The Goldenes Brett 2026 is coming!

 Autumn is coming, and that means it is time for repetition and to make fun of ignorance. The "Goldenes Brett vorm Kopf" is a yearly satirical award for anti-science and esoteric bullshit and will take place on the 11.11.2026 at the Stadtsaal Wien. Right now, you can even nominate your favourite cranks. Or your arch-nemesis, whatever.

Get tickets for you and your friends/family to have a great time! If you cannot attend, there will also be a live stream.

What do I have to do with that? As the treasurer of the society for critical thinking, which hosts the event, I am the one responsible for paying bills in time. 

Therefore, totally biased in the name of our continued financial liquidity, please come and support our (non-profit) event. There will be show acts, bullshit bingo, and the odd entertaining disruption.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

This time, I want to recommend another UK history museum, or rather complex - the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, situated at the UK south coast in, you guessed it, Portsmouth.

Especially for a landlubber like me, it is a place that has an incredible density of historical artefacts, or rather ships, to be explored. Be it Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose, or Nelson's Victory, or the first British ironclad Warrior, pictured above.

Plus submarines, harbour tours showing contemporary ships of the fleet and so much more. This one complex of a museum is hard to completely enjoy in one day, so you better budget enough time to enjoy it.

Already in Portsmouth, you can then take the world's last commerical hovercraft service to the Isle of Wight. 

Gelatoposting: Leones, Vienna

While i started my last gelatopost with Florence, today it is about a place I can actually walk to in Vienna. Convenient and excellent: Leones. Two branches in Vienna and a quality and taste that is sooooooooo close to the best places in Italy. My favourite in Vienna so far - a city where we are blessed with good gelato in general.

Long Night of Research Vienna 2026

Tomorrow night it is time again for science communication! At the Long Night of Research 2026, my colleagues and I will once again show off MRI developments at our centre.

There will be tours and multiple hands-on stations. I would be happy to see many visitors coming to learn a bit.

Gradient of Disorder News: New song release

 It has been some time, but G.O.D. has released a new song:

Oberstleutnant Östereich is our spin on the Austrian military and national anthem. We follow the question "everybody knows Captain America, but what would the Austrian equivalent would be?".

If you assume that it is also a parody of the Austrian Superheroes comics, which features Captain Austria, that is a reasonable assumption. But it is wrong. We started working on this song in 2011. Yes, we are that slow.

Next step is putting it on Spotify as well with a nice cover art and eventually add a few more songs for our coming EP. Just don't hold your breath.

Stay epic!

Book recommendation: A Life With Footnotes

 The first book to recommend this year is the biography of Terry Pratchett. Many of you might know about me considering him to be my favourite author. Or rather have suffered through me rambling about random quotes from his books.

Reading the detailed account of his life, from the beginnings up to his tragic end, was enlightening and gave me much context. The author Rob Wilkins, Pterry's assistant of many years, did an excellent job of connecting us to the memory of an extraordinary crafter of worlds. It makes me want to read all Discworld books all over again.

Give it a try if you are curious as well.

I got Stuff: The Cosmere RPG

 After a big Kickstarter, time passes before one gets their share of stuff, but my patience was rewarded. I got my books for the Sanderson Cosmere RPG, and what a haul it is:

Especially the "Stormlight"-style dice are a show and the print production value is very high. I hope I will find an opportunity to try it out not too far in the future.

To have a few words on the setting: The first wave of books brings core rules and setting details for Roshar, the world from the Stormlight books, where harsh weather forces humans to get creative and enduring to survive and prosper. Later waves will add other world and will be compatible rules-wise.

Stay epic!

I published some things: Autumn 2025

 This autumn brings officially published literature by me, but they are "just" work-related:

One paper primarily written by me explores the metabolic changes around visible brain tumours. I hope that more research could lead to an application in predicting the development of infiltrating brain tumours. As these are very deadly, any new insights could help to identify better treatments on the long run.

Another paper published by one of my students explores neurochemical changes in epilepsy, where we to be honest do not know much at all because this field has not been explored that much in living humans. But maybe my team can change that, givene nough time.

If you are not in neurosciences, these might not be the most exciting reads, but they do show what I am working on.

