it's been a long time...

...felt so short.

I gave up my normal life - the life I used to live - on July the 7th 2008.
Life in green was hard - for the first 5 days. Then it got better and since Yesterday it is nearly perfect.
I really have to say that all the stories I heard scared me a bit, but now I know it is not that bad, but different to everything I knew so far.

I needed something different so WHITE was a good choice. Until this night I thought that this kind of party is nothing for me, but now I know everything can be great if you are with the right people.
Again I recognized that not everybody is as lucky as I am, but I also know that the only thing I could do is to listen. I am not helpful at all I think - in this case.

Allthough I think I look strange in white, but I think I look great in green.... *gg*

But then...
...the next weekend came.
I met old friend and had a great time drinking and talking about the good old times and this "thing about green".

At this point I though everything is cool and under control and that I know about everything.

Wrong.

Just a few minutes ago something changed. Something that I thought it would never change. ..., but great. I am very happy about it and I feel honored as well.

I hope I will do a good job - as far as you can call this as a job. *gg*

it's been a long time and suddenly.... ....BOOM.

Firefighter's Headquater inspired by Masterchief's Helmet?

OMG! I was walking around searching for some cool things to take some photos and suddenly I saw something that some kind of scared me. I heard the Halo 3 main theme playing in my head, the sky got dark and a phatom apeared on the horizont but....

...Then I realized that it is just a Firefighter's Headquater maybe designed by a halo fan!


ok this is a fake version of it made with gimp, but in my eyes it looked like this in this special epic halo moment.

If you look at the original photo here - and if you are a halo fan like me - than you can also see the connection between this huge green thing with orange windows and the masterchief.

I think this thing is my new favourit firefighter's headquater. (in fact it is the first favourit firefighter's headquater for me)

thanks for reading.

(A)Life

The truth is that I did not expect that.

At the moment I am thinking a lot about my life and how it will look like in a year or so.
I have plans of course, but a plan means to make decissions. Sometimes I think it will all be fine, but sometimes I am anxious. There is always this unknown human factor.
No not me. I know what I want! I want what I have right now! I just want some kind of guarantee.

I am no idiot - total security is impossible, but I can try my best.
This weekend was some kind of wired, but nice of course. Old friendships seemed to reactivate themselves.

I did not expect that.

..., but I am pretty happy about it.
My life is great at the moment. I just want it to stay like this!

IR - BFI - SMF

Not every week offers so much opportunities to make so much photos, but this one did.
On thoursday the 19th I drove to the BFI Lehrlingspiele in Velden. I was an apprentice of the BFI for 3.5 years, so I had to go there to meet all the trainers and other apprentices again. I thought that I would be able to take one or two potraits, but I did not expect to take really cool skateboard action shots.
They were making sport all day and when I arrived they still got the power to show me some real cool skateboard action.
Now I love my Wide Angle Lens even more.
All the photos of this evening can be found in this Set -> BFI Lehrlingspiele

I also tried to make some Infrared shots with my new Infrared Filter (900nm) I think I am to stupid for this.
My pictures aren't looking bad, but I have to use a so high exposure time an ISO that the pictures look very grainy. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but I will keep on trying.

On saturday I was at the Strong Men Contest in Fresach. That was fun watching guys pulling a 6600kg tractor.
Also here I had the opportunity to take some great action shots. The weather was incredible. The sun was shinning, the asphalt was burning and I think I was sweating even more than the "Strong Men".

All the photos of this can be found in this Set-> Strong Men Contest

All in All some great days for me and my photo hobby.

Enganged to rock

Novarock Festival 2008

I got home this afternoon after a nearly 10 hours long trip through the whole country. We left the Festival at 1:30am and reached the bus to the station at Nickelsdorf at 2:50am. My bagback was nearly as heavy as myself. I was tired and I felt every bone in my body.

I Slept about 20 minutes on the way to Vienna. There I slept on the ground in the station for 2 hours. At 6:57am our train startet rolling. I was sleeping a bit on my way to carinthia. At 11:15am our train reached St.Veit. Now I just had to get to the car and drive home.

