Biography
From birth to the end of my school years (until 2004)
I was born on a December 24, i.e. on Christmas Day, on a stormy day in Freilassing, Germany at 4 o'clock in the morning. My parents are Heinz Karl (banker) and Christine Karl. I also have a sister named Marina who is four years younger than me. Already as a baby or rather toddler I was very interested in many things that surrounded me. Above all, I was already in my first year very interested in everything that was something technical and electronic which was reflected in the fact that I always played with the hifi-system and other electronical equipment. A little later I started building things with wires, bulbs, batteries, old appliances such as an old phone and some other components. Already at a young age I always had big goals: Whether I played only with building blocks or built something out of electrical components: Everything had always to be better! Better, faster, bigger and more and more features! With a small model railway (Märklin HO), which my father had even from his childhood, my enthusiasm for this hobby started: I bought additional tracks, locomotives, wagons, etc. and built myself in a basement room a small model railroad layout. Soon it was equipped with a digital control system and I built from kits many model houses and other buildings - another hobby was started. Everything that had to do with power fascinated me. Soon I built small electrical circuits, in which I made one and soon even several serially and parallel-connected lights illuminate or that had another function.
Although I was a little bit deterred when I made some very thin copper wires in my children's room glow, shortly afterwards my research drive went on and soon I was also very interested in electronic devices that had to do with music and sound. So I was interested in e.g. the Keyboard of my mother which I also tried to play. I even experimented with a small white Casio synthesizer.
Because of the fact that my uncle had a own recording studio and these devices fascinated me very much, my interest in electronic music instruments became unstoppable and I decided to build my own recording studio some day. But first, I tried to connect more and more electronical devices more or less useful, culminating on the one hand in the fact that I decided to use also the phone lines of the national German carrier "Deutsche Telekom" for this purpose (which I've not done ..) and on the other hand that I put cables through our house and installed speakers on the stairs, in the living room and other rooms to build a kind of functioning acoustic irradiation system with which I could make announcements and play music. Thereby I also played occasionally "radio station".
Whereby I come to the next point: At the age of 10 approximately I became interested in radio and especially the functioning of radio transmission and looked for information in all my available resources, where the transmitters are located, on which frequencies which radio station is broadcasted by which transmitter and how the ranges of the respective FM transmitters are. When I was, for example, with the holiday program of my town at the local radio station "Radio Unterberg" and the moderator asked, after he had shown us the studio, if we have a question, I asked, "Where is the frequency 88.2 MHz of your station broadcasted?" The moderator was really overstrained with that question. Of course I like watching TV since my first few years of life. With the end of my former favorite station "Tele 5" I started even at a young age to critically deal with the German media industry and their contexts.
But what happened in my life besides my passion for technology?
Well, in September 1988 I visited with four years the municipal nursery in my home-town Laufen, Germany. From 1990 on I went to elementary school in Leobendorf/Laufen, Germany, where it turned out already in the first class that I am gifted in math. This finding was confirmed in the following years and in September 1994 I visited at first the secondary school in Laufen since I had the plan to go to the junior high school and therefore didn't apply for the transfer to the high school in the fourth grade as opposed to some others. After I had passed one year of secondary school (for example in math they explained for hours and often that the "divide-calculation" is the reversal of the "multiply-calculation"...) it was more and more clear to me that I could only get a good job in my field of interest if I go to high school. So I decided quite spontaneously to speak up, as the teacher only asked twice for control purpose if someone else wants to go to high school... Then the teacher looked a little astonished. She probably had not expected that I said this "at the last minute". Unfortunately, she did not let me change the school easily: Rather, she gave me instead of the mark "three" in German just a "four". So I had a GPA of 2.66 and had to do the entrance exam ... I also passed this entrance exam, so I changed in fall of 1995 to the Rottmayr High School in Laufen, Germany.
