I would encourage anyone who hasn’t to try and see a glassblowing demonstration. It’s about as different from programming as any creative process could be - real time, intuitive, working with an unstable material - but something in it really spoke to me.

The Chrysler museum in Norfolk VA has amazing free demonstrations almost every day which are amazing if anyone happens to find themselves in Southern Virginia.

Two remarks:

"extra-ordinary professor" is roughly the same as a "associate professor" – an ordinary professor is a tenured one (roughly). So no wonder Prof. Liebig wasn't happy about it.

They should have mentioned the Superfest glass (also referred to as CV-Glas or Ceverit) made in East Germany. It's still mindblowing it's not made anymore. I hope someone is eventually picking this up again.