Wall decoration from one of Vienna’s best restaurants I know: Wetter. I spent a very nice evening with friends there and had the best Carciofi ever eaten outside Italy.

NSFW

This week’s song was - again - brought into my Spotify timeline without a warning and it has been on permanent replay science then. It’s a very touching Blues from Wyke van Weelden.

As I didn’t find the “official” lyrics I am not sure whether she sings “Like waterdrops in rain” or “Like water drops in rain” (e-chords has “Like water drops in rain”, however), both versions work well.

A (sound only) version is on YouTube as well

This

and this

are also beautiful and probably better known songs of her - perhaps a little kitschy, but her voice is just marvelous.

And guess, which microphone she’s using - presumably a Neumann TLM 103:

While we are at it: When preparing a class this week in which I urged students again to read/listen to the “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” - which is, in my view, still one of the best texts ever written on the internet - I discovered that John Perry Barlow spoke into a Neumann U 87 in this iconic video:

It takes his voice very well and adds some beauty to the pure video.

If you are really as crazy as I am in this, here’s a review of both the TLM 103 and the U 87 (which is three times more expensive), including a blind comparison (I was right when guessing which one was which one, unfortunately, and I have been telling myself now since then that the TLM 103 sounds very nice too ;-) ).

Retrospect

#arsboni

Prof. Dr. Miriam Buiten delivered a very critical assessment of platforms in our society, asked for reform of the Digital services act and even argued that the youth should no longer be allowed to use social media.

It’s in English so that the thumbnail is a little misleading. One can possibly see that we were not always of the same opinion, but I was very impressed by the consistency and the depth of her arguments. We very much agree that platforms are no longer ‘neutral places’ for freely deciding users. Here’s a text on this that I found after our conversation (on Bluesky, btw) that strongy supports her view.

We are probably less of one opinion when it comes to what consequences this should have for content creators and platforms hosting their content. I can’t see, in particular, how platforms should organise hosting of user content if the notice and take down principle disappeared without running into overblocking and or automated decision making-issues.

Interestingly, by the way, this text argues that one of the reasons why Bluesky is growing so quickly is that it’s more of a “neutral” platform than Threads or X - so perhaps content curation and moderation might become less important (again) in the near future. Or, as this text puts it:

“Bluesky is trying to make that light use of algorithms its secret sauce.” We’ll see whether this will continue in a sustainable way, as the mentioned article also rightly asks “Where does the money come from?” Findig a suitable business model and making people willing to pay for the service will be crucial. I don’t believe that Europe is currently very helpful in this search, at the moment, btw.

On Thursday, Michael Seitlinger, Georg Serenetschy and me discussed the (missing) Austrian Digital Strategy and Governance.

In particular Serentschy was brutally honest about the Austrian and European situation and managed to put the issue into context with global technological trends such as Amazon’s “Project Kuiper” that might bring more competition and falling revenues into the communication market - again, not provided by European companies.

Elon Musk has just another typical take on his part of the cake - and it’s again just unbelievable.

I just needed to learn that “Merkin” instead of “Merkel” in this Tweet is not a typo at all, but an additional insulence. Merkin, as Berliner Zeitung tells me, stands for “Schamhaarperücke”. Isn’t this just unbelievable?

#fakenews

I participated in a very relevant debate on fakenews, organised by Digital Society on Wednesday.

One of my arguments was that Armin Wolf has done more for the fight against fake news with a single Tweet than Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and AI Act all together.

Susanne Lackner from Austria’s Communication authority KOM Austria did an excellent job in explaining (and defending) the DSA. I was more sceptical than her. A summary of the event will be provided (for members) on the society’s website.

Prospect

Forum Datenrecht

Dr. Žiga Škorjanc organises and co-hosts (together with Dr. Natalie Ségur-Cabanac, Dr. Klaus M. Steinmaurer, MBA, Dr. Andreas Zavadil and me) a new edition of this lecture series on Monday, Dec. 2nd, at 17.30.