In the course of time, my enthusiasm for electrical engineering kept existing and so I started with 13 years to buy a pretty good hi-fi system from individual components of the brands Pioneer and Magnat. A good sound when listening to music became particularly important to me. During this period my enthusiasm for astrology began, as I had a project day at the high school, where I was assigned to an astrology project. Until now of course I cannot prove that astrology is really true, and I cannot explain it scientifically, but it is amazing how true the statements of real astrology are. Having my audio system with Dolby Digital extended by one of the first DVD players and a wide screen TV and thus constructed a small home cinema, I started to realize my long decided plan to set up a own recording studio. The first device that I bought in 2001 was also an absolute professional device: The synthesizer Yamaha EX 5 and some accessories such as racks and studio headphones. Then I extended the whole thing in the following years with a music computer and software such as Logic Audio Platinum, a mixer, a small rack synthesizer named Waldorf Micro Q, Monitors, etc. At the age of 18, I have then finally bought a cell phone, namely a Nokia 6310 with a contract with the German mobile network Vodafone D2. This then developed my great interest in how wireless networks are built and how they work. Since this time I deal in particular with the structural design of the network infrastructure such as the locations of base stations and the network planning and in the meantime also the used mobile phone standards, particularly GSM, UMTS and LTE. At the beginning of 2002 I created my first website about me and my little music studio "Starlight Studio". In 2003 I got also a driving license for motorcycles in addition to my driving license for cars which I passed already in 2002, as I was already planning to drive a motorcycle someday.
From high school to the first New Zealand tour (2004 to 2005)
After my school time at the high school had run smoothly, I did my graduation in May 2004, which I passed with a grade point average of 2.3. As advanced courses I have chosen mathematics and geography, as well as physics as a third high school exam subject. Actually I wanted to have math and physics as advanced courses, but unfortunately this was not possible because of the introduction of two rails, which was conducted this year on Rottmayr High School. But with the combination of mathematics and geography I was also very pleased. My interest in music, astrology and electrical engineering, especially for mobile communication, computer, internet and audio / video systems, was also still present after high school to the full extent, so I came to believe that a degree in electrical engineering at the Technical University of Munich would be exactly the right for me. So I signed up for the Diploma course in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Munich, without studying the other courses offered. So I started this study at the Technical University of Munich in October. This should, however, for certain reasons turn out to be a mistake. After I had gained a more accurate impression, I became a little discouraged, which consequently affected the studies in a negative way. After the removal from the register of students for the Electrical Engineering and Information Technology program at the Technical University of Munich, I did what I should have done a year earlier: I looked at the course offers in detail and also informed me more thoroughly about the universities in question. After I had watched a few lectures in a few courses, I applied for both electrical engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim (Yes, I have not had enough of Electrical Engineering...) and for a university place in the course of media informatics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. In the summer of 2005 I also had a lot of time for my hobbies and to recover from the exertions in the past. Since my taste in music became a little bit more rock-influenced at the end of my school days, I began to visit festivals like "Rock im Park". But my interest in mobile communication grew more and more what culminated in the fact that I run already around with several mobile phones and SIM cards of all German mobile networks during the years in school. In addition to mobile communication my enthusiasm for Internet grew as well, but where I didn't want to be only a user or a simple website operator: At the beginning of 2004 I rented a small virtual server in a data center in Nuremberg, which I configured and operated completely by myself and which was used as a web server for my websites and as a own mail server, thus I became independent of web hosting and e-mail providers. Of course, I didn't expect that the current server network of several dedicated servers and v-servers in data centers in Germany, France and New Zealand would evolve from that. I also used the free time to catch up on something: After high school, in the summer of 2004, I had the desire to make a trip to the U.S., what I did not do for various reasons.
