InVisible

I was travelling home from Basel last Friday afternoon, when two gentleman sat down across me on the train. One of them mentioned, that he just had stowed his cymbals, and that he was in a band that was an on a small european tour. We started talking and found out that we shared views not only on music but also on a lot of other topics, more or less related to music. ...

Last year I bought some cheap DMX capable lights - a Full Color Brick and a Mini White Par. Both work fine without any additional contols - the Color Brick can fade through various colors and the Par can be set to a specific white value. It is clear, that this is not enough, so I got a cheap USB to DMX interface to control the two lights and start out in Light Show Business. Also, there needs to be software. A quick search for DMX software turned up QLC+ - a free, cross plattform, open-source software. What’s not to like? ...

Almost exactly 6 years after I talked about Habits it is time to pick up the topic again. It seems that starting a new year brings out the desire to work on self-improvement in me. And that means working on all of the things that “one should do” regularly (like brushing teeth). A couple of years ago, I tried the BJ Fogg Tinyhabits method to intrduce new habits (it seems that the topic of Micro Habits is the new hot shit anyway) and failed spectacularly. I don’t even remeber what I tried to achieve then. Other habits have been more successful: 2 years ago I bought an Apple Watch and have been closing my rings almost every day ever since (I’m on day 703 of 1000). I learned that I needed to be able to make exceptions (being sick is one of them, helping kids prepare for final exams another) and be ok to breaking the chain. Still I have been walking to work almost every single day for the past two years. ...

Nik Bärtsch is one of the central figures of the Zurich based, swiss minimal rhythmic music scene. His band Ronin plays every Monday night at Exil. Friends and I have been going there regularly for our dose of Ritual Zen Funk. These concerts each have been wonderful experiences. A couple of weeks ago, Nik announced a Winter Workshop, a long weekend in Tessin. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough attendees, so it had to be shortened to just one Saturday. That was yesterday, and I had the pleasure to take part in a long and intensive movement and rhythm workshop in the Kokoro Dojo where Nik and Andrea led a very small group (just two of us). ...

While my day job is managing a team of 8 engineers (which means a lot of meetings), I do get to work with the CLI from time to time. As you might know, working on the CLI means navigating deep dirctory structures and working with millions of files. It doesn’t matter if you are into operations or into development, working with directories and files are going to be your bread and butter operations. ...