Week 22/2026

Put your mind at rest

Johann Strauss and some bicycle tourists looking at a bicycle tourist.

NSFW

This week's NSFW are two versions of the same song. The first is the original

that celebrated its 40 th birthday precisely this week - the song was released on May 19th 1986.

The pre-computer video that needed to be shot frame by frame became the most played video ever on MTV. It's groundbreaking style is discussed intenesely.

The second version is a very accurate live-interpretation of Harry Styles. Listen, in particular, to the drummer here; she is so precise and clear.

Here's one (of many) explanations why the song (and not the video alone) is remarkable,

and here's a long, long read about the mixing and the sound. The way Howard Stern sounds like he does is with his Neumann TLM 103 is, by the way, one of the reasons why I admire (and bought) this microphone.

Retrospect

Data Protection Congress

I was in Berlin again (see Weekly 21/2025 for a report on last year) for a very informing day on data protection (Datenschutzkongress).

Again, this was a very intense very information heavy event with tons of practical expertise. AI was omnipresent, also here. MEP Axel Voss shared first hand impressions about the state of play in the digital omnibus regulation (in short: probably nothing to be expected before spring 2027), many possible tiny cosmetic operations in the legal data protection framework, but no major GDPR-reform (discussion) to be exptected.

I learned (from Dr. Philipp Raether) about a very telling case of AI hallucinations leading to serious consequences - a ban of Israeli soccer fans at a match in the UK due to hallucinated riots after a game that had never taken place:

Consequence of this was that the police officer in charge had to resign.

I was also quite fascinated by the different hacks shown live on stage by Sebastian Schneider, among them a software designed radio used to hack heating systems or a spoofing tool used to generate fake calls,

I liked, in particular, Schreiber's assumption that one of the shown security holes that allowed to decipher an encrypted USB stick within minutes was, possibly, not a security hole but a backdoor for state actors.

Thomas Hoeren, Elke Schneider, Sebastian Schreiber, Gregor Thüsing, Markus Sullivan, Frederick Richter, Iris Cassens-Wolf, Handelsblatt Live, Taylor Wessing, Natascha Reifert (and many others) have reports - and pictures - on LinkedIn.

Media

Exxpress brought an "interview" with me (based on a very short email-communication).

I find it quite interesting how my rather short email is framed here - the headline (that doesn't come from me, obviously) on its own would deserve a full article.

Prospect

Budget Cuts

Currently, significant budget cuts for Universities are debated in politics.

They would, obviously, have significant negative impact on everything important in science, research and higher education. University leadership is very concerned

and a demonstration is scheduled for May 27th. It has been quite a while since I last saw a call for a demonstration from the rector of Universität Wien. It's a very important matter.

Law and/in the Media

The Vienna Legal Literacy Project organises a panel debate on how law is reflected in general media on Thursday, May 28th, at 19.00

Boris from the department will be one of the panelists. Free entry, registration requested, no stream. More on the event's concept and topic can be seen in this podcast episode (with a cameo appearance of yours truly):

Look and Feel

Wien Museum

I visited, once more, Wien Museum, learned about the history of Donauinsel in an exhibition dedicated to the island.

The second current exhibition is about Egon Schiele and his less successful friend and brother-in-law Anton Peschka showing Schiele's drawing of Gustav Klimt on the deathbed.