After watching the film trilogy "Lord of the Rings" on DVD with these breathtaking landscapes, my dream destination was of course no longer the United States, but the country where these movies emerged: New Zealand! Also after I had informed myself more precisely about New Zealand, the country was very pleasant to me. The only problem was that New Zealand is the country, which is farthest from Germany, because it is exactly on the other side of the earth. It can only be reached by a more than 24-hour flight, which was problematic for me, as I had never flown before, except of a small tour. In June 2005 I decided to overcome this hurdle and booked the flight. I flew on 11 August 2005 with the Arab airline "Emirates" with a change in Dubai to New Zealand and made a two-and-a-half-week tour throughout New Zealand. New Zealand is truly beautiful! Upon arrival in Christchurch I was pleasantly surprised, because even though there was winter, it was relatively warm, sunny and especially without snow! In contrast to that in Germany - despite of the summer - it rained at the same time and usually it was cold, as I was told. In New Zealand nearly all types of landscape on the earth are united: Large plains, high mountains, beautiful coastal landscapes, grasslands, virgin forests, large and small towns, sand dunes, glaciers and palm trees, beautiful deep blue lakes, fjords, geysers and volcanoes can be found there close together! However, you can not only enjoy the beautiful landscapes there, but also have fun in other ways, e.g. when jet-boating, rafting or doing other action sports. The people in New Zealand are, especially compared to Germany, very friendly and good humored. In short, New Zealand is just perfect for me and I didn't want to leave! Only the plan to come back sometimes could induce me to depart from New Zealand.
From my Media Informatics studies to now (2005 to now)
In New Zealand, more precisely, in a phone booth of Telecom New Zealand on Fox Glacier I was told in a phone conversation with my mother, that I have received an acceptance from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University for a university place in the course of media informatics. Then I decided for this study, and so I studied from October 2005 media informatics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. With this study, I was also very satisfied: The lectures, seminars and tutorials were very interesting and are not flooded with boring and useless theory. Even the professors and lecturers were friendly and there was generally a good atmosphere. Encouraged by all this, I was very busy and could finish the basic studies after three instead of four semesters with the pre-diploma. After I was in the fourth term, in contrast to most other students who had started with me, already occupied exclusively with the lectures and internships of the main course, I allowed myself a break during the summer holidays in 2007 and realized my plan which I made in 2005: I flew back to New Zealand! This time I made in the months of August and September an even longer individual tour by bus and train across the country. The impressions I received there, such as the beauty, seclusion and tranquility of the Fjordland and the Abel Tasman National Park gave me a sense of freedom, peace of mind and the strength and recovery, which also helped me in the following time to eagerly tackle the main course.
In between I bought a motorcycle on 05/31/2010: A Yamaha XV 535 Virago with a speedometer with mileage, brought forward footpegs from Falcon and many parts of chrome. With this machine, which the previous owner imported from the U.S., I realized my wish to ride a motorcycle. In August 2010 I also discovered my preference for dry red wine, so that I, a non-beer-drinker, now have an alternative to cocktails and mixed drinks with regard to alcoholic beverages when sociable gathering. But also otherwise drinking a glass Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Dornfelder in the evening seems to be quite good, I think. After external affairs had unfortunately claimed a little bit too much time at the end of my studies, I did my diploma thesis on "evaluation of LTE in terms of the requirements of vehicle communication". So my passion for mobile communication also influenced my diploma thesis, where I had to analyze and evaluate the latest mobile standard "Long Term Evolution" (LTE). In the diploma examinations I reached with twice 1.0 and twice 2.0 quite good results. On 06/01/2011 I received my diploma and have since then the degree "Diplom-Medieninformatiker (Universität)".
In the following time I did some things that were a bit neglected during my studies. So I renewed for example my server infrastructure. This currently consists of about 10 servers in Nuremberg (Germany), Falkenstein (Germany), Frankfurt (Germany), Auckland (New Zealand), Paris (France) and Roubaix (France). On these servers, I run my own web server for all of my Web sites, my own mail servers, backup mail servers, and now even have my own domain name server for my over 40 domains. Also, I worked to make my new website. But I also granted myself some free time. This free time I spent besides visiting some festivals like "Rock im Park" and "Summer Breeze" and several little vacations also with hiking in the mountains and a motorcycle tour. As my scientific curiosity had remained and it also had the expression to explore mystical things now, some mystical places, such as legendary castle and chapel ruins, were also stops on my tour. Otherwise I drove and still drive gladly through beautiful landscapes, because besides all my technological enthusiasm my love for nature has always remained.
To be continued...