Sven Buschbeck
Web Technology, Crypto, Writing, Project Management
Web native
Hi! I'm Sven, I work as web technology consultant, full-stack dev, (technical) writer, and crypto evangelist. I love applied technologies and believe in the power Open Source.
I still remember that massive book my brother gave for my twelve’s birthday. Back when going online involved a modem and Netscape Communicator. Thanks to the book and some funny ideas in my head as motivation, I learned JavaScript, HTML and CSS to create my first interactive websites in the mid 90s. That was the initial spark that has lead to studying computer science with a mix of graphic design and usability engineering. While hacking away on uni assignments and little open source side projects, I started working on designing and building a CMS for a small web agency to pay my bills. Being curious about living and working abroad, I then took a junior researcher position at the University of Trento in Italy in 2007. After two years, I changed to work as research engineer at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Germany. I learned a lot during that time but also realized that I’m not a 9-5er office person. Thus, in 2013, I started working as a freelance web technology consultant & developer and gathered experience in marketing, technical writing, and communications. And just before the bull market was in full swing, I started my deep dive into crypto and at its peak in 2017, I joined the Nimiq Project as full time contractor.
I can say that throughout my career, I’ve experienced a wide range of projects, teams, frameworks, and management approaches. I worked with privately held companies, universities, research centers, start-ups, as well as NGOs/NPOs. I learned that it’s key to work for what you believe in and that the working culture is at least as important as the software stack. While moving through projects, I also moved through countries and continents and became an avid traveler with a love for refreshing my synapses by immersing into new cultures and ideas. So, during the years I lived in Germany, Italy, Greece, Australia, Taiwan, and Costa Rica and understood what a beautiful and colorful place our little planet is. It’s at the core of my personality to seek for harmony within myself, with friends, colleagues, and nature as a whole.
Skills
Crypto
I entered the crypto space in 2017 and joined the Nimiq project the same year. I contributed to front-end work (e.g. fastspot.io, staking calculator) and content creation until mid-2022. I'm excited about the unlocking the potential of crypto for the society at large, advancing L1 and L2 technologies, as well as improving usability and privacy, and pushing for wider adoption.
Web
I've used so many frameworks, languages, and meta-languages over the years that I feel at home with them all. What matters is the usability of the user interface and the clarity and extensibility of the code infrastructure. Lately I've been using Vue.js with Typescript, HTML/Pug, Sass/Stylus, and Ionic mostly.
Content
I have a passion for explaining technical topics to curious non-technical people. Over the years, this has driven me to develop my communication and writing skills. I enjoy writing blog posts, leading workshops, and understanding and explaining technology in one-on-one sessions.
Usability
What's the point of technology if it doesn't serve the user? This question has been my guiding principle and way of thinking since university. It is the driving force behind finding the optimal trade-off between features, security, performance on the one hand and usability on the other.
Latest stories
Jest and WebCrypto
Posted 2/20/2023
Surprising errors testing some crypto.subtle based functions with Jest: TextEncoder, TextEncoder, and subtle not defined?
Typescript enums 'Debug Failure.'
Posted 1/26/2023
Error messages are great, they help us find the cause of the problem. This one isn't. Not at all. If you're seening this one, check if you have an enum in your d.ts file...
Pure* CSS circular progress bar
Posted 12/6/2022
Using only variables, clipping, and transformations. *and a little helper class. ;)
Position:fixed not working?
Posted 11/11/2022
There are several CSS properties that break fixed positioning: transform, perspective, filter, and background-filter.
InnerText vs. textContent!
Posted 8/13/2019
They are not the same and why it's important to know the difference. Spoiler alert: textContent FTW!
Laptop with insomnia
Posted 8/2/2019
What to do when your laptop can't sleep? Is it teething perhaps? Bluetooth maybe?
Rendering problem with Kdenlive
Posted 7/10/2017
When Kdenlive fails to render very long video projects...
Excellent stock footage.
Posted 6/15/2015
There is a lot of great stuff out there. And some gems offer great photos and videos and are very flexible if and where you put the attribution so that it doesn't harm you layouts.
Recovering deleted photos
Posted 4/16/2015
Shit happens... but for Linux users, there is a power tool straight from the US Air Force called 'foremost' to help you recover (aka undelete) your photos easily!
Linux server forwarding mails
Posted 9/25/2014
How to setup up your Linux server to forward incoming emails to you.