And that's were I am now, but let's start a bit earlier...

During the last 4 days I wrote some kind of a festival-diary and that's what you will read now.

Novarock 2008 from my perspective.

It all started on my birthday – June the 12^th - at 9:00am in St.Veit.

My girlfriend martina, a friend called hansi and another buddy called puggi and me set in the train to Vienna.

At 9:45am we had our first beer and some more followed until we reached Vienna. There we a had a very short time to wait (another beer and a cigarette) for our train to Nickelsdorf.

A bus drove us as close as possible to the festival area. There we had to walk for about 2 hours to find a place to place our tents.

After some more beer and bread with „Jagdwurst“ we decided to go to the Soccer area to watch the match Germany vs Croatia and the match Austria vs Poland.

When Austria shot the goal in minute 93 the people went crazy. Beer cans were flying like fireworks, red torches burned everywhere and everybody started singing and screaming.

I really didn't expect that.

13.6.2008

Brushing my teeth the next morning was really great. Washing my hands was even greater. (Mobile toilets are so horrible!)

This afernoon the wind was extremly strong. http://www.zamg.ac.at/ said that the wind will be „lebhaft“ - active.

In fact it was a freakin Hurricane – we called the wind "Ula" – that made our tents shake and the pavilions fly. We were searching for extra hooks for our tents. Everywhere everything was flying arround.

Even the blue stage stopped playing for some time, because of the wind.

The Storm - ULA

The night was not good, I didn't sleep a lot.

Hansi seems to get mad, everytime he opens his mouth he tells us very strange things. All the time! The wind damaged his tent a bit.

All the people arround us are working to make their tents more wind-resistent, while the wind – Ula - gets even stronger.

Now hansi tells us that he is sexy. I am disgusted.

Later that afternoon the wind really started to get on my nerves. We have now twice as much hooks in the earth as we had in the beginning.

And again I am eating Jagdwurst.

14.6.2008

I was having a shower today. It was so great to get all the dirt off.

Jonathan Davis – frontman of Korn – was really great today. He played a lot of Korn songs and interpreted them in a really cool new way.

Jonathan Davis Live - one of the cool slow interpretations

He was defenetly one of my highlights at this festival.

I hope the beatsteaks will rock.

The wind is gone and the sun is shinning. (later that day I noticed that I have a sunburn on my hands and my face!)

The sex pistols weren't really good. They were boring.

Hansi says: „Montag ist Schlagsahne!“ - I do not know why he tells us things like these.

15.6.2008

The beatsteaks really made my day – last evening. If somebody asks me „What was the biggest party, you've ever been at?“ I would say „It was the evening of the 14^th of june when thousands of people were celebrating with the beatsteaks. Jumping, screaming, PARTY!!! It was perfect."

The Godfathers really rocked this afternoon. 4 old guys with 3 guitares and a drumkit. Classic Rock at its best!

„BIRTH-SCHOOL-ROCK-DEATH“ - The Godfathers

Yesterday also Bad Religion showed us that they are still alive. Allthough they did not play „I love my Computer“.

It was reaning tonight.

The pathes of the camping area are morasses, but the sun is so hot now that they will be dry soon. It is soooo hot, I wish Ula comes back.

Today we saw Disturbed. They were defenetly my favourits. The show was great and my voice was gone after it.

DISTURBED - DOWN WITH THE SOCKNESS - LIVE!!!

This night we left after Rage against the machine. (They weren't really as good as I expected, but now I can tell everybody that I have seen them live!)

and then this long trip home began.

It was a great – one of the greatest – weekends. I think I have to go there again – for the 3^rd time – next year...

Infrared? Channelshifting? WTF? Ok, I'll write a script....

I think I need a new challange. Infrared Photography!
Don't know what it is? ask wikipedia...

BUT, I read some tutorials and I found out that Infrared photos apear channel shifted. Red channels id blue channel an blue channel is red channel. That means that the colors look absolutly wired.

So I decided to wirte a script -python of course - that shifts the channels back. R->B B->R

It was easier than I thought.

