Whow, quite some time of inactivity here… Yet, stuff has happened. Alexandra and me are blogging Berlin-Updates and -Experiences on blog.alexandrafried.com.

We just came back from the ARS Electronica Festival (Tagline “Repair”), which was great this year. Be shure to check it out if you can. It was great to see Dorian Concept and James Blake there, two guys whose music I really love (former I have worked with once, latter I have taken music from for another piece of animation). David O’Reilly is about to release his new short, The External World, which I am eagerly awaiting to watch. Mount Kimbie in Session at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide show this week, also really enjoyed this one. Seen Nosaj Thing at the Icon Club a week before, was nice too. Musicwise, so to say, everything is fine, and I’m also looking forward to some big dates in Berlin, too.

My german telephone number is 0049 (0) 1578 / 4053085
[but don't delete the old one, it still remains active]

VIEW SPREADSHEET / RESULTS HERE

Oh yes, the worldcup is so much fun! But instead of having just one favourite team, its even more fun to have a favourite team (or even a preferred result) for each and every game! So Alexandra and I decided to bet on each game. We set up a google spreadsheet (google docs are awesome anyway) and a simple rule: 1 Point for guessing right the winner or a draw, 3 Points for getting the result right. We just have to fill in our bets and a cool formula does the rest. Click the image for full-size view and formula.

VIEW SPREADSHEET / RESULTS HERE

To be honest, I am not a particular fan of politically or morally motivated films or documentaries. But this one, done by Alexander Piringer is really worth taking a look at. It conveyes a proper amount of information, stays quite objective (or maybe reflects my own opinion just right, hehe), includes a chronicle of sci-fi-classics (!!!), and is really nicely done, especially in consideration of the fact that it was a two man show (narrator: Remo Rauscher) without any budget at all. Fun to watch!

That’s truly a motto:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Science Fiction Movie

Risks of Emerging Technology – Part 1
Risks of Emerging Technology – Part 2 Science Fiction
Risks of Emerging Technology – Part 3 Robotics
Risks of Emerging Technology – Part 4 Genetics

Here’s a collection of websites I did between 2004 (my first personal website) and 2009. I don’t do websites anymore, and the reasons are clear: Neither am I a good web-designer, nor am I interested enough in web technologies. Nevertheless, the internet is a big, big, brain-like structure a big, big, forgetful cloud, and to avoid those websites to be completely lost in its vanishing memory, some screenshots of those websites shall be kept here.

Unfortunately, my next to last personal website disappeared somewhere in the ether… Hopefully I’m going to find it again some day.

Cleaning up some old stuff I came across something funny: Way back, when I was still in primary school, I created an 8-page How-To (I called it a »book«) on calligraphy, entitled »Die Schönste Handschrift« (»Most Beautiful Handwriting«).

Funnily enough, the front page was done on the computer, using these awkward squiggly fonts. The handwriting was done with a self-made bamboo-pen (and ink, of course). It deals with different types of fonts and font-stlyes, ornaments and decorations, a number of hints for a nicer writing and features two »Extras« on how to get a crisp line although the pen is blunt, and on bamboo-pen-drawing techniques. Take a look:

I’m happy to announce another version of helfenschneider.com. Now what’s been changed? Design and site structure were redone and I switched from typo3 to WordPress for various reasons. WordPress is just a lot more convenient for small sites like this one, it’s not as bulky and over the top as typo3, it offers more elaborate blogging features and it feels a lot more 2010. Well, it’s just easier to get your head around WP if you’re not a full-time-web-guy. And I am glad I’m not! Hope you like the new site. Thanks go to WordPress and all the plugin developers!