~pygospa~
It's never too late to be who you might have been!

Pygoscelis papua?!

Filed under Metablogging · Tagged with #introduction, #about-me, #hobbies
22 minutes (4224 words)

In the last post I mentioned that my original introduction had turned into a bit of a beast, so I decided to split it into smaller parts. This is the second post of that series and it is about the blogger. So finally, I can say:

“Hi there, I’m pygospa, nice to meet you!”

In this post I’d like to introduce myself, talk about the things I spend my free time with, and about my profession, so that you get an idea of what interests me, as these interests will most definitely also influence the topics on my blog. And it’s always nice to know who’s blogging, isn’t it?

pygospa

Online, I am known as pygospa. a creative abbreviation of Pygoscelis papua, the scientific name of the gentoo penguin, which is the eponym of my former favorite Linux distribution (nowadays, I use Arch, btw.1) At the time I was looking for a new alliterative alias that was unique while still somehow relate to me… yeah. I’m a nerd, sorry.

I was born in the middle of the 80s in the middle of March in the middle of Europe, a child of the Information Age. Technology and the internet shaped a lot of my interests early on, and eventually let me to where I am today: I work as a senior software developer, mainly in e-commerce-related projects, mostly in the backend, especially with Java, Kotlin, and Ruby. I also touch frontend and operations topics from time to time. I am a FinOps Certified Engineer and a certified Software Architect) and worked for five quite well-known European customers from Germany, Belgium and France.

How did I get here?

During school (I visited the bilingual HLG) I originally imagined a very different future for myself. I excelled at Biology, Chemistry and depending on the teacher even Physics and Maths. Besides my Abitur I joined a dual-qualification programme that also gained me a full vocational qualification as Chemical Technical Assistant (CTA).2

So I thought I would end up in academia, either in Marine Biology or Astronomy/Astrophysics. However, for practical reasons life took a different turn. Because moving away from university was financially difficult, I chose a dual study programme at a private Fachhochschule (FH) in cooperation with different companies. You would apply at the company, work for them and they’d pay you and also pay for the FH. Thus my career started at Vestas, where I learned a lot in an international environment, and worked on something that felt meaningful.

However, what the FH called a degree programme in Business Informatics degree did not satisfy my aspirations. After a semester abroad at ULPGC I knew I wanted to have a proper degree at a state university. I moved cities to start my Bachelor’s degree at the CAU Kiel, and later again for a Master’s degree at the University of Bremen, with a focus on AI/ML, cognitive science and robotics.

I was part of our university’s RoboCup SPL Team B-Human and won the European Open in Eindhoven. and the World Championship 2016 in Leipzig, I also worked as a student assistant on two scientific projects MEGaFiT at the BIMAQ institute, and Trans Terra at the DFKI, and worked for two years as a teaching assistant.

Originally, I wanted to stay in academia, especially in robotics or AI, but the insecurity of temporary contracts combined with a high student loan, eventually pushed me towards industry. And what had once started as a temporary job became the career I am still working in today.

Interests

Programming

It’s no shocker, that some of my interests lie in tech. I got interested in computers as a child; growing up we had an NES and a Game Boy, and while playing video games, I soon wanted to create my own games. I found out that for this I needed a PC, so I kept annoying my parents until I got one at 14, went to the library, and got the first book about programming I could find: QBasic. QBasic reminded me that I actually already programmed as a child, without knowing it. My parents once got me a children’s computer, and that could actually be programmed in BASIC.3

QBasic led to Visual Basic 6, with which I wrote my first more serious tools and also games. When switching to Linux, I was disappointed that I had effectively “lost” all my projects, as they only ran on Windows. Ever since, I became interested in portable and platfrom-independant languages, The most portable is of course Java. Once I became proficient enough with Java, I grew interested in other programming languages; from Haskell and Prolog to Python, Smalltalk, Elixir, or Assembly. Currently, I am most interested in Rust and the WebAssembly binary format, and its applications.

Linux

I started off with Windows 95 and after being unhappy with Windows 98, as well as Windows Me, (which greeted me with a BSoD in the first hour after installation), I decided it was time for a change. My uncle brought me his old copy of SuSE Linux 6.0, which I installed as a second system on my machine, and I stayed with Linux ever since. I used SuSE up to version 8.0, then switched to Debian, Woody - Sarge. Then later to Gentoo. This was the first system that made me really happy, and I used it the longest.

On Laptops, after my Gentoo-powerd IBM Thinkpad, R51 broke down I took a detour through several Mac OS X powered devices (MacBook (the Late 2008 one, followed by a Mid 2011 MacBook Air and then a 2016 MacBook Pro which I hated so much that I turned away from Apple).

For ROS, you always need very specific Ubuntu versions. Later I used Ubuntu on my company-provided Laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad T480s), – just becaue everyobdy at my company does… So I know all LTS versions since Trusty Tahr. As Gentoo became unreliable over time, I switched to Arch Linux on my personal PC.