I used some normal pictures to test it.

Example 1:
ORIGINAL IMAGE


After my script swapped Red and Blue it looks like this:


Ok I know what you think... "WTF? Now it just looks wired! and simply wrong!"
But, I swap a normal Image in this case. When I take my first infrared photo it will look - maybe - like the wired channel-shifted photo, BUT after my script swapped red and blue it will -maybe - look like the original image!

got it?

After this fast success, I decided to mess arround a bit more with channels and python .
I created a second script which keeps one channel (red,green or blue) and overwrites the othe two with the avarage of all 3 channels.

This looks like this then (here i kept the blue channel):


More results of this script can be found in my flickr photostream.

Here are the two scripts:

channelShift.py

import Image
import ImageEnhance
import math

print "ChannelShift"
inim = raw_input("input: ")
out = raw_input("Save as: ")

mod = int(raw_input("(R->B)=0 or (R->G->B->R)=1): "))

im1 = Image.open(inim)
imOut = out

w = im1.size[0]
h = im1.size[1]

print w
print h

x = 0
while x < w:
    y = 0
    while y < h:
        p1 = im1.getpixel((x,y))

        if mod == 0:
            r = p1[2]
            g = p1[1]
            b = p1[0]
        else:
            r = p1[2]
            g = p1[0]
            b = p1[1]

      

        im1.paste((r,g,b),(x,y,x+1,y+1))
      
        y = y + 1
    x = x + 1
    if x % 10 == 0:
        print x

im1.save(imOut)

print "end"

and
channelFun.py

import Image
import ImageEnhance
import math

print "ChannelFun"
inim = raw_input("input: ")
out = raw_input("Save as: ")
rtc = raw_input("Keep Channel (r,g,b): ")

im1 = Image.open(inim)
imOut = out

w = im1.size[0]
h = im1.size[1]

imred = Image.new("RGB", (w,h), (0,0,0))

print w
print h

x = 0
while x < w:
    y = 0
    while y < h:
        p1 = im1.getpixel((x,y))

        r = p1[0]
        g = p1[1]
        b = p1[2]

       
        #reduce
        reduced = int((r+g+b) / 3)

        if (rtc == "r"):
            imred.paste((r,reduced,reduced),(x,y,x+1,y+1))
        elif (rtc == "g"):
            imred.paste((reduced,g,reduced),(x,y,x+1,y+1))
        elif (rtc == "b"):
            imred.paste((reduced,reduced,b),(x,y,x+1,y+1))
        else:
            print "ERROR: " + rtc + " is not valid! USe r,g or b!"
            x = w
            break
       

       
        y = y + 1
    x = x + 1
    if x % 10 == 0:
        print "ROW: " + str(x) + " of " + str(w) + " rows processed ..."

imred.save(imOut)

print "end"

OMG! I can't believe it!

A weekend that made me nearly speechless!
Soccer, Weatherfore cast (no good forecast!) AND DUKE NUKED FOREVER! (yes AGAIN!!)
... and some other things I would like to talk about



1. Austria vs. Croatia - 0:1 - we lost, but it could have been worst.

2. Germany vs Poland - 2:0 - Germany was playing, Poland was watching, but both were far better than we have ever been. So the next two matches will be very difficult for us.

3. Some days ago I said that I will never trust the weather forecast again! But, maybe this time it makes me some kind of nervous.
You know I am going to the Novarock Festival this thursday and I will stay there until monday.
And the weather forecast looks like this: http://www.wetter.at/wetter/oesterreich/burgenland/nickelsdorf
Ok, it could be worse, but it also could be better! I don't want to build up my tent on a wet and muddy ground.
But, I think it will be worth it.

And here are my reasons:
13.6.
14:40-15:15 Donots
17:05-18:00 Alkbottle
23:05-00:35 Sex Pistols

14.6.
19:40-20:50 Bad Religion
21:45-23:00 Beatsteaks
23:05-00:35 Motörhead

15.6.
19:05-20:15 Disturbed
20:05-21:15 Kid Rock
23:30-01:00 Rage Against The Machine (OMG! YES I AM GOING TO SEE THEM LIVE!!!)

