Myself – Ralph – retired IT senior consultant and physicist
I am a retired person. Yet, I would participate in some special IT-projects – if the subject overlaps with my current interests and if the conditions are right.
Education and professional career
I am an educated (astro-) physicist with a PhD degree. Yet, I have worked more than 3 decades as an IT-professional. Why? Well, this is an interesting question I will write about in some posts in the blog-part of this web-site. Whatever the reasons for not staying in science after 1991: I am very grateful for the time I could spend at the TU München and at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics in Garching in the 2nd half of the 80s. Intellectually, these were the best days of my life – which I did not fully value at that time. Today, I look upon my days with scientific work as a major privilege.
Regarding IT I have worked in SW-development, IT project management and later in more general senior consulting regarding company wide IT and quality management (e.g. ITSM, ISO/IEC 20001, ITIL, ISMS and IT-Sec, ISO/IEC 27001). For about a decade I participated in eGovernment-projects on different levels of governmental administration in Germany. During the last years of my professional career I focused on topics like merging agile and conventional management methods and a bit with basic education in the field of Machine Learning.
I am pro Open Source. Personally, I use Linux on my own equipment, only. I have spent both private and professional time building up knowledge of Linux networking, of some Linux server technologies for every day use, about virtualization on Linux platforms and Linux based IT-security. To summarize it: I think there are operative systems for men vs. operative systems for boys, gamers and the uninformed. I often think that many small and medium sized companies or organizations in Germany have not yet understood what IT-and information security really means. And I fear that Europe, but especially Germany, will not grasp the opportunities AI offers within proper time.
Political attitude
I am a value-conservative person. I am thoroughly for the EU, also in the sense of a growing political alignment and alliance. I pray every day (so far unfortunately in vain) for a much stronger political, economical and military alliance between France and Germany. I think that the democracy in Germany is endangered by extremist right wing and more or less fascistic parties as the AfD. But we must defend our society also against ideological ideas of the BSW. I regard both the AfD and the BSW as forefront organizations of the Putler in Russia. The biggest political disappointment in my life was, however, the development of the SPD over the last 3 decades. Says one who praises Willy Brandt. In the present spectrum of center democratic parties the FDP is the party I have least in common with.
I fear mankind will choose to move on along a self-destructive path in this century – not only with respect to environmental problems. Mainly due to the lasting ignorance of scientifically uneducated politicians, advocates and bureaucrats and in some particular cases plain criminals controlling governments and administration of major countries on this planet.
Why a homepage in English?
I have long thought about this. The reasons are: I try to think and live as a European and not only as a German. Some of my friends and relatives are Norwegians and French. Most of my posts in my linux-blog are read in the US (75%) and not in Germany (25%). I get positive response and letters from American readers. So, the real question would be: Why not in English?