programme for 25 years. It was therefore a big honor and pleasure to be among the 47 authors in the book as co-author of two articles (one with Catherine Liko one with Dr. Markus Holzweber). I appreciated a lot to see so many key figures in IT law, data protection law and legal informatics jointly united to congratulate him. And, of course, it was heartwarming how pleased he was about the surprise.
Prospect
AI and Law
Normally, I don’t write about teaching here. This week, I make a small exception as I want to share with you that - again and for the 8th time (we started with this in winter 2017) - my dear friend and colleague from Hannover, Micha Friedmann, is coming to teach AI and law on Monday and Tuesday. This is him presenting the solution his company has developed.
It will be very intersisting to hear from him what the current status in the AI-hype cycle is and what this means for his company and for legal education.
#arsboni
Three sessions are ahead of us. On Friday, at 20.00, just as a reminder, I am going to speak with Shirin Ghazanfari again.
Wednesday will bring two events. First, at 12.00, we will hopefully finally have the session on corporate lawyering in Austria (that ad to be postponed already twice)
Later, at 17.00, I will speak with the speaker and founder of the initiative on better administration in Austria, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gratz (see Weekly 50/2024 for further reference).
Datum Stiftung
This newly created foundation tries to strengthen independent quality journalism in Austria. I have the pleasure to be a member of its advisory board that’s going to meet for the first time this week.
Look and Feel
I had some long commuting routes on my bicycle this week (VetMed!) which is one of the reasons why I listened to some recent Lex Fridman podcast episodes. I found two of them really outstandingly interesting.
The first one is a three hours conversation with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
First, it’s crazy to hear how Fridman literally invites Zelenskyy for a barbecue in the US after the ending of the war, together with his ‘friend Joe Rogan’, and the president (pretends to) accept ‘with pleasure’. Second, it’s stunning how a ‘random podcaster’ gets the opportunity to speak with Zelenskyy for more than three hours and how strategically both sides use this to speak with people not in the room - in particular Trump and Putin and how openly Zelenskyy caresses Trump . Third, it’s really shocking how seriously they debate peace plans such as the US leaving NATO as a security guarantee and how little relevance both sides (all sides, actually) give Europe and the EU in this powergame. And last not least, the language issue - that is also constantly mentioned in the conversation - is just stunning: As Fridman on the one hand speaks Russian as native language and English perfectly, but almost no Ukrainian, Zelenskyy on the other hand Ukrainian and Russian but only little English and refuses for political reasons to speak Russian, the outcome is that they switched between languages and used interpreters (that were not good, according to Fridman). However, to the average listener, such as me, the talk sounds like a constant conversation in plain English, as the default version streamed is an an AI-generated English conversation that never happened this way. The outcome is, in particular with Zelenskyy’s part, a very realistic stream of words that is, however, at least to me, sometimes hard to understand - both in its locutionary and its illocutionary parts. The service they were using for this is from a company called Elevenlabs
and the result leaves me - literally - speechless, in particular because I can’t say (as I don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian) whether my understanding of what Zelenskyy was saying is correct or just poor AI. What does it help then, that I know that it’s somehow an AI speaking to me here? BTW: Fridman himself shares some of his (relevant) thoughts on the language issue at the beginning and the end of the episode.
The second episode I found really interesting is with Saagar Enjeti
Enjeti is, as I learned, one of the most influential '“independent” political journalists in the US. His YouTube-Channel “Breaking Points” (that he hosts together with Krystal Ball, a Democrat) has 1.4 Million subscribers.
This is a “conservative”, very much pro-Trump, highly intelligent, well educated person with a consistent understanding how to “solve” the problems in the US - including means such as mass deportation - massively supporting Trump and heavily attacking (in particular at the end of the interview) legacy media and their privileges (in the White House’s briefing room, for example).
And this is how it looks when they discuss climate change
or TikTok’s potential ban in the US
The podcast-episode helped me a lot to better understand the world view of such people and I would take this - and their media services - very seriously.
Daisy
is always ready to dramatically ask for a hug - also at 10.00 pm with -4 degrees.
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)