Generally speaking, I love Linux. It is adaptable exactly to my needs, I love ricing Linux, I love programming it, and making it fit to the way I love to work. I learned how to compile your own Kernel, and wrote my own Kernel Modules, I even maintained packages for Gentoo and Arch. And I love Open Source Software and prefer it to all other software.

Hardware Tinkering

I am far from an expert in this field, however I do like to tinker with hardware. I own a Soldering iron, a Multimeter and even an old analog Oscilloscope. I’ve built little breadboard projects, programmed simple 8-bit AVR Atmel ATtiny84V μC to change colour and brightness of an RGB LED with some push-buttons, or an Raspberry Pi GPIO controlled LED chase. I’ve also repaired an old 1970s Grundig / Dual Radio / Turntable combination. And I have a couple of small (robotic) kits that you build yourself, like the ASURO.

I’m also running five different Pis in my home network: one is a Kodi box at my TV, one is my home server, NAS (it runs Samba and is connected to an USB hub that has way too many 3.5-inch HDDs connected to it) and Pi-hole-powered DNS sinkhole. The last three Pis I’ve combined to a Kubernetes cluster using the k3s distribution. This is mostly for learning and experimenting, though I’d eventually like to migrate more of my home server’s services there.

One of these services is Home Assistant I always wanted to get into smart home, and I am currently beginning to do that using as much Open Source and self-built solutions as possible.

Photography

I got my first camera (which already was a digital camera) as a present from one of my uncles for my 18th birthday: A Minolta DiMAGE Xt point-and-shoot camera with a 1/2.7-inch (5.4x4mm) 3.2 MP CCD Sensor (CF 6.4) and a 37-111mm focal length (35mm equivalent). After some other cameras (from bridge camera to DLSR) I now have a new favorite that rekindled my passion for photography: An EVIL Sony α-Series; the α7 IV ), with a 35.9×23.9mm full-frame 33 MP CMOS sensor. As lenses I use:

As I am working with Linux, I cannot use the photographer’s favorite tool Adobe Lightroom, so I built my own open source powered workflow:

I am still no expert and learning as I go along. If you have any additional suggestions, feel free to share them with me.

Language Learning

At school I was always only average in languages. I started off strong in English, but when other students made fun of my pronunciation, I got embarrassed and withdrew myself. Instead of being encouraged, it was however met with understanding from my teachers. They told my mother that boys where usually bad with languages, especially if they are good in the natural sciences. So I stopped trying harder, because I thought: this is against my nature.

As second language I chose Latin, and because of that mindest, it became my worst subject. So in the 10th grade, I switched to French, and for the first time, I really enjoyed a language class.

In my first job, the company language was English, so a lot of presentations had to be held in English, and none of my colleagues liked it. So I had to do them, because compared to the others I was far better in English.

I always was interested in Spanish culture, so I picked up Spanish, learned it for two years, and spent a semester in Spain.

Afterwards, I started consuming English media only in the original language, both in books and films, which is now my preferred way. And I also got somewhat nerdy with language learning: I am already working on my 5th foreign language, according to the CEFR at these levels:

🇬🇧
I speak and understand English at level C2.
🇪🇸
Entiendo español a un nivel B1.
🇫🇷
Je comprends le français au niveau A2.
🇯🇵
日本語はA1 (pre-JLPT 5)レベルで理解できます。
🇳🇴
Jeg forstår norsk på A1-nivå.

I deliberately left out the “speak and” part for all other languages but English, as I don’t have much speaking practice. One of the things that fascinates me about language learning: You get to explore how your brain is wired, and how learning and memorization works for you.

Reading

One of the things I loved as a kid, was reading. I had a lot of science books, but besides science I also always had a knack for horror, crime and fantasy. Until 2004, I spent a lot of time in my local library, and managed to read every book they had in their horror and fantasy section, then moved on to science fiction.

Then I moved cities, started my job training, started studying, and now working full time. Together with all my other interests, reading fell by the wayside. But I actually miss it, and in the last couple of years I’ve been getting back into it. It helps that my girlfriend is an avid reader and book collector, so I have access to a huge library at home.

Besides novels and non-fiction, I am also into comic books. It started with the Micky Maus magazine that I got as a kid but that was mainly interesting because of the included toy. Books I got because the story genuinely interested me started with Asterix and Obelix and The Adventures of Tintin, then I got into superheroes with Spider-Man, Hellboy and Batman, and also got into darker-toned comics like Spawn, or Sin City. Getting older I read less comics, as this wasn’t cool anymore when I was a teenager. I returned to comics in 2011 after my first German Free Comic Book Day. Since then I’ve read or revisted titles like Asterix, Batman, The Goon, Hellboy, Lady Mechanika, Saga, Sandman, Steam Noire (German), The Walking Dead, and many more.