20 years of Disorder: 5.12.2025

 Yes, my band Gradient of Disorder is still around, more than 20 years to be precise. Because our anniversary was during my UK stay, the commemorative show had to wait, but soon it will be time:

The opening act will be a very special suprise even to the ones of you used to our usual madness. ;-)

Stay epic!

The Goldenes Brett 2025 is coming!

 Autumn is coming, and that means it is time to make fun of ignorance. The "Goldenes Brett vorm Kopf" is a yearly satirical award for anti-science and esoteric bullshit and will happen again on the 25.10.2025 at the Stadtsaal Wien.

Get tickets for you and your friends/family to have a great time! If you cannot attend, there will  also be a live stream.

What do I have to do with that? As the treasurer of the society for critical thinking, which hosts the event, I am the one responsible for paying bills in time. 

Therefore, totally biased in the name of financial stability, please come and support our (non-profit) event. There will be show acts, bullshit bingo, and the odd entertaining disruption.

Stay epic!

Epic Adventures: UK is now complete!

 My stay abroad has come to an end, and with that, I have completed my podcast "Epic Adventures UK". After listener feedback, it is not only available on Spotify, but has an RSS feed and is available on Youtube as well.

What have I learned from my podcast? That speaking for 20-30 minutes is harder work than it looks like, especially if you cut out silence and random sounds. That software tools might lose your data, even if they are apparently backuped. That proper preparation is essential.

This project is complete anyways, and I do not intend to continue podcasting as I do not have any brilliant ideas and cannot commit enough time to get "professional" anyways. But overall, it was an interesting experience.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Royal Armouries Leeds

This time, I want to talk about a museum! During my UK travels, I could enjoy a special one twice: The Royal Armouries in Leeds. As an armoury, its collection are weapons and armour from all over the world, mainly from the medieval period onwards.

It does a great job to not only show heaps of metal, but to explain and contextualise their pieces, including opportunities to touch. Next to a focus on British military guns and jousting, it does have stuff from all around the world, including this:

That is the last complete set of elephant armour (from the Moghul empire) in the world. One example for why the British Empire's "acquisitions" make for a lot of concentrated sightseeing.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Order of the Stick

Remember when webcomics were a new thing? When upcoming artists filled creative niches in a bubbling cauldron of stories and gags? Well, that was 20-25 years ago. But some of these projects are still around, not new things anymore, but creations with a history.

The top spot of all of these in my heart belongs to the Order of the Stick. Started in 2003 and still going on in its last great story acrt over 1300 strips later, it is a story-driven, humourous comic about D&D 3.5. Which is the D&D I played most, but does date it a bit.

Starting as a lighthearted parody, it has since turned into a story about the fate of its world. Its compelling story, featuring a cast of awesome and deep characters including one of the best paladin depictions ever, has kept me enthralled for over two decades.

As the main comics are all available online, with only a few prequels and side stories gated behind print or Kickstarter projects, you are only one click away from joining the Order of the Stick's quest.

Stay epic,
Gilbert

Best of the Best: Stellaris

 Another one of my most favourite gaming time sinks is Stellaris, by Paradox Interactive. Released in 2016 and expanded/iterated upon since 9 years, it is THE space 4X game and the first one I liked better than Master of Orion 2 (released 1996).

Explore the galaxy, meet new species and hug and/or kill them, build an empire.

It is a complex game and not without long term issues centered about performance and AI (both issues being genre staples as well). Yet it shines as the ultimate sandbox for emergent SciFi strategy, having slowly incorporated most tropes of the field. Emulate the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, the Federation from Star Trek, or the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K? Sure, why not multiplayer all of them in the same game? How about a ring world to go with that? No matter if you want to turn the galaxy in a garden of wonders or utterly wreck it, there are dozens of playstyles available. With galactic archeology, anomalies, and space fauna, the void is everything but empty.

Release your inner empire if you dare.

Best of the Best: Vampire Survivors

 Vampire Survivors is another case of "well, of course it is good, look at all the hype around it". Sure, it is not unknown, but I am writing about my personal GOATs here.

In short, Vampire Survivors has you move around a character besieged by waves of enemies. The character automatically attacks with the weapons they have equipped. Player agency is about picking weapons and where to go, trying to survive till the stage's timer end. This is framed in a Castlevania-ish style and story rudiment. Collected gold allows general upgrades and character unlocks.

