Welcome to watzmann.net

Initially, I wanted to call this site Mundus vult decipi which is Latin and means "The world wants to be deceived". But then I discovered www.microsoft.com and scaled my ambitions down considerably.

The list of frequently asked questions for the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.german is hosted on this site. Don't let anybody tell you anything else, this is the original, most up to date version.

It contains information and links to all aspects of German culture and Germany, in general. From Christmas traditions over Skat rules to addresses of the German government, everything is covered.

Who are you ?

I work for Red Hat, more specifically in Red Hat's Content and Collaboration Management group, building web applications, mainly for content management. For the last year or so I have been working on the development and deployment of our content management system for a large client. Before Red Hat, I worked at the now defunct Arsdigita, a startup company built on the dreams of talented geeks and brought down by the nightmares of bad management.

Once upon a time, I earned a PhD from Purdue University, where Jörg Peters was my advisor. My area of specialization is Computer Aided Geometric Design. CAGD is, roughly, what you need when you want to use smooth curves or surfaces on a computer. It uses some classical geometry, a lot of numerical mathematics and a pinch of computer science. How big a pinch depends on whether you actually want something that works or only something that you know could be made to work.

Details can be found in my resume.

Who is Watzmann ?

The Watzmann is a mountain in Bavaria, near Berchtesgarden. Because of its picturesque setting next to the Königssee it is a great attraction for many tourists.

Since mountains don't just come about and modern theories of tectonic plates etc. don't make good stories, there is an old legend explaining how the Watzmann was created: once upon a time a king named Watzmann ruled the Berchtesgardener Land. He was cruel and ruthless, torturing animals and harrassing people. His family was carved of the same wood, enjoying wild hunts with dogs tearing the game to pieces. One day when king, queen and princes went about there usual hunting and torturing business, they went too far. Encountering the small and squalid hut of a poor farmer, they released their dogs on the innocent farmer's family. And the dogs were cruelly ripping grandmother, mother, father and daughter to pieces, blood splattering everywhere. As she is dying, the grandmother raises her shattered hand and curses king, queen and their seven children that God's punishment may reach them and turn them into rock. The earth is shaking, winds are screeching and fire raises from the ground. King, queen and their seven children are turned into giant boulders. (If you want to know the whole story in all its gory detail, go to this page which has it in German)

More importantly, it's the title of a cool record by Wolfgang Ambros.