About

Based in Essen, Germany, I am 36 year old developer passionate about web technology, web admin server tasks, Linux/GNU, Open Source projects and just computers in general. I got into computers when using the CLI was just the way to go to get to my favourite games like Winter Olympics or Monkey Island 2.

Slowly Windows took over then, and after having found out in Windows 95 or 98 that you could also copy files just by drag and drop I think I forgot about the Command line for a little while. After all it was now possible to engage in endless seeming sessions of Pharaoh or Civilization II just by clicking on the game icons now.

That all changed and the trend got reverted by me discovering Ubuntu at the time of 4.10 Warty Warthog.

Followed by many years of me now using all kinds of Linux distributions exclusively, I have now become almost OS blind in the sense that I do not believe in the superiority of one over the other. I think there are many solutions for many people and we are living in a time anyway where many people are growing up and learning about tech “mobile only”.

Marc Scott posted one of my favourite blog posts of all time back in 2013: Kids can’t use computers… and this is why it should worry you

If you haven’t read this, you should definitely do it now or first hear me out on this.

I belive that with technology advancing more and more and taking over many aspects of our lives completely, there is this tendancy now of ever growing technological alienation. At least from technology like having a computer and trying to understand what is actually going on.

For example error codes or status messages of software when interacting with computers used to be normal also for the general end user. Now these kinds of things have become scary or at least that’s what they tell us why they’re hiding it from us.

That’s not what I belive in. I believe deeply in learning about technology without obfuscating much of what is actually going on. That is of course where Linux has played a very important role for me personally. But for example learning about programming and how software is written and developed plays another vital role in digital maturity.

I believe there is this trend in society now where using an iPad or a mobile device, navigating social media sites and learning about privacy considerations when uploading content or interacting with other users online is seen as what equips children with all they need for the digital age.

While those are certainly things to teach and learn, I do not believe they are sufficient for what I call “digital maturity”. What I mean by that is that being self-aware in the digital age is also being aware of the systems that surround you because they are determining the way you can navigate the digital world.

Without understanding the technology that surrounds us, we are only mindless balls rolling around on a field layed out by that technology. Bouncing around without ever really knowing much of what is going on and where we are going to end up.

I understand also that with growing specialisation and technology always getting more and more complex, it is natural to have layers of alienation above the core. Those layers of alienation can also be understood as layers of comprehension. Because with complex technology, we rely on those, too, to understand.

It is just important to maybe be aware of this and always be curious to learn what surrounds you, to try and understand as much of those layers of complexity as you can.

This is what I belive in, what has shaped my life and in this sense and in trying to spread this love for technology, I consider myself a technology evangelist.

Contact

If you want to contact me, you can of course just

This is a self hosted personal website and while I most probably did click on the links you might find on this site before, I cannot be held accountable for content that is subject to change and located outside of the etbim.de domain.

{  
"Vorname": "Tobias",  
"Nachname": "Schwarm",
"Adresse": "Pramenweg",
"Hausnummer": 8,
"Ort": "Essen",
"Postleitzahl": 45307,
"Haftung für andere Seiten außer meiner": false
}