Panel

• Mag. Verena Becker, BSc. (Juristin Bundessparte Information und Consulting, WKO; Expertin IT-Recht und NIS2)
• Dr. Anna Muri, MBA (Spezialistin IT-Risiko-Aufsicht, FMA)
• Ing. Mag. Richard Neuwirth, BA LLB. (WU) (Information Security Governance Manager, ÖBB-Holding AG)
• Wolfgang Rosenkranz (CERT.at, team leader of the technical/operational part of GovCERT Austria)
• Dr. Philipp Böhler-Grimm, LLM (Stellvertretender Leiter der Rechtsabteilung und Compliance Officer bei E-Control)

Free entry, please register, no stream.

#arsboni

Three sessions are ahead of us next week.

On Monday, Dec. 2, at 10.00 am I will talk with Dr. Jonas Divjak and Mag.a Sophie Matjaz. Both were panelists at the “13. Dreiländerforum Strafverteidigung” recently and I appreciated their contributions a lot.

E

Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 18.00 will bring the second conversation with the head of Austrian public prosecutors’ association, Mag. Elena Haslinger. We will talk about her career, changes in the profession due to digitalisation and what this might mean for younger lawyers and law students.

It’s my second conversation with Haslinger, we spoke about the seizure of mobile phones in July 2024 already.

And this topic will be again with us next week: Mag.a Shirin Ghazanfaari will join us again, speaking about the most recent developments in hardware seizure in Austria. This is going to happen on December 6th, at 20.00 CET.

Digital Culture and Scientific Integrity

A consortium of several institutions (TU Wien, Österreichischen Agentur für Wissenschaftliche Integrität-OEAWI, Kompetenzzentrum für Akademische Integrität der mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and Ombudsstelle für Studierende im Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung) organises a Joint Event on Digital Culture and Scientific Integrity on Wednesday, December 4th.

After several workshops on recent legal matters in the morning, the programme brings a series of keynotes and a panel debate I am proud to be a part of in the afternoon.

It’s (presumably) a public event, free entry, registration requested.

The debate is heavily influenced by recent changes in the law, in particular in the “Hochschul-Qualitätssicherungsgesetz”.

50 Years of Law School in Hannover

Due to teaching obligations I will unfortunately not be able to join, but I would have loved to be there in person, when my old faculty celebrates its 50th birthday.

Prof. Dr. Hermann Butzer will give the ceremonial lecture on the faculty’s history. I am not aware of a stream, but if you happen to be in the area you should definitely come: It will certainly be a very good lecture and a nice party - and the faculty’s founding is a very interesting example of an attempt to fundamentally reform legal education in Germany. Not much has changed since this reform was reversed (“rückabgewickelt”) for political reasons ten years later.

Look and Feel

Billie Elish

I enjoyed very much to follow this analysis of Billie Eilish’ (and Finneas’) third album.

The video is an excellent example of promotional content (the host is a provider of a high-end loudspeakers and other audio stuff most people (including me) don’t care about) with superb audio quality (as far as I can tell).

More importantly, the video takes their music seriously and gives them the attention and mindfulness they deserve. Their talent (and her voice and her vocal range) are just unbelievable - as you can hear, for example, in this live track, in particular from 2’50’’ to 3’20’’ - for me this sounds like from another planet:

(I found quite some vocal coaches on YouTube just trying to explain what she’s doing in this song here, here, here, here and here - and many more people just reacting on the song - what a funny genre this is (“reaction videos”), btw, that YouTube has brought into life).

Bluesky

I am following quite closely what’s happening on Bluesky/Twitter. UNIVIE is one of those having moved.

Luxemburg’s Tageblatt has a text on what Musk could try to do in the upcoming German Parliamentary elections and why this is important. Texts in Futurezone, The Conversation and The Atlantic try to assess what’s going on: “Old habits die hard, but they can die.”

If you want to move or at least try how it is there (for me, it’s very much like Twitter 10 years ago!), these two starter packs might be useful (nice invention, these packs, btw):

Brahms - Ein deutsches Requiem

What a privilege to live in a city in which “amateurs” give concerts on such a level! I appreciated a lot the concert of “Orchesterverein” in Musikverein on Sunday - with three personal friends performing.

Next opportunity to hear them is on March 30th - and it will be Brahms again.

As this was not recorded (what a pity!) - here’s another version of Brahms’ requiem - also a beautiful performace but the venue can’t compete with “Großer Musikvereinssaal” - neither visually nor in its acoustics. :-).

Daisy

has flying ears when running.

© Birgit Forgó-Feldner

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)