The whole LineUp can be found at HERE.


So now let's talk about something that isn't that shocking, but I have to mention it.

4.Duke Nukem Forever! (again and again and again and ....)
If you watch this video, you will notice that this guy (Jace Hall) gets to 3d realms (about at the middle of the video) and talks about Duke Nukem Forever AND he is able to play a bit of it!!
Duke Nukem INGAME!!!
Fake?! Maybe.... but it is worth seeing.

Lost in translation

Ok, here's the problem!

You want to write a letter to a korean factory to thank them for producing t-shirt with no hole for your head to get out!
But, of course you can't speak korean!

So you use the Google translater to translate your letter written in german. That means you have to translate it to english and from english to korean.

You know what I want to say?!

Ok. Here is an example.

German (original):
Liebe Firma !

Ich möchte mich dafür bedanken, dass sie mir ein neues Hobby beschert haben! Nachdem ich etwas verwirrt bemerkte, dass das T-Shirt aus ihrer Produktion kein Loch für den Kopf besitzt und das es bei Übersee-Lieferungen auch keine Garantie mehr gibt, habe ich mit einer Schere ein Loch an die Stelle geschnitten an der offensichtlich eines Fehlt!
Das Ergebnis war wenig zufriendenstellend da sich daraufhin das T-Shirt in einen langen weißen Faden verwandelt hat.
Nun bin ich fleißig am Stricken und hoffe bis Weihnachten 2019 das T-Shirt fertig zu haben!

mit freundlichen Grüßen


English (first translation - with Google):
Company love!

I would like to thank that they sent me a new hobby have provided! After a bit confused I noticed that the T-shirt from their production no hole for the head and holds it on Übersee deliveries also no guarantee anymore, I have a pair of scissors with a hole cut in the body seems to be one of the missing!
The result was little zufriendenstellend since then the T-shirt in a long white thread has changed.
Now I am busy knitting and hope by Christmas 2019 the T-shirt ready!

Yours sincerely,


As you can see allready at this point our text makes no sence anymore!

But, Wait! Microsoft has a new Translator! The Windows Live Translator! Save me Steve!

English (first Translation - With WLT):
Loves company !

I would like to thank you for the fact that they gave a new hobby to me! After I something confused noticed that the T-shirt from its production does not possess a hole for the head and in the case of overseas supplies also no more warranty gives it, I have a hole with shears to the place cut at that obviously one am missing!
The result was little zufriendenstellend there itself thereupon the T-shirt transformed into a long white thread.
Now I am industrious at knitting and hope to Christmas 2019 the T-shirt completely to have!

Yours sincerely


Ok, different but still a chatic heap of words!

Now give it one last Try and translate both texts to korean and then back to german to see the final results!

Google:
Firma Liebe!

Sie hat mir ein Dankeschön möchte haben ein neues Hobby! Nach einiger Verwirrung t - T-Shirt über ihre Produktion in der Region Übersee Loch in den Kopf, nicht mehr im Besitz von Garantien Lieferung, Nan Schere zu schneiden ihn in ein Loch in einer der fehlenden Körper scheint! Seither ist das Ergebnis fast zufriendenstellend weiße T - Shirt, eine lange Schrauben wurden geändert. Nun bin ich sehr mit Weihnachten 2019 und hofft, Stricken Bluse - bereit Hemd!

Danke,


Windows Live Translator:
Liebesfirma !

I sie das Schreiben geben eine neue Liebhaberei und eine Tatsache, die ich wenn danke, Sie und! Ich bringe den Shirtrespekt der Kopf von ihm Produktion zum Schweigen und Übersee-Versorgungsmaterial auch hat nicht das Loch falls, nachdem mehr es als Garantie verwirrt worden ist, um die Sache zu beachten, offenbar das, es ein Loch gibt, das die Scheren im Platz hat, in dem in 1 morgens missings verringert wird! woDamit Platz ein wenig zufriendenstellend lang Weiß das T-Shirt, das wirklich dort geändert wird, ein Resultat war.Jetzt ich strickend auf unten stehender Beschreibung unter Gewissenhaftigkeit, die das T-Shirt an Weihnachten 2019 vollständig haben wird, Hoffnungen!

wo

Ok now I have to say that both translations sound spooky and wired! They talking about different things and in a language that is far beyond good and evil.

