On the way to UNIVIE
NSFW (Nikolaus’ Song for the Week)
Walther Soyka passed away recently.
This week’s songs are a reference to him - and Willi Resetarits. It needs to be two songs as they belong together - and you should also listen to the intro moderation.
Number one:
YouTube (sound only)
and a bootleg version with poor sound quality, but (wobbling) video
And as there’s no life without death, number 2:
YouTube (sound only):
Bootleg in front of Vienna’s Karlskirche
OE1 has a 25 minutes obituary that is worth being heard in full length (although I didn’t know that I didn’t know what a “wunderbar angeschliffene Terz” is - and I didn’t miss anything in my ignorance; but one can hear well what a wonderful instrument the “Altwiener Knöpferlharmonika” was when played by him). And here’s a video from just a few months ago showing him and his instrument nicely.
Retrospect
5 Years #arsboni
Dr. Catherine Altobelli was the first guest in #arsboni. We streamed on the (terrible) Covid situation in Italy on April 3rd 2020 - five years ago, in the middle of the first lockdown in Vienna.
A lot has changed since then - in technical matters as well as contentwise, but two things stayed the same: First, we still try to guarantee enough time and space for an open exchange of ideas, second, we do our best to avoid any kind of show-off, as much as I can.
The pictures below show the first setup: with my daughter’s photo camera and a relatzively cheap Rode NT-USB microphone (that is still on the market and that I still use on my #arsboni travel-editions such as this one) - and two monitors that I had just purchased due to the first lockdown.
We started with 220 subscribers on April 3rd 2020 and had 506 at the end of that month. One year later it was 1.480. This number doubled within a few days in May 2021 due to #arsboni 148 with Ulrike Guerot.
The Guerot-episode is - still - the only one in which I felt the need to disable video embedding and comments (as you can see in the “not embedded” sign below). The video and - even more so - the reactions I received on it - including hundreds of open threats and insults - made me do so and were a clear sign that something in society was shifting.
This episode still has more than ten times more views (currently 177.000) than any of the others ever made since then.
It took me a lot of time and energy to understand this crisis situation and to react on it - with many episodes on conspiracy theories, science scepticism and legal analysis following - and some articles that triggered a lot of attention and more criticism as well.
These texts and episodes certainly didn’t contain content many “Maßnahmengegner” wanted to see and I (therefore?) lost more than 1.800 subscribers in the years since then (more than Guerot had brought); however, the channel managed to keep its momentum. The number of subscribers has increased steadily since then and will reach 5.250 in days, #arsboni is still an important part of my weekly routine and will, most likely, stay so for a few more years to come. Covid is still a topic there, every now and then, but over all topics are now closer to my daily work as a researcher.
Daisy - who had joined us in June 2020 - became an important part of my marketing activities quickly
but also other kinds of merch and technical upgrades appeared soon.
And later, in autumn 2021, I was crazy enough to buy the laundry.
In march 2022 the first episodes in the laundry appeared, streamed
and on site
Overall, the channel has generated more than 10.000.000 impressions and mankind has spent more than 113.000 hours in watching #arsboni on YouTube (only) so far.
Thank you. It means a lot to me.
EHDS
I attended a big symposion on the Electronic Health data Space Act, organised by Dr. Franz Leisch and Praevenire. My slot was about the impact of EHDS on primary care.
It was like a family reunion. I learned a lot, in partiular, about ELGA’s - very optimistic - perspective on the EHDS-transposition into the Austrian legal system.
In my presentation, that was less optimistic, I highlighted, in particular, that putting abstract rules into a law doesn’t change the world automatically, that competences and, in particular, payers as well as governance structures are not yet fixed and that budgetary implications of the system need to be sorted out very quickly. I also emphasized the need of better coordination among different supervising authorities and the importance of the (Austrian) Data Protection Authority in the matter.
Helene Prenner from ELGA
Prospect
#arsboni
Quite a lot to come here.
Friday, April 4th, at 13.00 will be an opportunity to discuss the lack of staff in Austrian courtrooms. My guest is the president of the Association of Judges in Austria, Dr. Gernot Kanduth.
On Monday, April 7th, I will have two sessions.
At 10.30 I will discuss whether it makes any sense to try to detect AI generated texts in student work.
At 16.00 CET I will speak with Prof. Dr. Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik about political influence in high level public administration.
The content is very much related to what we have been doing in “Initiative Bessere Verwaltung”. Ennser-Jedenastik gave a very interesting interview (on a different topic) in Ganz Offen Gesagt recently.
Dr. Thomas König and Dr. Michael Stampfer will join me on Thursday, April 10th, at 11.00. We will discuss their recent paper on political advice by scientists and on Future Operations.
In addition, Dr. Andy Kaltenbrunner will join me in the #laundry, speaking about current Austrian media politics and funding. I will upload this whenever ready.
BBMRI Podcast
On Friday, April 11th, I will be one of the guests in a podcast interview, in context with BBMRI-ERIC and our onvolvement in BBMRI.at.
Online, free, registration required.
Bürger*innenrat Medien und Demokratie in Österreich
On Saturday, April 5th, Dr. Daniela Kraus and me speak at “Bürger*innenrat Medien und Demokratie in Österreich”, organised by COMMIT and part of the European research project MEDEMAP.
Here’s a video about the context
Look and Feel
Spinning (around)
My daughter convinced me that for the first time in my life I should participate in a spinning class.
My appearance there was probably a rather memorable event for the female instructor (and the other participants as well). She was less than half - ooops, probably one third - of my age, now having bout 20 superfit females in her age, 2 random men equally young and well trained - and me - in front of her.
In terms of my cardivascular system, it was less critical than I had expected - probably because I failed miserably with all the coordination needed when moving the upper body while cycling like crazy. I almost fell from the bike twice before I finally understood that there is no idle mode on such bikes …
All the ‘energetic’ music, the stroboscopic effects and the instructor constantly shouting like hell into a terribly overmodulating microphone, yelling that we should be proud of our beautiful bodies and feel the strength in our core, however, didn’t bring me into the probably intended trance, but more into a status of even more severe than normal self ridicule. The whole, rather ridiculous, situation reminded me a lot of the book I am currently reading.
I also listend to an interview with the author later during one of my - much calmer and less stressful - easy jogs.
I’m not fully agreeing with her everywhere, but it’s an interesting read (and episode). And I will certainly remember me pretending to strech my thighs on a bike while cooling down, following the instructor’s sharp commands requesting us to feel our inner breathing (or whatever, the microphone was really bad).
Daisy
finally has the right colour to hide again.
© Birgit Forgó-Feldner
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)