Sigrid Horn and Ernst Molden in Burgtheater

NSFW (Nikolaus’ Song for the Week)

This week’s song comes from a German singer called Gwen Dolyn.

There’s only an audio only version on YouTube

Apparently, she’s from Berlin and lives in Chemnitz now. Here’s a short interview with her. (I didn’t hear Bowie or Nirwana in her songs, though).

Retrospect

AI Literacy and Governance

I appreciated this event that was also the first in a series (with follow ups in Brussels and Madrid) a lot. I was, in particular, very happy to see my fellow co-editorts Peggy and Ceyhun for the first time.

(Almost) the full event is online, with excellent moderations from Clara and Adriana.

Ceyhun was also so kind to write a report (with more pictures) on Linkedin, as well as Angelika Gottweis, Astrid Hartberger-Neckam, Maha Omar, Lutz Riede, Thomas Seeber, Klaus Steinmaurer (and certainly others I am not aware of).

#arsboni

There were two sessions in the laundry this week. The first was an interview with the president of the federal association of expert witnesses (“Gerichtssachverständige”), Prof. Dr. Kurt Judmann.

We spoke about the (re-) construction of legal ‘facts’ - and also a little about penalties in soccer. It was fun.

When it comes to the video, I’m not sure whether there’s too much light on his face so that the image is oeverexposed or not. This is why I experimented with the light a little in the second interview this week: Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoeren was in the laundry and spoke about his legal chatbot “Rechtsmentor”.

I reduced the light intensity, changed to a warmer tone (4000 K) and added a little blueish light on the floor. I am not vonvinced either, though. It’s an endless jourrney. I would appreciate any feedback here - does anyone see/care about the difference? And if so, which one is better?

Contentwise I was impressed by how “radical” Hoeren is with many of his views and how “conservative” I appear to be in such a setting. Rechtsmentor itself gives a rather nuanced and detailed answer to the question whether it may our not be used.

Thomas is really outstandingly good in identifying change coming and to stress its importance. It’s truly inspiring to talk with him.

Consumer Protection

Boris Kandov from our Department (who is also running a successful YouTube channel called JusProfi) provides more than 2 hours of content about European consumer protection on platforms.

This is an outcome from our OENB-project on platforms.

PräNUDGE

A new research prject we are involved in had its kickoff this week: PräNUDGE. It’s about prevention via digitalisation and standardisation of “self reported data" with the aim to increase the amount of healhty years of life.

Health Data Economics and Data Access

I was kindly invited by Dr. Thomas Czypionka on a panel in IHS on health data access for research. I was, I assume, put there as the data protection killjoy and fulfilled, I am afraid, all negative expactations (grumpy old man, killjoy, boring) rather well. I met Martina Rüscher (Land Vorarlberg) for the first time, saw Andreas Huss (Österreichische Gesundheitskasse) again and was impressed by the eloquence in their (and the other panelits’) statements. Interestingly, both expected scientists to deliver health related research outcomes more actively into politics so that politics/politicians could digest them better. Czypionka was great in steering us through the different substopics and perspectives.

I don’t know whether this arrangement in the IHS-toilets is an ironic statement on the status quo of Austrian research or a gesture of protest (I doubt so), but it made me smile right beffore leaving the very nice palais.

Prospect

Professorship Hearings

Monday and Tuesday, March 10 and 11, the public hearings for the new professorship at UNIVIE will take place in Juridicum, Top floor.

Here’s the agenda with topics:

All candidates are excellent, this is a tremendous opportunity to see high level presentations in the domain.

#arsboni

As the new semester just started, we have an opening session in "Legal Research” on Tuesday evening. It’s an interview with the Head of the Austrian federal Competition Authority, Dr. Harsdorf.

On Thursday March 13 I am part of an event of “Privacy Ring” in Luzern.

International Data Transfer

If you happen to read this on Friday morning and you are in Vienna you might still decide to come to an event dedicated to one of the all time classics in data protection: international data transfer. The event will NOT be streamed (but will run under Chatham House rule), so that you will miss what will be said if you are not there.

Look and Feel

Horn and Molden

Sigrid Horn and Ernst Molden gave a very nice, intimate concert on Soundstage in Burgtheater together. This was so nice because they are so different but also so similar in so many ways.

They presented an album they had produced together (“KUAZ VUAN WEDA” [shortly before thunderstorm {?}]), with very nice topics such as lamb lettuce and tadpoles, but also a beautiful version of this song

And their “Hausmasda” (janitor) in the nuclear power plant made it already on Spotify - what a present.

A live version (from another concert, not from Burgtheater, but it gives you an impression) is on YouTube

And this is the janitor on YouTube,

filmed in the nuclear power plant Zwentendorf the whole album “Paradise” is about. The video is nice, what I don’t understand, though, is why Molden is holding the guitar mirror-invertedly at 1’22’’.

Die Presse has a positive (yet, in my view, rather superficial) review of Sunday’s concert. And “Paradise” is just a great album, I will come back to this later. Here’s an interview on it, as an appetizer.

Thurnher and Kogler

Armin Thurnher delivered a noteworthy speech, followed by an interesting panel discussion on Falter Radio.

The DSA is referenced quite intensely (rather positively, in particular, for example by ex-vice chancelor Werner Kogler, unfortunately, however, without any detail) and - again - the need of European media/platform infrastructures is emphasized.

Musk and Twitter

I am currently reading a story on what happened to Twitter.

The Guardian has a review, EU-Law Analysis as well. And Reddit has a debate.

So far, after 100 pages of reading, the most astonishing fact for me was that the German E-Book version is more than twice as expensive as the English.

Perhaps more interesting is this assessment of “DOGE” (whose website looks like in X-caricature) in WIRED.

Daisy

takes more of a rest than earlier. If one goes very closely, one can see some more white hairs. But that’s, probably, only an optical illusion.

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)