So if you want to translate something use dict.leo.org and a dictionary of your choise, but kept your hands away from any automatic translator!

preview

This is just a preview... ...ok some kind of a preview.
This is the new design of my blog.
BUT, it is also a preview of what will happen to the-engine.at in the next few weeks.
Not only the design is going to change. There will be a totally different structure.
I can't tell you a lot at the moment, but there will be possibilietes (again..) for you (the users...) to interact and create content on your own.
It will be dynamic, user generated AND very, very different to everything that was there before...

unexpected

The weather forecast told me that the weather will be rainy this weekend. So I didn't expected to be able to go geocaching.
Neither I expected to have a short, but very successful photoshooting in klagenfurt.

Everything started this Monday when I got a SMS from a friend telling me that she would like to make some portraits of her with me. (I was very surprised!!)

The weather forecast was bad for an open air shooting, but we met on Friday afternoon and the weather was just perfect. Also the results were great.

After the photoshooting we drove to my girlfriend's parent's and the weather got worse. Rain.
Today the weather was perfect again, so we took the GPS for a geocache in Mooswald.
The cache was well hidden, but after some time we found it!

And still the weather is fine!
Maybe I will go geocaching again tomorrow. I will never trust the weather forecast anymore!

the time to be geeky has come! (again...)

Ok. I know it is wired, but haven't we all been dreaming of fighting R/C Ninja and Pirate?
Well I do! Also glasses made of ice are a pretty cool thing.

But one of my biggest dreams is a alarm clock that is build to be shot!

I think I have to order some new things from http://www.thinkgeek.com/

Here is my wishlist:

• R/C Pirate vs Ninja
• Laser Target Alarm Clock
• Cool Shooters Ice Shot Glasses
• generic humanoid carbon unit

..and the best thing is that these things cost less than 45 euros!!!

I think I will order it tomorrow so that I can fight Pirate VS Ninja as soon as possible.

my own HDR Tonemapping?! why not...

Ok that's the result. Ok, it is not the most impressive HDR ever, BUT it is the first one that was created and tonemapped using my very first HDR/Tonemapping algorithm.

It was created using 3 photos of my livingroom table. The algorithm is nothing special - at the moment - but I will keep improving it. Maybe it get's better - some day.


Here you can see the source code (python):

import Image
import ImageEnhance
import math

print "Salendrons HDR Tonemapper"
out = raw_input("Save as: ")

im1 = Image.open("1.jpg")
im2 = Image.open("2.jpg")
im3 = Image.open("3.jpg")
imOut = out

w = im1.size[0]
h = im1.size[1]

print w
print h

x = 0
while x < w:
    y = 0
    while y < h:
        p1 = im1.getpixel((x,y))
        p2 = im2.getpixel((x,y))
        p3 = im3.getpixel((x,y))

        try:
            npr = int((math.log10(p1[0] + p2[0] + p3[0] + 1.0) / (math.log10(255 + 255 + 255 + 1.0))) * 255)
        except:
            npr = p1[0]
            print "ERR " + str(x)

        try:
            npg = int((math.log10(p1[1] + p2[1] + p3[1] + 1.0) / (math.log10(255 + 255 + 255 + 1.0))) * 255)
        except:
            npg = p1[1]
            print "ERR " + str(x)

        try:
            npb = int((math.log10(p1[2] + p2[2] + p3[2] + 1.0) / (math.log10(255 + 255 + 255 + 1.0))) * 255)
        except:
            npb = p1[2]
            print "ERR " + str(x)

        im1.paste((npr,npg,npb),(x,y,x+1,y+1))
      
        y = y + 1
    x = x + 1
    if x % 10 == 0:
        print x

enh1 = ImageEnhance.Color(im1)
im1 = enh1.enhance(2)

enh2 = ImageEnhance.Contrast(im1)
im1 = enh2.enhance(2)

enh3 = ImageEnhance.Brightness(im1)
im1 = enh3.enhance(0.9)

im1.save(imOut)

print "end"

Home of the Lindwurm

Today me and my girlfriend found the geocache GCKW65.
It was a pretty nice walk through the europapark to solve all the riddles and get the final coordinates.
I left one of my "I'm blogging this Sticker" in the cache and now it becomes true. I'm blogging this.

