Some Basics About Me

I'm currently 35 years old and live currently near Zurich, Switzerland together with my absolutely adorable and lovely wife, who is by far the most important part of my life. Ines, thank you so much for being just the one you are!

I'm working as a software engineer now. Previously, I obtained a Master's degree in in Physics at the Uni Graz and did a PhD about shape optimisation in Mathematics in the IGDK 1754 graduate school. If you're interested, I have a seperate page describing the stuff I do related to research (in the wider sense).

Apart from that, I'm doing (more or less) small software developments for companies to earn some additional money; and you can also see a list of projects I do in my spare time, basically helping with free software and similar stuff.

And if there's still time to fill, other "likes" of mine are:

Reading: I usually read rather old stuff, for instance books of Project Gutenberg. My favourites are Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, but I also liked a lot of other books! In particular, I'm also quite interested in works painting a picture of society and social order—ideally coupled with Science Fiction (you possibly immediately think of 1984 or Brave New World, but less well-known titles I count to the same category are for instance The Time Machine or Looking Backward: 2000–1887, with the latter being an only positive vision of the future (in contrast to the others)).
Esperanto: I'm in the process of learning Esperanto, and hope that I can soon try to read some books in that (I think) very interesting language.
Outdoor activities: I love cycling where possible (to avoid going by bus or even car), in particular around Graz. It usually works well there for any place I have to go (like the university). But when there's time, I also like walking outside or even mountaineering—easy climbing and skiing included (but well, I'm Austrian).

I just noted that this page tells you so far more about what I do than something actually about me. To close that hole, I can bring up another important topic: I live in a completely vegetarian way and even try to be vegan as often as I see the opportunity, already for some years now; and I really believe that's the right thing to do, since I also believe in animal rights. Thus, I morally completely support the works of groups like PETA or Vier Pfoten. While I don't consider it as important as animal rights, I also support movements for digital freedom, in particular the EFF and FSF.