About

I can be reached via mail at:

Department of Informatics
Faculty of Science and Medicine
Boulevard de Pérolles 90 / B425
CH-1700 Fribourg
Switzerland

My preferred e-mail address for private communication is bastian@rieck.me. See below for more ways to contact me.

A current academic curriculum vitæ is available.

Academical

I have a master’s degree1 in mathematics (with a minor in computer science) and a Ph.D. in computer science. My thesis deals with analysing complex data sets using methods from topological data analysis. While initially interested in visualization and perception, I have since expanded my domain of interest and started working more in machine learning. See my research page for more information about this.

Personal

Here are some facets of my online life:

  • I maintain a blog that contains some documentation about things I have learned or my opinions about software development, academia, and other topics.

  • I operate a YouTube channel for making my academic talks accessible to larger audiences.

  • I have a Twitter account although I don’t even know how this Twitter thing is supposed to work.

  • I have a GitHub account that contains code related to publications but also some personal projects.

  • You won’t find me on Facebook, because I dislike it. I am not affiliated with any other people calling themselves Bastian Rieck on that site.

Whimsical

Here are some whimsical facts about me:

  • I maintain a Geek Code, i.e. a pithy description of who I am in terms of the whole geek culture thing:

    -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GM/CS d-(++) s-: a>? C++>++++ UL++ P++ L++ E--- W++ N o? K
w O? M+ V-- PS+@ PE+ Y+>++ PGP>+++ t+@ 5? X R* !tv
b++>++++ DI+ D+ G++>++++ e++++>* h* r+++ y?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

  • I am a big proponent of Web π, also known as Web 3.14159…, the natural successor of Web 2.0.

  • If I was an operating system, I would be Slackware Linux, apparently:

    You are Slackware Linux. You are the brightest among your peers, but are often mistaken as insane. Your elegant solutions to problems often take a little longer, but require much less effort to complete.
    Which OS are You?

    This is notable because I have been using Arch Linux for quite some time now.

  • I am an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church and was honoured to officiate two weddings in the past.

  • I use Neovim for all my editing tasks. It’s a great editor, you should try it!

  • As the saying goes: ‘Having no destination, I am never lost.’

Contact details

If you want to contact me for academic matters, in particular if you are a prospective student, use my academic e-mail address bastian.grossenbacher@unifr.ch (do not be deterred by the different last name).

If you want to contact me for anything else, send an e-mail to bastian@rieck.me. For encrypted communication, please use my public key and GnuPG. I also use numerous messengers on my smartphone, such as Signal, Telegram, Threema, and, if need be, WhatsApp. You can find one of my mobile numbers in my curriculum vitæ. Note that while I enjoy discussing interesting things with others over these media, be considerate and do not use ‘cross-talk’ to try to get a faster response. I once had a stranger send me an e-mail and when I did not respond fast enough for their liking, they started contacting me via other messengers. That is not a nice way to have a conversation.

For legal and privacy reasons, there is no way to comment on my content on this site. I do enjoy getting feedback from my readers via e-mail or some other medium, though. In my experience, such personal exchanges lead to profound and more civil discussions.

  1. Technically, my degree is called a Diplom in German, but calling it a diploma in English is just adding to the confusion. ↩︎