...*gg*

I am proud!

Today I got "the-environmentalist" magazine.

They used one of my pictures in it. I am so proud!

I will get a picture frame for it.....

All of my pictures are under the Creative Commons Lisence so if you want to use one of my photos, just let me know.


Here is the original one from my photostream.

I love it when my work makes its way arround the world!

starting to realize

Not it is saturday evening and I am no apprentience anymore.

It doesn't feel real now. I think it will take some time to realize that it is real.

will see.

....but now I have to celebrate a little more.....

the end

I am some kind of speechless....

The exam is over. Two days of fear.

I do not know how it happened, but I got a perfect success. (in german: ausgezeichneter erfolg) and my sweet girlfriend got a good success (in german: guter erfolg)


I am so happy right now. I really can't describe it. Everything that happened in these 3,5 years really makes sense now.

I am just happy and proud.

thanks to all of you! - you know who I mean.

The Countdown-Diary [ T - 0 Days, 18 Hours, 19 Minutes, 36 Seconds ]

one last time!

The countdown slowly gets to an end.
Just a few hours left.

I wish everybody that the final exam goes well.

Will see in just a few hours....


...won't be able to sleep tonight....

--- THE END ---

The Countdown-Diary [ T - 2 Days, 16 Hours, 30 Minutes, 18 Seconds ]

ciritical phase...

questions, so many questions!!!

ok, but that's not really the problem. I am much more afraid of the first part of the exam. ER-moddeling, SQL Queries, Algorithm (Nasi-Schneidermann) and programming. Ok the last thing is easy, BUT the others are not.

Today I will do some ER-Models and I am going to code a bit.

I was shopping yesterday. Everything I need to survive the first day of the exam. 8 hours exam without a break. (8 hours without smoking... that's hard)
So I bought a lot of Red Bull, sweets, römerquelle guarana (a lot) and on tuesday I will buy some more fresh snacks in the morning before the exam.

8 hours.... ....uff... ...that's a lot. BUT less than 3 days is so little time.... strange....

--- to be continued ---

The Countdown-Diary [ T - 6 Days, 21 Hours, 22 Minutes, 21 Seconds ]

I have to say that I am not as nervous as I thought that I would be.

I took a few new portrait shots some days ago. I love them.

I am looking for a coffee mashine. (a cool one)

..yay, that's what I think about. Photos, coffee, but I don't think about the LAP. .........ok, maybe sometimes.

What makes me nervous is what we will be after the 9th of May.
I hope everything will work like I want it to.

coffee..... ...sry... ...I think I should learn more. A lot more.
I will....

--- to be continued ---

The Countdown-Diary [ T - 12 Days, 23 Hours, 16 Minutes, 31 Seconds ]

so you think I am some kind of mean?
I don't think so.

So you think it is easy for me?
I wish it would be like this.

I know that the chance for me to pass this exam is pretty high, but it is not my goal just to pass it. Everyone thinks it is no problem for me.

Everyone thinks I will have a superior result on may the 7th. Everyone thinks it is so easy for me.

This is a lot of pressure, because even myself wants me to make it perfect.
I am thinking about nothing else. My whole life is controlled by this pressure to perform. I know that most of the others just want to pass, but I wouldn't be me, if "just pass" would be a possible option.

If somebody told me 4 years ago, that I will feel like this today I probably just told him, that I don't like bad jokes.

I think I grew up... ...a bit... ...,but it is not much easier.

--- to be continued ---