Today I have a huge TBR pile of both novels and comic books.

Movies & Series

I was always a fan of films, I remember that as a child I got my first VHS on a Christmas Eve, before I was even ten: Lady and the Tramp. Ever since, I got VHS tapes for Christmas and Birthdays. Round about the same age, I also saw my first movie in Cinema. It was with my grandma, and we saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When getting older, I wanted to see films of my own choosing at the cinema, like The Lion King, Casper, Babe, or Free Willy. And I celebrated my 12th birthday at the cinemas watching Toy Story.

Two of my most exciting experiences were: The Phantom Menace. as the first Star Wars movie I got to watch on the big screen. And The Lord of the Rings, because I am a huge fan of Tolkien’s books, and seeing his incredible creation of an entire fantastic world on the big screen swept me off my feet. The first one was also the first movie I voluntarily watched in English the second time. And LotR I watched six times in cinemas, making it the film I have watched most often at the cinema.

For a long time, watching films at home was family time. This was both, a blessing and a curse, as it meant that everyone had to agree on what to watch, with my younger brother being the maximum age restriction. This all changed, when I upgraded my PC with a DVD drive. This was an important step in my life as a film fan, now I could watch whatever I wanted, allowing me to explore films more widely, as long as I could get it on DVD. Thus my collecting habit started and continues to this date. I now own about 2,500 SKUs on Blu-ray.

Towards the end of the 2000s, I also got more into TV series: It started with Taken, which I am desperately waiting for some home video label to pick up. Next came Six Feet Under, which I - to this date - list as my favourite TV show of all time. Today, I would say I am even more interested in TV series, than in films.

Music & Festivals

Most people from my school and university years will know me as the really committed music listener and festival goer. I used to go to several concerts and festivals a year, especially M’Era Luna, Amphi Festival, Plage Noire, and Mittelalterlich Phantasie Spectaculum.

My interest in music started at a really early age, and there was a time when I would have listened to music every waking hour possible. It has ever since declined. I still love music, but now I go to festivals and concerts more selectively.

Music was also the first media collection I started by myself: First MC cassettes, then CDDAs, and after buying my first vinyl record in 2009 (because that vinyl was a special release that included a CD with songs that you couldn’t get anywhere else), I fell in love with that huge black disc with all those grooves. Ever since, I’ve been collecting both, music on vinyl and old turntables that I would repair.

I also used to play instruments as a child: first recorder then piano and finally violin (which I learned two styles of: Western classical and Indian style). Unfortunately, after moving out, I never found someone to continue lessons with, and over time I stopped playing.

Video & Board Gaming

As a kid, my family did a lot of board gaming. My favourites included Monopoly, Hare and Tortoise, Scotland Yard, and Siedler von Catan; however I usually just played the card game variant, as most of the time I only had my brother to play this with. I also joined the chess club at school, and partook in local tournaments. Friends got me into Magic the Gathering (MtG) which I used to play from Fourth Edition (with the Gift Box) till Eight Edition. On a class trip I stumbled upon gamebooks: someone brought one of these to the trip, which we played in the dorm room at curfew. Back home I got myself the Fabled Lands books. This was my entrance to real Pen-and-Paper role-playing. With some friends I played The Dark Eye and Shadowrun.

Then I moved cities, and the new people around me were more interested in party games than in complicated strategy games. However, during that time I also found a new game that interested me a lot: Dominion. When starting to study, I got deep into a card game called Munchkin. We would play this every now and then at university canteen after lunch. Another game I got into at university was Werewolves. I tried every possibility I got to play this with friends and groups of other students for years until it got me bored.

When I moved to my current city, I got back into MtG again with Ikoria on MTGA. With Kaldheim I got my first physical set in decades. I got in touch with the local game store (LSG), and with Time Spiral Remastered I went to my first local tournaments. For a year, I joined every Prerelease, and Pioneer events, and finally met someone I knew on one of the tournaments. We organised a private group to play MtG in a non-competitive environment, and since then we’ve been playing Booster Draft, Sealed Deck, and Commander regularly. Also, via the LGS I found some people interested in Pen and Paper, and we did some campaigns in Dungeons and Dragons, Mörk Borg and Call of Cthulhu. Parts of the MtG group are also into other board games, rekindling my interest in board games and I played a lot of modern classics that I missed from the last 10 years. My recent favourites include Keep the Heroes Out!, Nemesis, Terrorscape, and Unfathomable. But my current all-time-favourite is Blood on the Clocktower, which I am playing on a regular basis for two years now. It’s like Werewolves, only so much better!