But the "true" game starts when you stop surviving and start hunting. As soon as you have figured out how to beat the enemy growth curve, it turns into a game of unlocking content and exploring secrets.

As a big bonus, the game completed the circle and features an official and ginormous Castlevania DLC, allowing us to scratch this itch once again.

Who doesn't enjoy fragging 100k opponents as Alucard?

In its totality, Vampire Survivors is completionist dopamine-farming done perfectly, sold cheaply and without microtransactions. I have put more hours into it than in most AAA games I played, as it is perfect to let the brain cool off after a long day of sciencing.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Vorkosigan Saga

 To continue from fantasy to SciFi recommendations: My greatest "discovery" of the last years was the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. It is a series that is mostly military SciFi and mostly following the exploits of Miles Vorkosigan, who is the scion of a noble house, crippled by poison before birth, and also an utter rascal.

What makes the somewhat standard storylines work is Bujold's streamlined writing and a genuinely funny main character who bluffs his way from challenge to challenge. I am not through with the whole series yet, but do take a bite every 1-2 months with another book that I devour in 1-2 evenings.

Stay Epic!

Best of the Best: Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere

 Of the reading I did in recent years, the nerdy centre has been Brandon Sanderson's oevre. His fantasy-that-is-close-to-SciFi style and worldbuilding is not for everybody, but it has me in its grip.

While he came to wider attention with his Mistborn series and by finishing Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's untimely death, I consider his Stormlight Archive series to be my favourite. It combines an alien world with great character development, and it is currently at the halfway point of five out of ten books. His original fantasy stories are all connected in a greater "Cosmere", which enriches reading depth. I have recently finishes reading the last story part of the Cosmere, and even with Sanderson's driven writing speed (we are talking about a guy who wrote four extra books during the pandemic) it leaves me wanting for more.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: The Dominions series

There is a series of fantasy strategy games that unites Spartan graphics, ultra-detailed mechanics and absolutely everything of myths, legends and fantasy lore into a single game: Dominions.

Currently at Dominions 6, it is the game for people who want to dig into fantasy warfare campaigns with micro- and macro-management and many opportunities for role playing.

Multiplayer mode and extensive mods (including randomized and a full-blown Forgotten Realms mod) on top of incredible customisation allow for incredible replayability. Sure, it is not an easy game to get into. But it tries to give lots of information on what is going on. Mostly.

If you enjoy old-school gaming and fantasy, give it a try.

Best of the Best: Slay the Spire

 It occured to me that I could make up for my lack of content over the last decade with a series of posts about the "best" media that I encountered over that time. Favourite book series, long-time gaming favourites, whatever comes to my mind.

Let's start with Slay the Spire. In short, it is an unforgiving roguelite card builder game.

Collect cards, potions, and relics on your mission to slay the heart of the Spire. Do not expect to win often. One round going up to three hours for successful and complex builds, I can fit that time into even busy weeks without worries about RPG or strategy campaigns. I can even play it on the Switch. Oh, and part two is in development right now.

It is not a "new" game, but one that I come back to some time since years. 

Well, let's start the necromantic ritual: This year, the blog was admittedly not the main focus, with only a few posts. BUT this was mainly due to new and exciting projects: I started recording gaming videos ("Let's Plays" for YouTube), while rapidly professionalising. At some point, I set up a proper channel called Professor Plays! Check it out, I even have an SFX intro. Highlight was my ability to play and upload the Wasteland 3 Alpha at launch due to holidays.

More creative energy went into the overdue continuation of my musical side project Commander Deep, with the release of its second Album Rematerialisation In Finity. The production volume is approximately 100x higher than the last one, featuring multiple instruments, better SFX and proper artworks.
Gradient of Disorder is still around, with our first album rapidly steadfastly approaching completion. Only vocals and a few instrumental parts for one song need to be recorded, with eight songs being already mixed. Expect it 2020, for real.

On the scientific front, I wrote an article about magnetic fields for "Der Skeptiker" that can be ordered here. Next year will probably see a few public education talks about 5G and why you don't need to hide under a stone because of it.

During traveling for conferences and meetings in north america, I made a nice travel video.

But most importantly, I got a new position (to be exactly half of one) for research using an intraoperative MRI that will be online in the near future. This cutting edge imager will offer exciting possibilities.

I summarise: 2019 was a productive and successful year!

Happy solstice, have a christmas and stay epic!
GG