While I prefer board games for the social aspect, I also used to play a lot of video games. I had a Donkey Kong Game & Watch, a NES and a Gameboy. When I got into PC gaming, my favourite games were Diablo, and even when I was out of gaming, I would still always pick up the next Diablo and expansions, up to Diablo IV. Besides this Hack and Slash, and the occasional shooter (like Counter Strike, Battlefield 1942 or the Star Wars: Jedi Knight games) I was mostly into RTS games like Command & Conquer games, StarCraft, Warcraft III SpellForce, or Battle for Middle-Earth.

I stopped playing for a while, and only really returned during the pandemic lockdowns, and got into gaming consoles with XBox One X, and its successor Xbox Series X. I really got into Assassin’s Creed and completed all main titles. I also enjoyed the Batman: Arkham games, the last two Red Dead titles, and the two Ori games. Then I supplemented my Xbox with a PlayStation 5 Slim, and played both Astro Bot games. And just recently I got a Switch 2, because I really felt nostalgia for the old NES games. I got really hooked on Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong: Bananza.

Anyways, my TBP pile is at least as huge as my TBR and my TBW pile.

Travelling & Geocaching

I used to do a lot of travelling with my parents, and altough that became less in adulthood, I can still look back on a decent list of places I visited: 66 cities in 11 countries on 3 continents, including Canada, India and Singapore.

Yet I still have a huge list of places I would like to visit some day. In my past I also used to do a lot of Geocaching. It started as a hobby, and became a reason to explore my city and surrounding places. Lately we don’t need a reason for that anymore, and Geocaching slowly faded out. However, it is still a beloved pastime when travelling and I love to log a cache in every location I visit for the first time.

Community & Conferences

I’ve always been politically and socially engaged. It started when I was elected class representative in school. Once I started my job training, I was elected to the “Youth and trainee representation” for two terms (4 years). During my studies I joined the student council, organised orientation weeks, parties, and a half-yearly programming event (ONOC), sat in the appointments committees, and represented my university at the computer science student council conference (the Konferenz der Informatikfachschaften, KIF) in:

I also helped organise the KIF in both my Universities (Kiel and Bremen). Besides school, work and university I was also part of different user groups:

  • Hamburger Linux User Group (HHLUG) – does not exist anymore
  • Mottenlinux (a secondary LUG in Hamburg, that took place in a building called “Motte” (moth)) – does not exist anymore
  • Hackerspace Bremen e.V.

Before the pandemic I was a regulary at BarCamps in:

Other conferences I visited or participated in:

Sports & Nutrition

I started swimming at a swimming club, when I was ten or eleven years old. Rather soon I got into the High-performance group, and took part in some important competitions. I did this until I left Hamburg for my job training.

From one day to the next I stopped training, comming from three to four days a week. This resulted in significant weight gain, and soon I reached a severe levels of overweight. I did sports, but I wasn’t good in anything else than swimming, and being uneducated in both sports and nutrition, I tried out many things without success.

Only recently did I put a lot of effort into learning the science of weight gain and weight loss, dieting, food energy and what calories actually meant, and how healthy calorie restrictions look like. I also learned about the effects of endurance training, aerobic exercise, strength training, and muscle hypertrophy. I additionally learned about different measurements, like BMI, WHtR, WHR, and BFP.

Right now, my goal is to lose as much weight as possible. At my worst I was at a BMI far over 40. I then managed to lose around 25 kg, but due to medical issues I was forced to stop, and since then had a hard time starting again. I also gained back about 10 kg, which still leaves me in a better place than where I started.

Currently, I am focussing on caloric deficit, weight training and aerobic exercising. This year I would like to manage to get to a body mass, that allows me to get into calisthenics. Later I might try to get into something like a marathon or a triathlon. Finishing an Ironman would be an insane achievement. I would also like to pick up martial arts again. I used to do Jiu-Jitsu and Iaidō . I would love to (and plan) to get back on track of becoming a modern Samurai.

Epilogue

This was a long one, sorry for that. But as you can see, I have multiple interests. I am easily enthused and especially if a subject is interesting enough, I tend to nerd out. So this is far from a complete list. However, this might give you a good insight into what you might expect on this blog. If anything caught your eye let me know. I am keen to keep in contact and exchange ideas, with like-minded people who share my interest 😉

  1. If you didn’t know (I didn’t either until recently), it’s a famous meme nowadays, but in all honesty, I don’t see my using Arch making me superior in any way; it just gives me less headache than many others that I tried… ↩

  2. There is a German Wikipedia article on this, as this programme is pretty unique: students completed the Abitur while also doing a full vocational CTA qualification including practical lab training. ↩

  3. It was a VTech Genius Leader 2000. Given the release date, it could have been as early as age eight. One day, I read the instruction manual, which thaught you how to use BASIC and I wrote my first program that would ask for your name, and if it was my name, it would greet me, and ask for a password. Once that was entered it would reveal a secret to me that I stored in there. However, if the password was wrong, or if my brother’s name was provided, it would insult the user 😅. ↩

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